tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60413868917225084892024-03-08T01:44:17.442-08:00My SCRUM DiaryRiju Kansalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338663228987794383noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6041386891722508489.post-55857207347425840942013-01-02T16:41:00.001-08:002013-01-02T16:41:42.757-08:00Louie Schwartzberg: Nature. Beauty. Gratitude.Check out this amazing TEDTalk:<br>
<br>
Louie Schwartzberg: Nature. Beauty. Gratitude.<br>
<a href="http://on.ted.com/eKIo">http://on.ted.com/eKIo</a><br>
<br>
Sent from the official TED app for Android:<br>
Google Play: <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ted.android">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ted.android</a><br>
Amazon Appstore: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/mas/dl/android?p=com.ted.android">http://www.amazon.com/gp/mas/dl/android?p=com.ted.android</a><p>Sent from my Xperia™Riju Kansalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338663228987794383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6041386891722508489.post-30080914089688330752012-10-05T00:46:00.002-07:002012-10-05T00:46:16.057-07:00Feedback Loops in SCRUM<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
What is a "feedback loop"? Put simply, a process has a feedback loop when the results of running the process are allowed to influence how the process itself works in the future.<br />
<br />
Following are a list of feedback loops:<br />
<ul>
<li>Pair programming</li>
<li>Unit tests</li>
<li>Continuous integration</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Daily Scrums</li>
<li>Sprints</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Code reviews</li>
<li>Static code analysis</li>
<li>Automated integration tests</li>
<li>Automated acceptance tests</li>
<li>Having the customer and business experts work closely with you throughout the process</li>
<li>Increasing the frequency of releases tenfold (at least to test environments)</li>
</ul>
The article I found below very nicely explains the importance of feedback loops in Agile projects:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.infoq.com/news/2011/03/agile-feedback-loops">http://www.infoq.com/news/2011/03/agile-feedback-loops</a><br />
</div>
Riju Kansalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338663228987794383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6041386891722508489.post-85878878690163053152012-10-04T23:27:00.000-07:002012-10-04T23:27:27.704-07:00Metrics in Agile development<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Interesting Read:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://agileworld.blogspot.sg/2009/02/metrics-in-agile-development.html">http://agileworld.blogspot.sg/2009/02/metrics-in-agile-development.html</a><br />
<br />
Extract:<br />
<ul>
<li>Total number of new defects found in each iteration
<li>New features added to backlog in each iteration
<li>New tasks discovered in each iteration
<li>Number of resolved defects in iteration, etc</li>
</li>
</li>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
Riju Kansalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338663228987794383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6041386891722508489.post-15566541206496377332012-07-09T06:46:00.001-07:002012-07-09T06:46:34.123-07:00Automate if it adds value<div></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">"<b>Automate if it adds value</b>" is the driving force behind the creation if this short and simple shell script.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">Though this script seems trivial but if we consider the task it is achieving, it is becomes important and its creation joyful. In our team we recently received hardware boxes to setup QA environment for testing. Usually the development environment and production releases something called release tool which is pretty much standard way of deployments. But for QA environment, since it is setup phase we have some constraints to setup the release tool. But we had decided in our retrospective that for every release from now on, we will complete QA testing using QA environment. Thus leading to QA environment setup gradually and leading to the requirement of QA deployments and this script. We plan for this with in our sprints. The DEV and QA, working on the story both take the ownership of setting up this QA environment bit for their release.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">Now with this context, we had to make a temporary arrangement for deploying stuff to QA box. And I had already listed down a few sequential unix commands to achieve this. Eventually it became cumbersome, error prone and boring to repeat the same commands many times. So I thought of <b>quickly</b> writing a <b>simple</b> shell script to get this task done and make it <b>interesting</b>.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">Three keywords:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-indent: 0px; margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><span>1.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman'; "> </span></span>Simple<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-indent: 0px; margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><span>2.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman'; "> </span></span>Quick<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-indent: 0px; margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><span>3.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman'; "> </span></span>Interesting<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">I had seen many shell scripts in the past and executed them, opened them in VI and edited them but had never written them from scratch. So learning something new and of course achieving some automation makes it interesting. Initially when I started with the task, the simple requirements were; accept the application name, version and user details from command line and deploy to a standard path. As I progressed I added parameterization, error handling and positive and negative logging.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">[Standard start of a shell script, shell and usage]<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>#!/bin/bash<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>if [ $# -lt 3 ];then<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>echo "Usage: ./qadeploy /appMainFolderName /appVersion userLogin";<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>exit<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>fi</i><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">[Printing some messages indicating the start and making clear the input values]<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>echo "Starting QA deployment for $1$2"<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>echo "App to be deployed is $1"<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>echo "App version to be deployed = $2"<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>echo "User = $3"</i><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">[Creating a temp directory because it is required to change the owner of files before final deployment]<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>echo "Creating temp directory /home/$3$1$2"<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>`mkdir -p /home/$3$1$2`</i><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">[Using the Secure Copy command for copying from remote location, it prompts for password]<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>echo "Starting to copy to temp location..."<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>`scp -r $3@dsos37a-0104.eu.hedani.net:/app/credit$1$2 /home/$3$1`<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i> echo "Error executing: scp"<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i> exit<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>fi</i><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">[Change the permissions of the copied contents so that the next copy or move command will change the owner of the files]<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>echo "Changing permission to 777"<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>`chmod -R 777 /home/$3$1`<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i> echo "Error executing: chmod"<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i> exit<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>fi</i><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">[Clear the already existing application contents]<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>echo "Removing previous entry for the app at location: /app/credit$1$2"<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>`rm -rf /app/credit$1$2`<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i> echo "Error executing: rm -rf /app/credit$1$2"<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i> exit<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>fi</i><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">[Make the final move towards the deployment and clearing the temporary contents]<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>echo "Moving the app from temp (/home/$3$1$2) to real location: /app/credit$1"<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>`mv /home/$3$1$2 /app/credit$1`<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i> echo "Error executing: mv /home/$3$1$2 /app/credit$1"<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i> exit<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>fi</i><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">[Deployment complete]<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><i>echo "Deployment complete for $1!"</i></p>Riju Kansalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338663228987794383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6041386891722508489.post-8516782390047038672012-06-04T23:49:00.000-07:002012-06-09T01:02:27.524-07:00Amazing Team Composition!<div id="dE_H" style=";width:100%; height:100%; ;"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="WordSection1"><div class="MsoNormal">There are rare people in this world who get ideas.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">It is rarer to find people in this world who get ideas and also are able to implement them.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">It is still rarer to find people in this world who get ideas, able to implement them and remain organized to be efficient.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">It is most rare to find people in this world who get ideas, able to implement them, remain organized to be efficient and continue to be like that for long.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br><br></div><div class="MsoNormal">So we need to be part of a team which has:<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;"><ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); "><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">An entrepreneur – who has idea(s)</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); "><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>An implementer – with excellent implementation skills</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); "><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>An administrator – who is organized and add efficiency</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); "><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>An integrator – who keeps the team together</span></li></ul></div><div class="MsoNormal">Most important thing: Mutual Respect amongst all the above. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br></div><div class="MsoNormal">How? Read the book below:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Change-Ichak-Adizes-Ph-D/dp/0937120049">http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Change-Ichak-Adizes-Ph-D/dp/0937120049</a></div></div></div><p/><p/><a href="http://www.bewriteapp.com"><img src="http://bewriteapp.com/iblogwithbewrite.gif" alt="I blog with BE Write"/></a></div>Riju Kansalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338663228987794383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6041386891722508489.post-42083340949768709792012-05-30T16:23:00.001-07:002012-05-30T16:23:44.081-07:00Introducing Generic Fixture for FitNesse<a href="http://anubhava.wordpress.com/2008/02/09/introducing-generic-fixture-for-fitnesse/">http://anubhava.wordpress.com/2008/02/09/introducing-generic-fixture-for-fitnesse/</a>Riju Kansalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338663228987794383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6041386891722508489.post-52166781727710171452012-02-06T20:33:00.001-08:002012-02-06T20:33:43.049-08:00QA role in scrum team<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>The QA/Tester must definitely be part of the SCRUM Team. Given below are the reasons as to why I believe so:-<br/><br/>-QA in SCRUM is not an external entity. In traditional model, QA is someone who doesn't knows anything about the product, until he receives it for testing. And once he receives it for testing he is expected to read the (mostly incomplete) SRS/Requirements Document and then test the product against the same. In SCRUM, QA must breathe the stuff being developed along with the team. He is very much involved right from the requirement gathering, elicitation, and documentation. The programmers can walk up to him and clarify any of the doubts they might have, related to the current story/feature they are working on.<br/><br/>-QA helps developers in coming up with the list of Unit Test cases, which the developer can then automate. This relieves the QA from the burden of testing the routine or mundane test cases and instead concentrate on other forms of testing (Usability, Acceptance, Exploratory etc.), thereby ensuring the quality of the product.<br/><br/>-QA plays an active role in Product Backlog expansion and elaboration and is part of most of the meeting between ScrumMaster, and Product Owner. <br/>SCRUM expects you to deliver potentially shippable code at the end of every sprint and this is primarily what is meant when the Team proclaims a story to be done. In other words, when the team proclaims the story to be done, then it means that story or feature is potentially shippable. IMHO, you can't achieve potentially shippable status unless and until its artifacts have been tested. I strongly believe that an external QA will never be able to keep pace with the speed of the SCRUM team. On the contrary, an external QA will negatively impact the velocity of the SCRUM team.<br/><br/>-QA participates in Daily SCRUM Meeting, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective.
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</div>Riju Kansalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338663228987794383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6041386891722508489.post-18857327889240802042012-02-02T14:39:00.001-08:002012-02-02T14:39:57.203-08:00QA role in Agile projects<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>Following are the principles that are important for an Agile Tester:-<br/>-Provide Continuous Feedback.<br/>-Deliver value to the customer.<br/>-Enable face-to-face communication.<br/>-Have courage.<br/>-Keep it simple.<br/>-Practice continuous improvement.<br/>-Respond to change.<br/>-Self-Organize.<br/>-Focus on people.<br/>-Enjoy.
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</div>Riju Kansalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338663228987794383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6041386891722508489.post-20121945336060861722012-01-15T05:40:00.001-08:002012-01-15T05:40:04.388-08:00Thoughts on Employee Bonuses<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>I would like to solicit thoughts on bonuses (and thank everyone for so many great thoughts on tool usage).<br/><br/> <br/><br/>We are a small (and growing) team with a year of ad-hoc development behind us.<br/><br/>Our bonus budget has previously been distributed as:<br/><br/> <br/><br/>- 50% of budget for “Christmas bonus” (it’s a Vietnamese dev team so this is actually a Tet bonus, but is equivalent to the more commonly known “Christmas” bonus)<br/><br/>- 2 others @ 25% of the bonus budget.<br/><br/> <br/><br/>A bonus at Tet is a very cultural norm, so I don’t want to change that, but the other 50% is up for discussion.<br/><br/> <br/><br/>My initial though is to tie a first 25% bonus (2-5 months from now) to some metrics of agile acceptance:<br/><br/>1) A stable and predictable velocity<br/><br/>2) Successfully completing the work committed to in the sprints (perhaps take the best result of the average of all sprints or the last 4 sprints when it’s time to issue the bonus)<br/><br/>3) The incorporation of automated testing (this is virtually nill now and a primary priority in moving to Agile)<br/><br/> <br/><br/>Thoughts on that? And comes after that?<br/><br/> <br/><br/>?) Bonuses based on some metrics of each iteration? Dispersed per iteration? Twice a year?<br/><br/>?) Bonuses based on releases (on the order of 2-5 months between releases)<br/><br/>?) Other ideas?<br/>///////////////////////////////////////<br/> I guess there should be nothing wrong with trying to use financial incentive to motivate people or to get developers to deliver more throughput. But what may be not natural in this approach is, rather than motivating Agile team members by appealing to their pride and sincerely giving them all the empowerment and support they need, we are talking here about using money as a main motivating factor for productivity. As far as I remember, this is not what is at the foundation of the Agile manifesto. Far from it.<br/><br/>Going beyond the morality question, I guess the question next will be to know how much of this productivity would be to produce software of quality rather than eventually trying to game the system to produce the best metrics possible to make money. <br/><br/>Last but not least, should we really need to resort to money as an incentive, I guess there should be no need to get teams to use Agile since anything else could do, as soon as people are interested in working hard to make money.<br/><br/>Just some thought for food.<br/><br/>///////////////////////////////////////<br/><br/>Metrics never really measure what we want them to. Rewards based on metrics risk encouraging people to game the metrics instead of doing what we really want them to do, which is work together to make the project successful.<br/><br/><br/>For agile teams, it is a good start to give everybody on the team the same bonus in order to encourage team work instead of individual "heroism".<br/><br/>Here is an article that makes the point well: <br/><br/>http://www.leanessays.com/2003/01/measure-up.html<br/><br/>///////////////////////////////////////<br/>Money is definitely one of the key motivators to most of us... and we cannot discount this factor.<br/><br/>Probably the best way to structure bonuses for Agile teams is someway that can promote collective ownership in teams and consequent team collaboration for collectively ensuring "productivity" as you call it.<br/><br/>My suggestion (I have tried it with the teams I coach and it works, and works well): A variable pay of say 25% that will be calculated based on customer feedback after each iteration. (customer could be product owner for Scrum teams). The customer rates the value delivered by the team in each iteration on a 10 point scale. Each point is 10 percentage point. Say if the team gets a feedback score of 8 for an iteration, all members get 80% of the variable pay for that period. If they get a score of 5, they get 50% of the variable pay.<br/><br/>This kind of a team bonus, will motivate the team to innovatively and creatively find ways to get the best feedback from the customer, and this would be a good way of ensuring continuous improvement of the team in their ability to deliver their best value to their customers<br/><br/>Ideas and feedback from members here to improve this are welcome<br/><br/>///////////////////////////////////////<br/><br/>Money is definitely one of the key motivators to most of us... and we cannot discount this factor.<br/><br/>It is only to a certain extent. If you are making enough money on which to live relatively comfortably, then putting up more money as an incentive can actually have detrimental effects on individuals and quite detrimental effects on teams.<br/><br/>This classic TED video of Dan Pink explains is much better than I can: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html<br/><br/>///////////////////////////////////////<br/>That was an excellent article, and I’m onboard with the team based metrics, now to define those.<br/><br/> <br/><br/>· Customer satisfaction was suggested in another email, I might further interpret that as ensuring we have working software at the end of each release as a little more actionable.<br/><br/>· I can also set some goals based on our agreed upon code-base improvements such as constantly improving coding/code structure standards (and following those); implementing automated testing, etc.<br/><br/>· I would also think to include some improvement goals that the team identifies in retrospectives (generally assuming that these will be meet).<br/><br/><br/>///////////////////////////////////////<br/>Why is it millionaires haggle for more money even when they are being paid well and are living quite comfortably? In some societies, "money" is the only way out. So while money may not be a good long term strategy or possible a bad decision, what's the best decision that can be made given societal factors? I would think a bonus shared by the team is a good start
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</div>Riju Kansalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338663228987794383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6041386891722508489.post-63450486999768272052011-12-22T19:56:00.000-08:002013-02-21T19:33:18.623-08:00Responsibilities of the SM<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The responsibilities of the SM are a long list:</div>
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<b>PROCESS</b>: Responsible for the entire Scrum process - Leader and</div>
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motivator about doing Scrum:</div>
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. ensures Artifact quality</div>
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. helps and coaches Roles to do their job: product owner, customer, developers</div>
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. ordering of activities, meetings, time-boxes</div>
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. sets up, conducts and facilitates ALL meetings</div>
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. ensures Engineering practices are followed</div>
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. Ensures the Team has a good social context, a good environment, and it is SWARMING!</div>
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. Enforces ALL rules</div>
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. Promotes ALL values: transparency, honesty, courage</div>
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. Insurance for "doing things right. Intervene only if necessary!</div>
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<b>TEAM</b>: Flips between Coach, a Watchdog, a Mentor and a Project Manager,Rep to Management</div>
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. Recommends or finds initial members of team</div>
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. Responsible for team balance: how many BAs, developers, testers, etc. of what kind?</div>
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. The Scrum Master is responsible for setting the team up for success</div>
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. Removing the barriers between development and the customer so the customer or the user directly drives development</div>
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. Ensuring team actually did what they said they would do: checking testing reports, etc.</div>
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. Balancing the team workload - e.g. pass work to early finishers</div>
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. Shielding the team from outside disturbances</div>
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. Removing Impediments and resolving issues</div>
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. Promoting creativity, collaboration and knowledge sharing</div>
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. Improving the lives of the development team e.g. flexible hours, flexible days, payback for heroics, etc.</div>
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. Improving the productivity of the development team in any way possible: training, tools, system-level things</div>
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. Improving the engineering practices and tools so each increment of functionality is potentially shippable</div>
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. Promote team pride</div>
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. Organizes Celebrations after releases or sometimes after Sprints</div>
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<b>CUSTOMER</b>: Teaches the customer how to maximize ROI and meet their objectives through Scrum</div>
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<b>PO</b>: Responsible for training and keeping ongoing communication with Product Owner (good PB!)</div>
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<b>ADMIN</b>: Maintaining the Sprint Backlog and producing Sprint Burndowns</div>
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. Posting the Sprint Burndown as Visible Status: Wall, Wiki, email, etc.</div>
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. Ensuring Scrum Board gets updated</div>
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<b>MANAGEMENT</b>: representative to team for management</div>
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<b>MULTI-TEAM</b>: Participating in the Scrum of Scrums such that both how their team affects other teams, and how other teams affects his team are understood, if no other team member is available</div>
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. Coordinating participation of their team in either the "big room" Sprint Planning Meeting, or in a staggered Sprint Planning Meeting understanding dependencies, or coordinating with architects when they exist</div>
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. Coordinating participation in the Sprint Review Meeting, both independently and with the rest of the multi-team, the latter is specially important in releases to production where many dependencies exist</div>
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. Coordinating with integration Sprints when they exist</div>
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. Coordinating integration issues with other Teams</div>
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. Working with their team or theme PO and with the CPO (chief product owner), to ensure their teams can choose portions of the Product</div>
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Backlog (usually though themes)</div>
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. Coordinating with their individual teams on dependencies or modified work found at the Scrum of Scrums</div>
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If you can do all of the above while "developing code".. More power to you, but <b>don't compromise the above tasks for speed</b> i.e. getting more code done, because you may compromise the work of everyone in the team instead.<br />
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This article is by Mike Beedle and borrowed from <br />
<a href="http://www.enterprisescrum.com/blog/2011/12/20/responsibilities-of-the-scrummaster.html">http://www.enterprisescrum.com/blog/2011/12/20/responsibilities-of-the-scrummaster.html</a></div>
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Riju Kansalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338663228987794383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6041386891722508489.post-5224071725392466332011-10-15T20:55:00.000-07:002011-10-15T21:09:29.827-07:00Agile Testing<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: '.Helvetica NeueUI'; line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">I had an opportunity last week to present a session on <b><span class="il" style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(84, 133, 189); color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">agile</span> <span class="il" style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(84, 133, 189); color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">testing</span></b> to a group of QA teams. </span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: '.Helvetica NeueUI'; line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">It was a wonderful session, we had a group of people from different QA teams all part of some or other waterfall way of projects. Every one asked lot of questions and were quite inquisitive about how agile project progress.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">I am attaching the presentation which is quite simple but lead to a lot of good discussion.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><a href="https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=0AawPYrN6iK09ZGdjN2c2NTJfMWNrOWgyc2Y1&hl=en_US">Click here to see the presentation.</a></span></div>Riju Kansalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338663228987794383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6041386891722508489.post-59803630348184250942011-09-07T03:27:00.000-07:002011-09-07T04:06:54.874-07:00A ScrumMaster’s ChecklistAn amazing checklist for being a genuine team scrum master:<p><a href="http://blogs.collab.net/agile/2007/08/13/a-scrummasters-checklist/">http://blogs.collab.net/agile/2007/08/13/a-scrummasters-checklist/</a>Riju Kansalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338663228987794383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6041386891722508489.post-84499008743428022882011-09-05T03:53:00.000-07:002011-10-15T20:54:34.832-07:00Doing year end appraisals in SCRUM projects<div><div>This is a wonderful discussion, I'm sure it'll be very helpful in the industry often. Just want to preserve it.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>==================================================</div><div>Begin forwarded message:</div><div>From: Madhur Kathuria <madhur.kathuria@gmail.com</div><div>Date: 5 September 2011 11:18:38 GMT+08:00</div><div><br /></div><div>Though there can be essays written about how an appraisal method is better or worse than the other one, it is important that there is a pragmatic approach taken to identify the facets of the appraisal process which answer concerns from all functions </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>By simply saying that non-engineering functions do not understand Scrum seems to me like running away from the responsibility of taking everybody along on the same journey path to Agile benefits </div><div><br /></div><div>So, I would recommend the coaches to take inputs from the previous data and some of the experiences provided in similar forums like this and decide what works for them by involving everyone in the process mapping exercise.</div><div><br /></div><div>==================================================</div><div>On 3 September 2011 17:17, ashu tosh <goyalashutosh11@hotmail.com wrote:</div><div><br /></div><div>Vikram,</div><div><br /></div><div>Year End appraisals in software industry are considered to be medium for final Ratings which impacts your compensation & promotions.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now as SCRUM is team work and team decides for tasks to be given to whom so I am not sure considering contributions will help people in accepting the ratings</div><div><br /></div><div>On top of it, now a days HR has started introducing Quaterly appraisals which can have negative impact on team members because on one side we are talking about removing obstacles and delivering more and on another side we are discussing the output as part of appraislas.</div><div><br /></div><div>Since there are organizations who adopted SCRUM at a large level like salesforce or yahoo so it can be good if we can try to get some inputs from these organizations.</div><div><br /></div><div>May be we can decide this as the topic for next scrum meet in Delhi region.</div><div><br /></div><div>==================================================</div><div>--- In Scrum-India@yahoogroups.com, Vikrama Dhiman <vickydhiman@... wrote:</div><div> Madhur wrote:</div><div> </div><div> Typically, 60-70% of the rating of a team members should be governed by the teamfulfillingtheir team goals every sprint. </div><div> </div><div> I am not sure about that one. If compliance with team goals is what is being measured, teams will never set a stretch goal and you are also likely discouraging failure and risk. In the best case, this sorts of rewards right estimation, which again is something debatable. If a team set a goal at 100 and achieved 80, and another set a goal at 60 and achieved 65 - who did better [assuming all goals are standardized - which again is highly unlikely.] </div><div> </div><div> The number 1 challenge in an appraisal process is what data to collect and second is how to assess people on it. Data I have recommended is [collected and appraised quarterly]:</div><div> </div><div> See how the team thinks it did in a quarter </div><div> See how PO thinks it did in that quarter </div><div> See how team thinks each team member did it in a quarter - on parameters like learning, performance, contribution</div><div> See how the manager thinks each team member did in a quarter OR The Scrum Master provides information to HR about that [note the SM is not judging the performance, just providing the information]</div><div> See how the individual member thinks he did in a quarterSee the obstacle list at the start of the quarter and end - and find out if there are major obstacles that are stopping team across the board from achieving potentialHave the team present a report on what they have achieved in the quarter to an appraisal panel - comprising of random members from across the organization</div><div><br /></div><div> </div><div> Make sure you have clear numbers and data. You can keep a track of qualitative data too - for instance, if you want to reward going beyond the call of duty or collaboration, managers need to record that data regularly.</div><div> </div><div> Now, with all this data, you can see what appraisal/ increments should be given. Share the criteria and formulas used publicly and debate them before adoption.</div><div> </div><div> Also, here is what you should do as a Priority Number 1</div><div> </div><div> Make sure HR/ Accounts/ Management understands Scrum. Organize a workshop for them and involve them as part of the change.</div><div> </div><div> Most often these functions don't understand Scrum and that's where disconnect happens.</div><div> </div><div> I have never seen a "fair" and "objective" appraisal process interfere with Scrum. What hampers Scrum is different perceptions on "fairness" of appraisal process. Address that and you'll be good.</div><div> </div><div> Happy to answer any further questions!</div><div> </div><div> -Vik</div><div> </div><div> ================================================================</div><div> --- On Fri, 9/2/11, Tarun Sharma <superchamp1232002@... wrote:</div><div> From: Tarun Sharma <superchamp1232002@...</div><div><br /></div><div> Hello,</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div> I completely agree with Madhur and just to add below can also be helpful for appraisal -</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div> 1. Sprint Backlog can be used to know individual velocity over a period of time to understand invidiual contribution to the team.</div><div> 2. Rotating coordinator roles such as Standup coordinator, user story and QA coordinator, show and tell cooridnator, testing coordinatoretc helps to understand</div><div>and review the way individuals take initiatives in the team</div><div><br /></div><div> Thanks,</div><div> Tarun</div><div> </div><div> ================================================================ </div><div> From: Amit Mehra (Bgh) <amit.mehra@...</div><div> Sent: Friday, 2 September 2011, 6:42</div><div> </div><div> I read Madhur's reply after sending my email. Just want to add that I agree with what Madhur has stated. These are the line of thoughts on which teams need to experiment. </div><div><br /></div><div> Regards,</div><div> Amit Mehra</div><div><br /></div><div> ================================================================</div><div> Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2011 9:25 PM</div><div> </div><div> Hi Ashutosh,</div><div> </div><div> Team factor is a major area in appraisals for the agile team.</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> Typically, 60-70% of the rating of a team members should be governed by the teamfulfillingtheir team goals every sprint.</div><div> about 10-20%weight-ageis given to an individual members through the ratings received from other team members. This can be done through a 360 degree feedback survey</div><div> Rest of theweight-ageis given to the team member fulfilling his/her learning and growth targets for the appraisal year.</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> As part of the appraisal, it is essential that the manager is part of the team review and planning meetings (more as a silent chicken) and get the smells and the undercurrents from the teambehavior.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div> As i have been stating in my earlier posts, by no means is the above suggested combination the final word towards a good agile team appraisal. This can more be a guide rail with the final division being decided based on the team environment and management considerations</div><div> </div><div> ---</div><div> With Regards,</div><div> Madhur Kathuria, CSC, CSP, CSM, CSA</div><div> ================================================================ </div><div> </div><div> On 1 September 2011 15:59, Riju Kansal <riju.kansal@... wrote:</div><div><br /></div><div> This is the most difficult part of the year.</div><div> </div><div> My 2 cents: Ideally there shouldnt be any competition within a scrum team. It was a team effort and each team member helped achieve successful done state for each story. So if the team's work got appreciated and was visible clearly to the management they all should get appropriate equal ratings. This may differ in case there were clear attitude issues with a team member.</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> -Riju VK</div><div> CSM</div><div> </div><div> ================================================================</div><div> On 1 Sep 2011, at 13:50, "ashu tosh" <goyalashutosh11@... wrote:</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> Recently I have switched to SCRUM methodology in executing the projects. MY CSM training and this blog is helping me alot.</div><div> </div><div> I wanted to know how appraisals should be done differently in SCRUM based projects because during sprints we never focused on the couting defects leaked by individual team members. At that point of time, focus was to identify improvement areas and deliver better.</div><div> </div><div> </div></div><blockquote type="cite"><div> <!--~-|**|PrettyHtmlEnd|**|-~--> <!--~-|**|PrettyHtmlStart|**|-~--> <style type="text/css"> <!-- #ygrp-mkp { border: 1px solid #d8d8d8; font-family: Arial; margin: 10px 0; padding: 0 10px; } #ygrp-mkp hr { border: 1px solid #d8d8d8; } #ygrp-mkp #hd { color: #628c2a; font-size: 85%; font-weight: 700; line-height: 122%; margin: 10px 0; } #ygrp-mkp #ads { margin-bottom: 10px; } #ygrp-mkp .ad { padding: 0 0; } #ygrp-mkp .ad p { margin: 0; } #ygrp-mkp .ad a { color: #0000ff; text-decoration: none; } #ygrp-sponsor #ygrp-lc { font-family: Arial; } #ygrp-sponsor #ygrp-lc #hd { margin: 10px 0px; font-weight: 700; font-size: 78%; line-height: 122%; } #ygrp-sponsor #ygrp-lc .ad { margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0 0; } a { color: #1e66ae; } #actions { font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11px; padding: 10px 0; } #activity { background-color: #e0ecee; float: left; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10px; padding: 10px; } #activity span { font-weight: 700; } #activity span:first-child { text-transform: uppercase; } #activity span a { color: #5085b6; text-decoration: none; } #activity span span { color: #ff7900; } #activity span .underline { text-decoration: underline; } .attach { clear: both; display: table; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; padding: 10px 0; width: 400px; } .attach div a { text-decoration: none; } .attach img { border: none; padding-right: 5px; } .attach label { display: block; margin-bottom: 5px; } .attach label a { text-decoration: none; } blockquote { margin: 0 0 0 4px; } .bold { font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-weight: 700; } .bold a { text-decoration: none; } dd.last p a { font-family: Verdana; font-weight: 700; } dd.last p span { margin-right: 10px; font-family: Verdana; font-weight: 700; } dd.last p span.yshortcuts { margin-right: 0; } div.attach-table div div a { text-decoration: none; } div.attach-table { width: 400px; } div.file-title a, div.file-title a:active, div.file-title a:hover, div.file-title a:visited { text-decoration: none; } div.photo-title a, div.photo-title a:active, div.photo-title a:hover, div.photo-title a:visited { text-decoration: none; } div#ygrp-mlmsg #ygrp-msg p a span.yshortcuts { font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10px; font-weight: normal; } .green { color: #628c2a; } .MsoNormal { margin: 0 0 0 0; } o { font-size: 0; } #photos div { float: left; width: 72px; } #photos div div { border: 1px solid #666666; height: 62px; overflow: hidden; width: 62px; } #photos div label { color: #666666; font-size: 10px; overflow: hidden; text-align: center; white-space: nowrap; width: 64px; } #reco-category { font-size: 77%; } #reco-desc { font-size: 77%; } .replbq { margin: 4px; } #ygrp-actbar div a:first-child { /* border-right: 0px solid #000;*/ margin-right: 2px; padding-right: 5px; } #ygrp-mlmsg { font-size: 13px; font-family: Arial, helvetica,clean, sans-serif; *font-size: small; *font: x-small; } #ygrp-mlmsg table { font-size: inherit; font: 100%; } #ygrp-mlmsg select, input, textarea { font: 99% Arial, Helvetica, clean, sans-serif; } #ygrp-mlmsg pre, code { font:115% monospace; *font-size:100%; } #ygrp-mlmsg * { line-height: 1.22em; } #ygrp-mlmsg #logo { padding-bottom: 10px; } #ygrp-mlmsg a { color: #1E66AE; } #ygrp-msg p a { font-family: Verdana; } #ygrp-msg p#attach-count span { color: #1E66AE; font-weight: 700; } #ygrp-reco #reco-head { color: #ff7900; font-weight: 700; } #ygrp-reco { margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; } #ygrp-sponsor #ov li a { font-size: 130%; text-decoration: none; } #ygrp-sponsor #ov li { font-size: 77%; list-style-type: square; padding: 6px 0; } #ygrp-sponsor #ov ul { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 8px; } #ygrp-text { font-family: Georgia; } #ygrp-text p { margin: 0 0 1em 0; } #ygrp-text tt { font-size: 120%; } #ygrp-vital ul li:last-child { border-right: none !important; } --> </style> <!--~-|**|PrettyHtmlEnd|**|-~--> <!-- end group email --> </div></blockquote>Riju Kansalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338663228987794383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6041386891722508489.post-24674308237801232062011-09-04T22:47:00.001-07:002011-09-04T22:47:47.067-07:00Day 1 at scrum team<!-- Converted from text/rtf format --> <P><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">We have just got started with our scrum team today. </FONT></SPAN> </P> <P><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">We are a team of six plus PO, SM and BA. We had our daily standup meeting with updates from "The Team" including Dev and QA guys. We also had SCRUM Master, Delivery Manager, QA Manager and BA present during our stand up but they did not give any updates.</FONT></SPAN></P> <P><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Our new scrum master gave us a quick overview of how we are going to proceed, little bit about the meetings and how the backlog will be filled. We plan to have a quick planning meeting in the afternoon where we are going to discuss the ongoing tasks. So now a little background, we are an existing team with developers and testers taking on delivery items from two to three lines of business. The businesses directly contact testers and devs to giv and teak the detail and get started with the work. The QA team has to give signoff for the changes and it is considered as go ahead for a release.</FONT></SPAN></P> <P><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">So we are basically in our sprint zero the delivery manager and scrum master have taken this task of roling out SCRUM for the team and they are trying hard for it.</FONT></SPAN></P> <P><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Lots of Good Luck to the new SCRUM Team.</FONT></SPAN> </P> <BR> <BR/><!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"><html><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Courier'>==============================================================================<br>Please access the attached hyperlink for an important electronic communications disclaimer:<br><a href="http://www.credit-suisse.com/legal/en/disclaimer_email_ib.html">http://www.credit-suisse.com/legal/en/disclaimer_email_ib.html</a><br>==============================================================================<o:p></o:p></span></p></html> <br> Riju Kansalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338663228987794383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6041386891722508489.post-30675516791134586632011-09-03T01:11:00.000-07:002011-09-03T01:13:59.950-07:00The indispensable traits of a Scrum MasterThe indispensable traits of a Scrum Master are:<br>- emotional stability<br>- consistency<br>- diplomacy<br>- empathy<br>- good communication<br>- intuition<br>- good negotiator<br>- courage<p>These are all "soft" skills, so technical knowledge is irrelevant.<p>But if the SM determines that she wants to lead the team into adopting technical practices (unit testing, acceptance testing, simple design, refactoring, TDD etc.), some level of technical knowledge is beneficial to "getting the word across", and even providing initial training.Riju Kansalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17338663228987794383noreply@blogger.com0