Scrum Safari 2011: Lightning Talk Videos

On day 2 of the Cape Town Scrum Gathering (a.k.a. Scrum Safari) there were a few lightning talks in the afternoon. I was lucky enough to nab the last slot. Patrick Vine was at hand to capture the talks and they were posted on vimeo by the sugsa committee. I've collated links to the talks on vimeo with my (somewhat terse) notes from the gathering. Annu Augustine: Saying No Step 1: Don't say the word no!Instead: not now, let's explore, what if?Listen, understand context, then use the same languageTo motivate prioritization, show lack of connection...

Read More

Cape Town Scrum Gathering 2011: Outline

All of us at Information Logistics took the break from routine to take part in the Scrum Safari. My mind's still processing the influx of conversations from last week's gathering in Somerset West. Excellent event as usual, well done to the committee and everyone else who helped out in some way. And thanks to all who came along and made...

Read More

Day One at the Gatehouse

For the last while we've been building and putting the finishing touches on our new offices at the Gatehouse in Century City. The main event is three 20 square metre team rooms. The rooms are visually connected with big glass windows but have closing doors for when things get rowdy (or sensitive). It's all shiny and new-smelling, the aircon/heating...

Read More

Our own medicine

This is the third in my Agile Contracting series. As with the previous post, this is a verbatim copy of my speech notes, with some mark-up. [DL] It's about the Why Time for our own medicine [mime spoon] joke about mirroring. Well, we're working towards alignment, but we also feel the need for a contract. It's time for some of our own medicine....

Read More

Done since last stand-up

In the past we've had the problem of "zoodling" at stand-up ("What to do when scrum doesn't work" Henrik Kniberg SG Cape Town 2010) because you're not quite sure which tasks you've done in the last 24 hours. One suggestion is only moving tasks in standup; I find this most unsatisfying. It's great to be able to move that damn task in the heady...

Read More

The House of Agile

This post is still in progress, at the moment it's a lightly marked up copy of my full form speech draft of this section. I'll edit it at some point, but for now at least it's up :) Series intro The House of Pain? The first time I read the manifesto, well... [reverie]... Who here has read the manifesto? Can you remember the first time you read it? "we are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it." "Through this work we have come to value:" Did you laugh when you read "working software over comprehensive...

Read More

Agile Contracting

In this series of blog posts I'll be posting the content of my recent talk at SUGSA Cape Town. Read Cara Turner's Event Report for a good overview. These posts will be mainly based on my original speech notes; the video with actual content will be up at some point soon. Introduction My fellow software developers. It gives me great joy to be looking...

Read More

GAE on Hudson with Mercurial & Bitbucket

This post details getting Hudson to automatically poll a bitbucket mercurial repository and deploy the google app engine python hello world project. Debian install Just installed hudson on our Debian Lenny box using these useful aptitude instructions. hg plugin To get the plugin to install, go to the Hudson admin page, and manage plugins, then select...

Read More