About two years ago I read Quality Software Management Volume 2 – First-order measurement from Jerry Weinberg. In it, he explains the differences between first-order and second-order measurements. The latter is a replacement measurement. Instead of measuring the thing, we measure something that we substitute for the thing that we are measuring. For example, measuring code coverage usually is a second-order measurement for test quality. It does not really measure the quality of the underlying tests, since you don’t know how many assertions lie behind the covered lines of code. In the same book, Weinberg also provides the concept of zero-order measurements for projects. A few months ago I was surprised that these seem to be focused on traditional projects, rather than agile ones. Since then I decided to come up with zero-order measurements for agile projects. So, here are some of the things I look for when entering a new client or company.
Continue reading 7 Zero-order measurements for agile projectsCategory Archives: Scrum
Scrum
Tell a story at the daily standup
Yesterday during my keynote at the Agile Testing Days 2012 I said I see a lot of standups, where testers report on their yesterday’s work in the following way:
Yesterday I tested the thing with the stuff. I found some bugs, and filed them. Today I will test the foo with the bar.
I think this is horrible test reporting. While concluding the fifth beta of Elisabeth Hendrickson‘s upcoming book Explore it! I found a few more hints in the same direction. On the same line I will relate good test reporting during the standup to what for example Michael Bolton talks about when it comes to test reporting – we should tell three stories during test reporting:
- a story about the product
- a story about testing
- a story about the process
Certified Scrum Manager – somewhat more than a rant
In the past I have been more than skeptic about certifications. I even wrote about my minimum requirements for a certification programme that might (or might not) add value in an article called Meaningful Certification?. Despite the split between the two larger organizations (and their early leaders) on Scrum – the Scrum Alliance and Scrum.org – yesterday I noticed that the certification scam has taken on new levels with a program called Certified Scrum Manager (IAPM). Here is my honest critique about it, and I will try to rant as few as possible about it.
Continue reading Certified Scrum Manager – somewhat more than a rantTracking testing on the Scrum taskboard
Today, a colleague of mine, Norbert Hölsken, started off a discussion in our internal communication channel. He asked:
How do you treat bugs on the taskboard that are found during testing? Create a new test for each bug, and put the test task back in ToDo? Or create a bug, and a bug-follow-up testing task?
As it turns out there are a lot of valid reasons to do it one way or another. Yet, the answer “it depends” does not help – neither a Scrum Coach, nor a tester working in a Scrum environment. So, I started raising some of my experiences and concerns, and some of my other colleagues replied as well.
Skip forward three hours, and I am writing a blog entry on my thoughts about it.
Continue reading Tracking testing on the Scrum taskboardResponses from the programmer and tester surveys
A while ago, I called for some participation on the state of our craft. I promised back then to present some intermediate answers in late January. Here they are.
Continue reading Responses from the programmer and tester surveysSome surveys on the state of our craft
One of my colleagues made a claim yesterday which I would like to put some numbers on. I raised the question on twitter, and received suspicious answers about the numbers of my colleague. Please forward this survey to anyone you know who is programming: http://www.shino.de/programmer-survey/ It consist of just four question, so you should be able to answer them in a few minutes.
Over twitter I also received the feedback that things are worse for testers. I would like to put numbers on that as well. Therefore I also put up an equally small survey for tester: http://www.shino.de/tester-survey/ Please forward this survey to anyone in the software business that you know of.
From time to time to I will publish some of the results. I aim for end of January for the first set of data.
Lessons from complexity thinking
While Diana Larsen was in Germany in July she spoke about a course she was currently taking called Human Systems Dynamics. Since then some of my colleagues started to dive into it. So did I. I didn’t take the course, but decided to go for some of the books on it. The first one I came across is called Facilitating Organization Change – Lessons from complexity science, and deals with a lot of stuff on complexity science, self-organization, and how to introduce changes in a complex adaptive system (CAS). These are some of my first thoughts after finishing the book.
Continue reading Lessons from complexity thinkingThe case for slack
Some while ago, J.B. Rainsberger posted a case for slack, and that you might be sabotaging your peoples training. I think it was Kent Beck who pointed me to the self-similarity of nature in eXtreme programming explained. In this post I’m going to take a closer look on how we learn, and how nature is self-similar in this regard, and what we may derive from this.
Scrum Norris
Yesterday evening there was a thread of scrumnorris going over twitter. Since these messages were in German, let me translate them.
- Chuck Norris is ScrumMaster and ProductOwner – simultaneously.
- Chuck Norris can do 6-month sprints.
- Chuck Norris wears Timeboxershorts.
- Chuck Norris does not move story cards, he moves the taskboard.
- Chuck Norris does not estimate, he knows.
- Chuck Norris pairs alone.
- Chuck Norris starts project with a Roundhouse-Kickoff.
- Chuck Norris is allowed to appear late at the stand-up.
- Chuck Norris sits on the stand-up meeting.
- Chuck Norris has implemented everything at the planning meeting.
- Chuck Norris does not estimate user stories, user stories estimate him. (This doesn’t translate well.)
- Chuck Norris writes the code first, then the test.
- Chuck Norris is not afraid of bugs, bugs are afraid of him.
- Chuck Norris does not do Kanban. He does not know limits.
- Chuck Norris does not pull, he pushes.
- When Chuck Norris says “done”, then it’s “done”.
- Chuck Norris does not deploy, he develops on the production environment.
- Just Chuck Norris knows, that a real burn-down requires napalm.
- Chuck Norris has no burn-down chart. Around him everything is already burnt down.
- Chuck Norris answers just two questions on the stand-up meeting. Chuck Norris does not know obstacles.
- Chuck Norris does not prioritize the backlog.
- Chuck Norris takes two baby-steps at once.
- Chuck Norris does not use test-driven development. Chuck Norris always drives.
- Chuck Norris is the prioritized backlog.
Any additions?
Not a process
Alistair Cockburn told us about a research in the UK on Scrum. He pointed out to the student, that Scrum is not a process, but something different. This made me thoughtful and I decided to elaborate some more on the terms and reflect on the other Agile methodologies about it.
Continue reading Not a process