Last week, a new version of Agilefant with improved Load calculation functionality was released.
It is definitely Springtime, because besides Mother Nature, the Industry also seems to be waking up to Agilefant’s call. Check out the buzz at Agilefant.org!
We just yesterday tried CardMeeting with our team; otherwise, it was almost exactly what I had hoped for, except for two things:
1. Two users can edit a card at the same time => conflicts, data is lost
2. No labels, headings or the like, just cards => have to use ‘label cards’ for organizing
The first one is a rather big concern, and so far holds me from recommending CardMeeting to various purposes I could think of (well, have already thought of). I even thought this could be a bug, ’cause for me it seems quite obvious that you’d want to prevent such a thing from happening or at least show that someone is editing a card and thus you should keep your hands away from it.
I’ve asked the developer of CardMeeting to comment on this (EDIT: see his reply in the comments of this post).
Another potential concern (that is, for us, but not necessarily for you) is that CardMeeting is not open source and running on your own server requires purchasing it. However, a free version of CardMeeting should continue to be available at least for the foreseeable future (again, see David’s reply below)
We’ll let you know how our trials with CardMeeting proceed.
(Editor’s note: this white paper (releaseplanningwhitepaper_v5.pdf) is from our research collaborator Guenther Ruhe from the Univ. Calgary; see the executive summary below)
Business success is correlated with the success of products and services offered to customers. Product management is an emerging discipline that aims at making the whole process from product requirements to design and implementation more qualified. Release planning is essential part of product management. A major part of the responsibility of a product manager is to balance a variety of needs from markets, customers or stakeholders and align them into an optimized allocation of sparse resources [Ebert ‘07].
Features are seen as the “selling units” of a product. Not providing the “right” features at the “right” time typically has strong impact on customer satisfaction and consequently on business success. For providing the “right” features, proper understanding of the market needs is required. This includes the understanding of priorities, i.e., how important the different features are judged by the different customers and stakeholders. In case that the expected and most requested features are not offered in a release, the product is likely to fail in the market. Systematic release planning includes the analysis of the customer needs and provides a pathway to match these needs as well as possible with the time and resources available.
The indented readership of this document is product and other managers in charge of planning product releases. This problem is by far too complex to rely on intuition and vaguely defined processes alone. The emphasis of this White Paper is on the planning of (software) product releases. It provides an overview about the how, what, and why of product release planning.
Reading the Agile Advice blog I ran in to a tool called CardMeeting.
It could be just the thing for Reflections, (Joint) sprint goal planning, collecting the feedback on the kinds of exercises we tend to do when conducting sessions such as the HB dissemination, and of course misc brainstorming.
Looks promising, but don’t know ’til we try it out in practice. Check it out and ask us how things went if you don’t have the time to try it yourself.
EDIT: I found a ~20min podcast from 2006 talking about CardMeeting and its basic idea. Listening to it is probably the lightest way to get an idea of whether it could help you.
Dear ATMAN stakeholders,
We have settled on a two-week space at the end of May during which we will organize the 2nd experience exchange workshop. See your email for the link to the poll and please pick those dates that suit your company!
Based on the two first Health Barometer rounds , we will most likely be suggesting organizing for development portfolio management as the topic; more on this soon, as we have discussed it with the both of the full members.
Also, the workshop is will this time be more “workshop-like”, with less listening-to-lecture-like
We will close the poll on 4.4. 12:00 and make the date decision based on the info at that time, so be sure to cast your votes in time!
Jarno
P.S.
In April we’ll be getting in touch with the follow-up members to organize their Health Checks as well; more on these as well as the process In the beginning of the next week. Now just a brief warning that those companies who can commit to suggested dates the fastest will be favoured in choosing the order in which these are conducted.
Agilefant Summer of Code 2008 (T-76.4115 & 5115 Software Project -intensive) is out! Check out the official announcement below for more information, and enroll to team@agilefant.org according to the instructions.
———
“Men are haunted by the vastness of the Internet. And so we ask ourselves: will our actions echo across the Cyberspace? Will strangers hear our names long after we’re gone … and wonder who we were … how bravely we envisioned … and how fiercely we programmed?”
- Anonymous
The objective of this Summer’s project - Agilefant 2008 ‘Spider’ - is to extend Agilefant’s capabilities in the area of recording & reporting spent effort for billing, cost accounting and learning purposes.
Based on our past work in the area, developing the proper functionality for these purposes – in a way integrates with and supports the developer’s daily work - is a common challenge in the Finnish Software Industry.
The project will be carried out as an intensive, full-time (*) version of the two-semester Software Project (T-76.4115 & 5115) Mon 19.5. – Wed 18.6., yielding 6 credits course. You’ll also have the chance to become a part of the Agilefant Development team in the employee of SoberIT.
The course will be arranged if we get a proper group of students to do the job. So, those who are interested, send your CV’s and OREKs (record of studies completed at TKK) to team@agilefant.org by the end of March.
Best regards,
Jarno Vähäniitty / The Agilefant Team
(*)
Q: Full-time? If I’m employed, can I participate?
A: Depends on yourself, and to some degree, on your employer. You must be ready to put in the necessary effort to get the credits in such a way that it contributes cost-efficiently to the entire team’s efforts. If you fail in this, you WILL fail the course regardless of the success of the rest of the team. Beyond this, we as the customer have no requirements.
——————-
P.S. A couple of more points on why you should take on this project. In Finnish, to hopeflly decrease the Bull’s hit factor.
Tässä projektissa ei tuhraannu aikaa ‘hello worldin’ väsäämiseen, yleiseen arpomiseen, infran pystyttämiseen ja asiakkaan kouluttamiseen, vaan jo tehty työ sekä asiantunteva opastus asiakkaan puolelta mahdollistaa arvokkaan toiminnallisuuden rakentamisen iteraatio kerrallaan heti ensimmäisestä viikosta alkaen.
Agilefantia kesän ohjelmatyössä edistävä ryhmä saa:
* ainutlaatuisen tilaisuuden suorittaa eräs TKK:n opettavaisimpia sekä työläimpiä kursseja täyspäiväisenä intensiivinä, varsinaisten lukukausien ulkopuolella
* tilaisuuden kehittää nichensä johtavaa open source –softaa järkevästi, viimeisimpiä ohjelmointikäytäntöjä, laadunvarmistusmenetelmiä ja johtamisen malleja soveltaen ja hyödyntäen
* työstää bittejä kuumista hoteimmilla teknologioilla
* kullanarvoista kokemusta aidosta ketterästä softakehityksestä
* mittaamattoman arvokasta näkemystä softakehityksen kustannusten kohdistamisen problematiikasta – sekä ratkaisuista
* asiallista ja rentoa meininkiä suomalaisen akateemisten ohjelmistotuotannon johtavien asiantuntijoiden seurassa
* työn tuloksista aidosti kiinnostuneen & projektiin 110%:sti sitoutuneen asiakastiimin (vrt. “kiireiset bisnesmiehet”)
* oman, persoonallisesti sisustetun “Motor Homen” SoberIT:ltä sekä riittävästi tietokoneinfraa töiden tukemiseen
* sisäpiirin vinkkejä ohjelmatyökurssilla menestymiseen
* kontakteja ja palautetta laajasta yritysverkostosta, joka SoberIT:n SPRG-tutkimusryhmän projektien kautta on osallisena Agilefantin ideoinnissa, kehittämisessä ja käytössä
* sekä Agilefantiin että ketterään softakehitykseen ja laadunvarmistukseen perehtyneen, teollisen softakehityksen liemissä(kin) kovaksi keitetyn mentorin
* paikan historian lehdiltä tulevan softatekemisten hallinnan de-facto –standardityökalun kehitystyöhön osallistuneena avainhenkilönä
* luontevan polun päästä Suomen johtavan softaprosessien tutkimusryhmän jäseneksi omia opinnäytetöitä (kandi/di/lisuri/väitös) ajatellen
The final, award-winning (*) version the of Agilefant 2008 Maranello software project course (1.3.5) has been released. You can get it it from the Downloads section of Agilefant.org.
(*) Check the previous posts…
In Finnish:
Verso Open Source Business Programmen seminaaripäivien materiaalit on koottu kirjaksi, joka on vapaasti ladattavissa tältä sivulta. Lisäksi kirjaa jaetaan painettuna versiona ohjelmaan osallistuneille.
Kirja sisältää avoimen lähdekoodin avulla kasvuun ja kansainväliseen liiketoimintaan pyrkivän pk-yrityksen kannalta keskeistä tietoa.
In english: check this out if interested in how an SME can leverage open source for business purposes.
We haven’t yet inspected the contents, but will look into it. Comment if you have already some insights regarding the book’s contents.
Dowload the book at:
http://coss2.planeetta.com/doc/verso_osbp_workbook.pdf
Just in: Agilefant Maranello has won the Accenture Quality Award for 2008! More info as we get our act together from all the excitement.
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