AgiliteEnSituation. The Pragmatic Bookshelf. Your humble editor is a believer. When my significant other was managing editor of MacUser magazine, her most powerful management tool was a deck of index cards. For the past year and a half, we have been creating Agile in a Flash index cards in blog form. These cards capture the wisdom of the Agile community plus our combined 20+ years of Agile and XP experience. The Agile community has generated many memorable mnemonics and lists, starting with the four values espoused in the Agile Manifesto, and including such stock phrases as “Red-Green-Refactor.” We’ve added a number of cards that represent our own inventions, such as Tim’s FIRST mnemonic that describes the qualities of a good unit test.
Our goal for the project was to produce a distributable deck of real, physical index cards. You can use the cards in many ways—as references, reminders, discussion points, posters on the wall, or even paper airplanes acting as air mail. We love index cards for their versatility as a tool. DoD – Déboire & Pouvoir. Un outil pour l’amélioration continue du standard Désolé pour les gamers, mais non je ne vais pas vous parler du dernier Day of Defeat.
Par DoD comprenez plutôt « Definition of Done », c’est à dire l’ensemble des critères à respecter pour considérer une tâche terminée. Par exemple, avant de soumettre son code, un développeur doit s’assurer de respecter le critère: « tests unitaires OK ». En quoi un outil aussi « low-tech » et aussi simpliste qu’une check-list peut nous aider à l’ère de Google et de l’iPhone ? « In 2001, though, a critical care specialist at Johns Hopkins Hospital named Peter Pronovost decided to give a doctor checklist a try. [...] Et ce seulement dans le Michigan ! Avant même de parler des DoD, je rappelle que ceux-ci sont au service de l’amélioration continue du standard. Je vous propose cette définition :« Un standard est la meilleure pratique constatée à ce jour, énoncé explicitement, avec une finalité affichée, et dont on sait mesurer les écarts. » Issu du terrain.
Agile Retrospectives. Introduction to Acceptance Test Driven Development. Confessions of A New Agile Developer. I have worked in Waterfall model for most of my career. Some time back I joined Xebia and started working in the Agile style. Specifically, we have been following Scrum and XP methodologies with TDD as an emphasized practice. The transition from Waterfall to Agile is like walking from one planet of the universe to some other planet. When you shift from one to the other there is a complete change in your world, everything from the way you think, work or collaborate, changes. I joined a team of 8 professionals and contrary to my expectation 6 of us had no prior experience with the Agile approach.
So we started under the guidance of our 2 experienced pros. Initially there were few ups and mostly downs. Here is an account of what went on: Some Startup Hiccups: The Thinking Shift Agile is all about thinking in the present, the current sprint, the current user story etc. Changing Gears Agile is a constantly changing environment. The other handicap that we faced was doing TDD appropriately. Insights You Can Use » Blog Archive » A Coaching Toolkit. July 16th, 2010 As a coach, your job is not to solve or do—it’s to support other people as they develop skills and capabilities and as they solve problems on their own. When it comes to coaching, one size does not fit all. You need to have a variety of practices in your toolkit in order to approach each situation and individual differently. Here are some of the approaches I use when coaching other people.
Provide Context Sometimes all a person needs is some context. Frame the Problem Sometimes people need help framing the problem. Generate More Options In other cases, a team member may choose a solution that you know will not be effective. What other ways could we accomplish the same goal? Rather than reject an option (or worse, dismiss the person), walk through the option with him or her. Provide Real-Time Feedback Many times, when performing a new skill, people need to hear some real-time feedback to get a feel for how what they are doing is affecting the project. Ask Questions Demonstrate.