Wes Maldonado: Data Junkie

I had the chance to meet James Shore at Agile Open Northwest 2007 and have to recommend that you attend the Seattle Scrum Users Group to see him present Agile Requirements with FIT.

If you’re new to FIT, click here to see some of my other posts on FIT. Looking for an agile coach/scrum master in Seattle? Get in touch with me

Topic: Agile Requirements With Fit

Agile projects are all about communication and collaboration. What does that mean for requirements? There’s no up-front requirements phase… does that mean there’s no requirements document or tool? What about functional testing?

Join James Shore for an exploration of requirements on agile projects. James will share what he’s learned about agile requirements in eight years of working with agile team, then introduce Fit, the confusingly-named Framework for Integrated Test. Learn why Fit isn’t what everyone thinks it is, what it has to do with agile requirements, and how you can use Fit to improve communication on your project. This will be an interactive session, so bring your product owner hat and join in!

Seattle Scrum Users Group: Agile Requirements With Fit

You probably need an agile coach, so get in touch with me!

Fractal: A mathematically generated pattern that is reproducible at any magnification or reduction.

At a seminar called Lean-Agile Software Testing – Practices and Challenges Jean McAuliffe described lean/agile processes as a fractal. She was talking about applying agile principles at each iteration of development. Principles are hard to apply because they are nebulous and numerous. What is the formula for the agile fractal?

business value = f(Cost, Time, Functionality, Quality)

In reality the formula is a wonderfully complex optimization problem.

Business Owners Perspective

max(business value) = f( min(cost), min(time), max(Functionality), max(Quality) )

And to the agile team we rename a couple of things…

Agile Team Perspective

max(business value) = f( max( Size_story) , min(Size_story * Risk_story), max(Unit Tests), max(Acceptance Tests) )

And when it really comes down to it, you have to try to solve both formulas simultaneously for max(business value):

max(business value) = f(x)

where x {

f() { min(cost), min(time), max(Functionality), max(Quality) },

f() { max( Size_story) , min(Size_story * Risk_story), max(Unit Tests), max(Acceptance Tests) }

}

There are only many variations on the theme for agile fractals, let me know about yours.

Jeff Sutherland wrote this post discussing the three questions in the daily scrum. I’m going to steal a couple of his quips, but go read the full post.

What did you do yesterday?

This question tests the focus of the team. Anything done that was not work on the backlog is questioned.

What will you do today?

This question replaces GANTT charts. Dependencies are constantly changing.

What is blocking progress?

One of the biggest impediments to improving productivity in Scrum teams that I see in many companies is failure of the ScrumMaster to track and prioritize impediments. Management cannot help fix them if they are not clearly identified along with a recommended plan of action.

http://jeffsutherland.com/scrum/2006/06/why-three-questions-in-daily-scrum.html

The other day during the Sprint Planning Meeting people asked why I wanted a task against a low risk area to perform manual testing. I should have called this exploratory testing. After the meeting I had to take some notes to make sure that I’d be able to give an explanation for the task estimate when we got around to the Retrospective

What is exploratory testing?

Exploratory testing is an approach in software testing with simultaneous learning, test design and test execution. While the software is being tested, the tester learns things that together with experience and creativity generates new good tests to run.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploratory_test

There is a great Google Tech Talks video about exploratory testing given by Jon Bach, watch it if you’ve got the time. I’d recommend having the slides open as you watch because they are a bit blurry in the video. Get them here under Dynamics of Exploratory Testing.

The best slide in the deck is this mnemonic for remembering the skill set used during exploratory testing:

Watch the video, i think you’ll like it.

High Moon Studios, part of Vivendi Games, is a game developer currently working on titles for next-generation consoles. The company is founded by game veterans who are passionate about creating compelling, original entertainment experiences. High Moon is best known for Darkwatch (www.darkwatch.com), the hit console game based on original I.P. created by company founders.
ftp://ftp1.highmoonstudios.com/GDCwebisodes/SCRUM.wmv
Link found at Jeff Sutherland’s ScrumLog

Fun.

I found out via the Agile Software Testing List at Yahoo! that NetObjectives is offering free, registration required, access to their self-paced training videos. They are currently offering the following:

Advice from the Gang of Four (with the Strategy Pattern)

This presentation investigates the general design advice promoted by the authors of Design Patterns, Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software, with the Strategy Pattern used as an example. 50-60 minutes.

The Case For Unit Testing

This presentation provides an argument in favor of developer unit testing, and illustrates the advantages this brings. 20-25 minutes.

Driving Development From Agile Use Cases

This presentation describes and demonstrates the integration of use cases into an agile development process. 20-25 minutes.

Overview of Scrum

Scrum is a more and more popular agile process which can be used to manage and control software and product development. This presentation discusses the players/roles, mechanics, and promises of Scrum. 30 minutes.

Scrum for Team System was just recently released. It is an add-in for Microsoft Visual Studio Team System that uses the Microsoft Solutions Framework(MSF) to guide you through implementing/practicing Scrum in your organization. And while the MSF and Scrum for Team System might be grand, the website rules because it has short videos of Ken Schwaber explaining nearly all aspects of Scrum. Here is a quick list of the pages I found with videos:

Scrum Overview

• The history of the Agile Movement
• Guidance on preparing to implement Scrum in your organisation.
• The roles within Scrum
• Scrum from start to finish.
• Defining “Done” in Scrum

Scrum Artifacts

• The Product Backlog
• The Sprint Backlog
• Reporting in Scrum, the burndown chart and more.

The Processes

• The Daily Scrum
• The Sprint
• The Sprint Planning Meeting
• The Sprint Review
• The Sprint Retrospective

There are probably more videos hidden on their website, but those should get you started.