Comments for Ones and Threes http://www.onesandthrees.com ... blogging about coding, music and who knows what else ... Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:59:03 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 Comment on Agile Retroflection Of the Day by Twitter Trackbacks for Ones and Threes » Blog Archive » Agile Retroflection Of the Day [onesandthrees.com] on Topsy.com http://www.onesandthrees.com/2010/01/agile-retroflection-of-the-day/#comment-374 Twitter Trackbacks for Ones and Threes » Blog Archive » Agile Retroflection Of the Day [onesandthrees.com] on Topsy.com Fri, 08 Jan 2010 01:34:53 +0000 http://www.onesandthrees.com/?p=83#comment-374 [...] Ones and Threes » Blog Archive » Agile Retroflection Of the Day www.onesandthrees.com/2010/01/agile-retroflection-of-the-day – view page – cached I’ve been nominated to contribute to Agile Retroflection Of the Day 2.0 by Levent. Todays subject is [...] [...] Ones and Threes » Blog Archive » Agile Retroflection Of the Day http://www.onesandthrees.com/2010/01/agile-retroflection-of-the-day – view page – cached I’ve been nominated to contribute to Agile Retroflection Of the Day 2.0 by Levent. Todays subject is [...]

]]> Comment on Sprint, Jog, Sprint by Twitter Trackbacks for Ones and Threes » Blog Archive » Sprint, Jog, Sprint [onesandthrees.com] on Topsy.com http://www.onesandthrees.com/2009/04/sprint-jog-sprint/#comment-115 Twitter Trackbacks for Ones and Threes » Blog Archive » Sprint, Jog, Sprint [onesandthrees.com] on Topsy.com Sat, 29 Aug 2009 08:56:51 +0000 http://www.onesandthrees.com/?p=68#comment-115 [...] Ones and Threes » Blog Archive » Sprint, Jog, Sprint www.onesandthrees.com/2009/04/sprint-jog-sprint – view page – cached Since starting with scrum, we’ve always done consecutive sprints. Two weeks of coding (Monday-Friday for the most part) near the end of which we do activities like estimating, planning, sprint review, retrospective. — From the page [...] [...] Ones and Threes » Blog Archive » Sprint, Jog, Sprint http://www.onesandthrees.com/2009/04/sprint-jog-sprint – view page – cached Since starting with scrum, we’ve always done consecutive sprints. Two weeks of coding (Monday-Friday for the most part) near the end of which we do activities like estimating, planning, sprint review, retrospective. — From the page [...]

]]> Comment on Visualisation Rules by Andy http://www.onesandthrees.com/2009/06/visualisation-rules/#comment-56 Andy Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:19:12 +0000 http://www.onesandthrees.com/?p=78#comment-56 There are some green post-its near the middle ... the colour is a bit too close to the yellow in the photo. Some elements of the business heard the message, and took it on board to a degree. What was different this time was that ALL the product stakeholders got the message, understood exactly HOW MUCH the ad hoc work affected us delivering what they wanted, and they acted in response (the prioritisation). All that was new, and in sharp contrast to what went on before. How many repeats of the verbal message 'Well, we didn't finish all your stuff, because something more important came along" does it take before that sounds like an excuse ? Now the evidence is there AND things are being done. I've seen the visual management blog ... good stuff :) Andy There are some green post-its near the middle … the colour is a bit too close to the yellow in the photo.

Some elements of the business heard the message, and took it on board to a degree. What was different this time was that ALL the product stakeholders got the message, understood exactly HOW MUCH the ad hoc work affected us delivering what they wanted, and they acted in response (the prioritisation). All that was new, and in sharp contrast to what went on before. How many repeats of the verbal message ‘Well, we didn’t finish all your stuff, because something more important came along” does it take before that sounds like an excuse ? Now the evidence is there AND things are being done.

I’ve seen the visual management blog … good stuff :)

Andy

]]> Comment on Sprint, Jog, Sprint by Andy http://www.onesandthrees.com/2009/04/sprint-jog-sprint/#comment-55 Andy Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:18:31 +0000 http://www.onesandthrees.com/?p=68#comment-55 The urgent requests typically won't wait for anything like as long as a week. Actually 'ad hoc' is a better term than 'urgent' and these things fall into two categories. (1) Support requests (the team functions as dev AND 2nd line support) (2) emergencies (e.g. site is down, or a show-stopping bug has been exposed). It's all down to a single team having both an operational and a tactical focus. Even a 1 week sprint would get interrupted. We've adopted Kanban (temporarily at least) to help fully expose the issues, and once we have a solution for the issues (more devs ? separate 2nd line support team ?) then we can probably go back to sprinting. Andy The urgent requests typically won’t wait for anything like as long as a week. Actually ‘ad hoc’ is a better term than ‘urgent’ and these things fall into two categories. (1) Support requests (the team functions as dev AND 2nd line support) (2) emergencies (e.g. site is down, or a show-stopping bug has been exposed). It’s all down to a single team having both an operational and a tactical focus. Even a 1 week sprint would get interrupted.

We’ve adopted Kanban (temporarily at least) to help fully expose the issues, and once we have a solution for the issues (more devs ? separate 2nd line support team ?) then we can probably go back to sprinting.

Andy

]]> Comment on Sprint, Jog, Sprint by Siddharta http://www.onesandthrees.com/2009/04/sprint-jog-sprint/#comment-54 Siddharta Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:44:15 +0000 http://www.onesandthrees.com/?p=68#comment-54 Andy, Why not do 1 week sprints? It looks to me thats what you are doing in practice anyway, just under a terminology of sprints and jog weeks. With 1 week sprints, you can look at the backlog every week, decide whats important at that point in time, schedule it and work on it for a week. Besides should any urgent request come through, you only have to wait a maximum of 7 days to pull it in. Andy,

Why not do 1 week sprints? It looks to me thats what you are doing in practice anyway, just under a terminology of sprints and jog weeks. With 1 week sprints, you can look at the backlog every week, decide whats important at that point in time, schedule it and work on it for a week. Besides should any urgent request come through, you only have to wait a maximum of 7 days to pull it in.

]]> Comment on rewrite the code from scratch ? by Andy http://www.onesandthrees.com/2008/09/rewrite-the-code-from-scratch/#comment-6 Andy Sun, 07 Sep 2008 22:39:56 +0000 http://www.onesandthrees.com/?p=33#comment-6 On V5: not really badly received, just hard to get to the point of launch, hard for the company to wait 2 years with almost no increase in functionality. And it's the latter that Joel Spolsky was referring to. See my earlier post 'When Agile goes Wrong' for more background on why it hurt. It's not actually about failures in Agile itself. There was a recent post on the scrumdevelopment mailing list about this (entitled 'Help with The Inevitable Question'). To cut to the chase, the guy was being asked to do a rewrite, actually to *cost* a rewrite upfront, whereas he wanted to take the agile/scrum approach. The replies agreed that costing a rewrite was not realistic, and some advised to do a bit-by-bit replacement. I think we should have tried the latter, but I've been told this can also be painful for different reasons. The thread is well worth a read anyway. Are you in an Scrum/Agile shop these days ? I can't imagine doing software any other way now. And are you doing TDD ? If you're not, now is the time to adopt. Andy On V5: not really badly received, just hard to get to the point of launch, hard for the company to wait 2 years with almost no increase in functionality. And it’s the latter that Joel Spolsky was referring to. See my earlier post ‘When Agile goes Wrong’ for more background on why it hurt. It’s not actually about failures in Agile itself.

There was a recent post on the scrumdevelopment mailing list about this (entitled ‘Help with The Inevitable Question’). To cut to the chase, the guy was being asked to do a rewrite, actually to *cost* a rewrite upfront, whereas he wanted to take the agile/scrum approach. The replies agreed that costing a rewrite was not realistic, and some advised to do a bit-by-bit replacement.

I think we should have tried the latter, but I’ve been told this can also be painful for different reasons.

The thread is well worth a read anyway. Are you in an Scrum/Agile shop these days ? I can’t imagine doing software any other way now. And are you doing TDD ? If you’re not, now is the time to adopt.

Andy

]]> Comment on rewrite the code from scratch ? by Barry http://www.onesandthrees.com/2008/09/rewrite-the-code-from-scratch/#comment-5 Barry Sun, 07 Sep 2008 20:02:33 +0000 http://www.onesandthrees.com/?p=33#comment-5 Andy, I'm at exactly the same point. Our five year old application is showing its age and adding each new feature takes much longer than it should because it's outgrown its original remit. We're using ColdFusion and because it's near impossible getting any CF staff these days we're considering starting from scratch. So do we rewrite in PHP/Rails or do we continue building a skyscraper on wobbly foundations? The developer in me wants to rewrite but it's a huge risk to start from a blank slate. Sorry to hear that v5 hasn't been warmly received. I'd ask why the powers that be took two years to offer this decision; why didn't they review sooner? I see you're in Berlin for RailsConf. Have fun: I wish I was out there myself! Barry Andy, I’m at exactly the same point. Our five year old application is showing its age and adding each new feature takes much longer than it should because it’s outgrown its original remit. We’re using ColdFusion and because it’s near impossible getting any CF staff these days we’re considering starting from scratch. So do we rewrite in PHP/Rails or do we continue building a skyscraper on wobbly foundations? The developer in me wants to rewrite but it’s a huge risk to start from a blank slate.

Sorry to hear that v5 hasn’t been warmly received. I’d ask why the powers that be took two years to offer this decision; why didn’t they review sooner?

I see you’re in Berlin for RailsConf. Have fun: I wish I was out there myself!

Barry

]]> Comment on RejectConf: The Best by admin http://www.onesandthrees.com/2008/09/rejectconf-the-best/#comment-4 admin Sat, 06 Sep 2008 16:16:05 +0000 http://www.onesandthrees.com/?p=42#comment-4 Sorry Matt, didn't catch that one. Sorry Matt, didn’t catch that one.

]]> Comment on RejectConf: The Best by Matthew Rudy http://www.onesandthrees.com/2008/09/rejectconf-the-best/#comment-3 Matthew Rudy Sat, 06 Sep 2008 13:55:24 +0000 http://www.onesandthrees.com/?p=42#comment-3 Indeed Andy, did you happen to catch the URL of that web volunteering site? Mentioned they had spots in Cambodia, Africa and such, so that programmers could give back to developing countries with a more direct use of their skills. (rather than the usual "teach english", which perhaps doesn't suit so many introverted web geeks) Indeed Andy,
did you happen to catch the URL of that web volunteering site?

Mentioned they had spots in Cambodia, Africa and such, so that programmers could give back to developing countries with a more direct use of their skills.
(rather than the usual “teach english”, which perhaps doesn’t suit so many introverted web geeks)

]]> Comment on Rails exception management by Des http://www.onesandthrees.com/2008/08/rails-exception-management/#comment-2 Des Mon, 01 Sep 2008 16:09:21 +0000 http://www.onesandthrees.com/?p=28#comment-2 Hey, Thanks for the link! I'd be more than happy to hear your opinion on Exceptional. I hope ya fun with it. Des Hey,
Thanks for the link! I’d be more than happy to hear your opinion on Exceptional.
I hope ya fun with it.
Des

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