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Well well well… this is probably the hottest issue to any agile implementation… most certainly the issue causing the most debate, emotions and pure frustration to any agile team!
Can one convince a team or individual to adopt points over hours, or hours over points?
Well, as an Agile coach I made the massive mistake of thinking that one could!
A few years on, I can now say, one can’t, there will always be a counter-argument to any argument you make… teams and individuals have been conditioned throughout the years NOT to think relative, but in hours… that is just the nature of the beast…
I found the best way to deal with this, in training and in coaching, is to divide the teams into two camps, points and hours, give them reading materials and articles, and let them present the case for either story points or hours… they will debate this one for hours, but its worth the time spent!
However, make sure they at least try relative estimation with Story Points, or let at least ONE team do that… once teams grasp the concept of relative estimation over ‘accurate’ hours, then the benefits will show and most teams will make the mindset change, not to say that one don’t get high-performing agile teams using hours… it’s a preference!
This works really well, and it stays true to what an Agile coach is supposed to do… present the issue, ask some provoking questions and provide the environment for the teams to actively and effectively communicate…
All this said, here is a fantastic article covering both Story points and Hours… http://www.infoq.com/news/2009/09/story-points-versus-hours
Note that we will be covering this subject in detail and in a fun way in our course, Agile Bootcamp planned for 7-8 October 2009! For more information, visit http://www.kaizania.co.za/agile/agile_bootcamp_registration.php
As part of our mission to foster, support and assist the adoption of Agile software development techniques within Southern Africa, Kaizania sponsored and attended the recent Govtech 2009 conference at the Durban International Conference Centre – see http://www.govtech.co.za/
The conference itself was a great success and exceedingly well organised. If the conference is the standard at which government IT projects are to be delivered, SA citizens are in for excellent ICT service delivery.
Our conference started on Sunday the 13th of September when Kaizania sponsored the Project Management Special Interest Group (PM SIG) event http://www.govtech.co.za/conf_pmsig.asp.
We were first of all treated to an overview of the Gautrain project by the man in charge – Jack van der Merwe, CEO of the Gautrain Project. It was a fascinating insider view into one of the largest public private partnership projects in the world today. Jack himself was no less fascinating than the project itself. It is heartening to see and hear about the amazing talent we have in South Africa. More information on the Gautrain project can be found at http://www.gautrain.co.za/
Next up there was a panel discussion with the following panellists:
- Jack van der Merwe CEO Gautrain project
- Craig Smith SITA IFMS Programme Manager
- Gideon Smit SITA Quality Manager
- Lionel Bisschoff CEO Kaizania
- Manon Deguire Valense Managing Partner
Some interesting project management aspects were discussed, but it was no surprise that a barrage of questions regarding the nitty gritty details of the Gautrain project were directed at Jack.
Kaizania at GovTech 2009 - Ben and Lionel
One interesting question was regarding techniques to motivate and promote team spirit on project teams consisting of cross-cultural, remotely located team members. Jack described how the project and management world has changed from very hierarchical command-and-control organizational structures and processes to lead-and-co-ordinate organizational structures and processes. A common vision and associated goals provide the basis for self-organizing teams to achieve an organization’s goals, led by business and agile project leaders. The Flexible Production era is what it is all about – more info on that in Kaizania’s white paper here.
From the 14th to the 16th of September the Kaizania stand was manned by
- Ben Cilliers General Manger Kaizania
- Arrie van der Dussen Agile Business Manager Kaizania
- Lionel Bisschoff CEO Kaizania
Kaizania at GovTech 2009 - Ben and Arrie
We used the ever present sticky notes of the Agile world to decorate our stand, as well as Version One posters, a flat screen showing Agile related videos and our Kaizania pull down banners. The Kaizania stand attracted much attention and we met many interesting people, many of which are now very keen to embark on the Agile journey. Success!
Thank you to all the folks at SITA that assisted Kaizania in sponsoring and exhibiting at Govtech 2009. We look forward to being at Govtech 2010, apparently in Cape Town!
Another 2-day course completed by Kaizania, Agile Bootcamp, last week in Centurion…
This was again a fantastic group of people, seems like the people who attend Agile training are always open-minded, eager to learn and active particants!
The companies represented, NuPay – JunkMail – Telamenta – Investec, made for good variety in opinions, experiences and organisational size and complexity!
We deviated a little bit from our previous course outline which was focused around Scrum, to a course outline focusing on laying the foundation of Agile first – Flexible Production Era (download the whitepaper here).
Then we covered Scrum, history and principles of Scrum, Scrum framework and all the roles, ceremonies and artefacts in detail.
Different to our previous courses, we introduced Kanban to the delegates as an Agile solution to service support development organisations and teams. We did this by playing a great game to illustrate Kanban and the financial effect thereof… What was nice to see was the teams actually embracing the concepts and principles discussed earlier from Lean, especially avoidance of waste!
Overall, a great success and a fantastic opportunity to spend time with eager Agilists!
Kaizania likes to think that we not only train and coach folks on our training courses, but that we also treat them a little bit… and we can truly say we did, what a fantastic venue for training at KleinKaap, and the food was fantastic!
A venue with style, warm and friendly service and absolutely great food! Well done all at KleinKaap!
Here is some feedback from JunkMail who were on the course:
“I found the course to be highly informative and enlightening with regards to a better PM approach, handling the demands of modern online business development. The course was very well presented and kept the flow going strong, making for a mentally sparking and invigorating experience.
I am confident that this will assist us significantly in our development team to minimise development time and maximise accountability among developers for their various tasks. The reduction in project specifications time is also a huge bonus to us.
Well done guys! I would recommend Kaizania training in a heartbeat.”
- Douglas Bailey, Internal Development Manager, JunkMail Publishing Group
Next course is planned, not yet confirmed, for mid-September… may you be interested, please send a mail to agile@kaizania.co.za or phone Arrie on 083 700 2181 and we can place your name and preferred dates on a list, which will help Kaizania to try and accommodate all as best as we possibly could!
How do we handle bugs?
A question I receive a lot when coaching organisations and teams…
Well, I found this blog post which provides a really good explanation of how Agile teams need to look at bugs…
http://testobsessed.com/2009/03/13/handling-bugs-in-an-agile-context/
Arrie van der Dussen
Agile Business Manager
Kaizania
Agile and Agile Testing
December 10, 2009 in Agile Commentary, Events | Tags: agile tester, agile testing, agile training, coaching, consulting, kanban, quality, scrum, scrum overview, testing, what is scrum? | by thinkingagile | Leave a comment
Kaizania was invited to speak to a group of testers at Standard Bank recently on Agile and Agile Testing.
This was a really pleasant experience and the conversations we’ve had during the open session confirmed that Agile is an absolute need these days and not just something nice to attempt.
We all know that the role of the tester within Agile is very much neglected, however, we do determine that Agile is all about Quality and the different way to look at Quality.
In Agile we look at quality as Business Value Delivered over Total Cost and that there is absolutely NO TRADE-OFF to quality.
Anything not producing quality and value to your customer is believed to be waste. Who are the best people to assist you in determining waste? The Agile Tester is playing a big role in assisting you for sure!
In Agile we believe that quality is to be delivered by adopting a ‘whole team approach’, where the complete team, customer and developers are mutually accountable for quality.
This presentation provides an overview to how we got to what we call Agile and how Agile and Quality link to Agile Testing…
Download the presentation here: Kaizania: Agile and Agile Testing