Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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meeting24.tv is a web conference system for up to 24 users for 24/7. (If you use a meeting room for more than 24 hours, you need a pro account option menu.) Only a meeting host user needs to create a user account. Other members can join the meeting by web browser without registration or login. It’s so easy.
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The Specification Exercise « Kane Mar
Teams learn how hard it is to interpret written communication.
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Scrum for open source communities
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Illumination Galleries: A Process for Virtual Collaborative Design
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Team Estimation – A Better Estimation Method than Planning Poker | NetObjectives
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Planning Poker Party (The Companion Games)
Uses some non-planning poker techniques to speed up estimation process: High-Low Story Showdown, Deal and Slide, Developer Guts, Customer Guts
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Event aggregation on Twitter
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Notes from a Tool User: Scrum Case Studies
I’v e recently been asked by one team to provide them with case studies/success stories about Scrum to prove scrum works. It is striking that the people ask for case studies about agile – but didn’t before adopting their existing…
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
The Road to Scrum is Paved with Lego (updated)
Games are a fun, interactive, effective way to teach. A dose of competition mixed with social interaction keeps people engaged. You learn by doing and reflecting on the experience. Powerpoint, your time is over.
Until recently, I hadn’t had the opportunity to use learning games, since most of my work as an Agile coach is done remotely. In February I tried out the Resort Brochure with The Blog Studio and Thmvmnt with positive results, and then in early March I spent a few days with the Web Collective, all small purpose-driven organizations looking to become more Agile.
To introduce everyone to Scrum, I used Alexey Krivitsky‘s excellent Lego For Extended Scrum Simulation. Alexey’s game has improvements over other Scrum simulations I’ve read online:
- Build the backlog. Teams estimate the size of items, and the product owner may re-prioritize based on those estimates, just like in a real project. Some games have pre-determined backlogs, with all items sized and prioritized for you. Seems a little too command-and-control to me, which Scrum isn’t supposed to be.
- Multi-team collaboration. Teams work together, not against each other to reach their goal.
- Metrics applied to planning process. If you are going to bother estimating, make it useful. Teams estimate the size of their work, compare planned vs. observed velocity (how much they get done each sprint) and see the effect of observed velocity on their release plan.
How it works
This was my first time trying the Lego exercise. The product owner (me) explains to the team the vision for the project, to get everyone inspired and focused. In this case, the team has been hired to build a new city.
The team then estimates the items in the backlog, which includes things like one story buildings, a church, a tow truck and a crane. We used Steve Bochman’s team estimation technique to quickly size up stories. Team estimation turned out to be quicker than planning poker, which is what I had always used in projects. Team estimation and planning poker focus on comparing the relative size of features / stories, which is far easier to do and more accurate than trying to guess the absolute time to build each item. The next day the Air Charity team at Web Collective estimated over 50 stories, averaging between 2-3 minutes per story! Amazing speed given this was their first Agile project.
Once the items are estimated, the teams have guess how much they can get done in one 5 minute sprint, and that is used to determine their initial velocity. We’ll then count up the number of points at the end of each sprint to adjust that number. In the diagram above, the team estimated 18 points per sprint before starting the work. Each section of stories is a sprint.
Watch the passion, focus and determination for yourselves.
What went well
- Teams learned the importance of getting enough information from the Product Owner (client) to deliver what the client wanted. Some Lego creations were rejected because they didn’t pass expected scenarios, like being able to open the door on a building without the wall coming apart. The quick feedback cycles of sprints enabled them to fail fast and get back on track.
- Everyone had fun learning about Scrum. They went through most of the Scrum process, from release planning to working in 4 sprints, including a demo / review at the end of each one.
What could have been better
- Forgot to update burn down chart at the end of each sprint, and with that, the review of the teams’ overall progress in comparison to the release plan.
- Need more Lego. One tow truck hobbled on 3 wheels.
- With 8 people, team estimation stalled at times. Need to learn more techniques to keep flow moving. Hank Roark (@hroark on Twitter) pointed me to James Grenning’s Companion games for planning poker.
What I will do differently next time
- Use a timer that everyone can see
- Tweak the estimation process to make it go faster
- Keep a check list of items to do during every sprint
- Expand Lego set to add some variation
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How to Get the Most Out of LinkedIn
Brian Wallace discusses how we define LinkedIn and how people can get the most out of LinkedIn, regardless of where they are in their careers.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Helping Sault businesses use Social Media in a Crowded Marketplace
Last night I had the privilege of presenting a session on social media, the final installment in the Economic Development Corporation’s 3 part series on online marketing strategies. The audience was small but engaged, making for a fun evening. I spent about 1/3 of my time just answering questions. The group was diverse, including an Alpaca farmer, a manager at a local bank, a newcomer to the Sault, and someone from Sault Tourism.
Reasons people came to the event:
- Expand network
- Connect more with people
- Create awareness about business
- Promote in a new market
- Learn how to present product
- Learn social media tools
- Engage people, and how to manage the effort
- How to use social media tools efficiently
- How to reach a young audience
The group finished up the evening by coming up with a top 10 list of tips for a small business using social media, based on what was presented. Here is there must-do list, in no particular order, with some additional comments from me:
- Update content constantly. You are only as good as your last post / tweet / comment.
- Be honest. You can’t hide deception online.
- Start small. Pick something, try, learn, assess.
- Find a sustainable pace. Don’t burn yourself out.
- Stay focused. Have a clear message.
- Know your audience.
- Use tools to (your) fullest potential. Keep learning, experimenting. Read about what others are doing.
- Be open and transparent in your communication. Let people get to know both about you and your business.
- Work hard to keep customers happy. Address negative comments and turn frustrated patrons into your evangelists through over-the-top service.
- Choose the right digital channels. There are lots to choose from, and you can’t do everything.
Here are 5 additional resource links for small businesses trying to use social media:
- Twitter for the small businesses owner. Be sure to check out the links at the bottom of the page as well.
- Tips for choosing the right digital channels
- A social media glossary and a great video explaining RSS, or site feed syndication.
- Podcasting in plain English
- What is blogging?
Social media isn’t what I do for a day job. I don’t consider myself a social media expert. I like to use the term ‘social media swimmer’. I’m a fish navigating the rivers of online connectedness, and have been splashing in the waters heavily for some time. My desire is to help people and organizations in Sault Ste. Marie benefit from using social media, which is why I do these presentations.
Next month people can learn about Twitter in an interactive, hands-on session I’ve put together at Algoma University. Course is limited to first 20 registrants. Cost covers my costs plus some of my time taken away from my regular work to prepare for it. If you’ve wondered what Twitter is about and how to make the best use of it, you won’t be disappointed. You can register and pay online. How easy is that?
The slides from the presentation are below. Huge dose of gratitude to Fred Roed of WorldWideCreative for giving me permission to use some of his slides from a similar presentation. Sharing ideas FTW!
Seth’s Blog: Advice on equity
Seth’s Blog: Advice on equity: Most creative solution I’ve seen to growing a business where equity is the primary incentive. Seth outlines options to maintain the incentives for everyone to bring results and be rewarded for it.
Refresh Events
Refresh Events: One of the most effective event-oriented sites I’ve seen on the web. Simple, uncluttered, all social media streams big and visible.
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Lessons from the Yahoo!’s Scrum Adoption | Agile Software Development
Tips on adoption, productivity numbers on switching to Agile – 300-400% improvement
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A Yahoo Pipe app you can customize. Has 40+ sources it searches for keywords you specify. Get results as RSS feed / email / phone.
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TweepMe – Get Twitter Followers.
Opt-in group where everyone follows each other. I won’t use it, keeping as example of what not to do.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
ITSSM Software Development Workshop: Introducing Agile
Agile, Python, QA, Rational Unified Process and Ruby on Rails. IT folk in Sault Ste. Marie got a smorgasborg of technology, tools and processes at the Innovation Centre’s Software Development Best Practices Workshop. I was the warm-up act, introducing Agile and I chose to do that through a learning game. 5 teams worked on a release plan for building a brochure for a tourist resort. Normally I do this over a morning with one team, so scaling to 5 over 1.5 hours was a bit of controlled chaos.
Below are the slides from the presentation
My first ever public training class: Twitter Essentials
Update: course date is April 21. Only first 20 registrants accepted.
“Facebook is for people you used to know. Twitter is for people you want to know.” – Tim O’Reilly“Twitter is the water cooler for connected free agents.” – Mark K
- Coaching & training a web development team based in TO in Agile
- Volunteering for Changecamp.ca and Thmvmnt.info, both which may turn into longer term paid gigs. Attended inaugural ChangeCamp in TO, got involved in organizing, expanded network of TO contacts
- Recruited a passionate volunteer for Pairvote.ca, who wrote on his blog, gave media interviews and poured in countless hours in final week of campaign
- Many useful links and tips on Agile, helped many others with Agile questions
- Organized all-star panel for Agile 2009 conference from people who responded on Twitter.
- Made many new friends, both locally and around the world.
- Learned about the Hudson plane crash moments after it happened. Saw first photo of plane crash on Twitter before reaching mainstream media.
Twitter, at first glance is a simple tool to master, but without guidance it can take months to start getting real value for time invested. The purpose of this course is to avoid the time suck to ramp up on how best to use your time on Twitter. Participants will learn by doing:
- How Twitter differs from other social networking tools
- How Twitter is being used by citizens, business people, government officials, media and others
- How to create a suitable presence on Twitter
- How to use a Twitter client to better manage conversations and relationships
- How to find people they want to converse with
- Proper Twitter etiquette
- Examples of Twitter postings
- Discover 3rd party tools to enhance their Twitter experience
When: April 21, 6:30 – 8:30 pm
Where: Course will take place at Algoma University, using a computer lab where everyone will have their own workstation.
Size limited to 20 participants. Course fee is $50. Register and pay online.
Course Outline
2 hrs total, though may stretch to as much as 2.5 hours
15 min Intro: What is Twitter?
15 min Setting up your account
15 min How to find followers / people to follow, conversations of interest
10 min Break
20 min Twitter client tools show and tell, with focus on PeopleBrowsr
10 min Apps that use Twitter, apps to help you benefit more from Twitter
10 min Questions, concerns
10 min Conclusion, wrap-up