goodagile

goodagile is the most active organization imparting Scrum training, CSM courses and Scrum coaching through out Asia and particularly Asia. The firm has been founded by Pete Deemer.

You can view the upcoming courses on the website.

If you would like to discuss Scrum coaching/ training for your organization, you call email Pete directly at petedeemer@goodagile.com

P.S. I work with Pete assisting him for Scrum trainings across India.

CSM Course - Day 2 Review

Wow! what an exciting day. The CSM course at Bangalore [or Bengaluru] saw participation from employees of Siemens, Chordiant, Nokia and Accenture along with many others,. The group comprised mostly of senior managers and hence, we saw focus more on issues like metrics, measuring productivity and quality.

The day started with my session. I took exactly 35 minutes to wrap up my session. And it went really well. If first day was 5/10, next would be 9/10 easily. I felt confident and flowing. I narrated stories and situations rather than just some theory mumbo jumbo and when done felt ever so confident. Through out the day I helped conduct planning poker and other games. We shared a wonderful Lunch.

And at the end, got a number of Linked In contacts and business cards :)

Great going and excited to go back to Chandigarh to tell my colleagues about the course and the experience.

CSM Course - Day 1 Review

The day 1 of CSM [Certified Scrum Master] course has ended. The course was conducted at ISTA Hotel, Bangalore. I was to reach the venue at 8 AM and reached there only at 8:45 AM - thanks partly to Bangalore’s notorious traffic as well as no one in area knowing where the hotel was located. When I finally did reach there, I was almost terrified of facing Pete [well I did not have his phone number of hotels phone number handy - mental note, do it next time around]. However, he was genuinely concerned if I would make it or had I got stuck. After a cup of tea, he explained me my role.

We set up the course room well enough. Two wonderful hotel attendants helped us for that. I organized the training attendance and labels and waited for attendees to come. Once they were there, I explained them purpose of the course as well as showed them various things they could do before the course commenced - provide feedforward on what topics they would like covered in more detail, check out washrooms and whether there would be tea breaks etal. This helped me get a personal rapport with most attendees [but not all :p]. We started the course at 10 AM sharp. After I introduced myself, I immediately went to organize the first tea at 11:15 PM as well as help attendees who had not yet signed in. I pitched in on two occasions till Lunch and after Lunch almost entirely spent practising my session. My session started at 5 PM and till 5:45 PM, I covered potentially shippable code. I did a pretty lousy job of it with only some good things in between. And worse of all, I could not complete my section and Pete had to schedule part of it for tomorrow.

After the first day, I and Pete sat down for drinks and he explained me what I did well. And he had a pretty long list of things. He also told me things I could try tomorrow. Throught out I felt, he was not judging me but just helping me do better. This was very encouraging. I went back to my room and thought over things. I gave up all practice and just went ahead to get a good night sleep. Afterall, tomorrow is another day.

CSM Course Assistance at Bangalore

I will be assisting Pete Deemer with the conduct of CSM Course in Bangalore from December 19-20. I will do work like help manage attendance, breaks and organize hands on trainings. In addition I will conduct a small 1 hour module on potentially shippable code as well. Its going to be my first time in Bangalore and second time at a CSM course. Am I excited? Well yeah! However, anxiety is more the over-riding emotion at this stage. Pete is a tremendous presenter - thorough yet engaging, and there is never a dull moment in his course. It would be a good exposure and learning experience. Lets see how it goes.

Agile Manifesto - Values

As discussed in the previous posts on potentially shippable code, its not just the iterative and incremental development that sets Agile apart from other development frameworks. In part it is its focus on getting to potentially shippable code at the end of each sprint but also the values it emphasizes. These values are best captured in what is called Agile Manifesto. The signatories of the manifesto include Kent Beck [creator of jUnit and originator of concept of Design Patterns], Martin Fowler [originator of the concept of Refactoring], Dave Thomas [wrote the landmark book on Agile Development with Rails], Ken Schwaber [co-founder of SCRUM] and Brian Marick [world renowned testing expert]. Agile Manifesto states that:

We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:

  • Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
  • Working software over comprehensive documentation
  • Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
  • Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.

The principles behind Agile Manifesto were as follows:

  • Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous deliveryof valuable software.
  • Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.
  • Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
  • Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
  • The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
  • Working software is the primary measure of progress.
  • Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
  • Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
  • Simplicity–the art of maximizing the amount of work not done–is essential.
  • The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
  • At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.
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