I like Scrum. I like small releases. I like iterative processes. I like breaking things down into smaller things, that in the end are quite easy to estimate. I like the fact the planning poker pushes us to talk about assumptions and therefore makes us design before we code, instead of design while we code. I've worked in agile processes before Scrum became famous (to me ;-)), just because it felt good in my belly, and that's often all I need to be able to do my work well.

But, there are some things about Scrum that sometimes makes me feel eerie:

First, Scrum is too much a buzzword
Scrum is sometimes more a buzzword than something that is practically used. That's indicated to me when I talk to software developers I know here and there. "We sold the projects as Scrum [because it's the buzz], we call it Scrum [because it's the buzz], but it's really not... [sad look in eye, because Scrum is the buzz]". The project team might struggle to keep Scrum in their project, but because it's not implemented correctly (due to lack of real commitment from management / customer), they end up with a lesser process. In the end the product will suffer.

Second, Pro-Scrum people seems to think that Scrum is the only process in which you can conduct quality software development
I've talked with pro-Scrum people who tried to explain the advantages of Scrum to me. Sort of preaching to the choir, I'd say. However, when I explained about the project setup I was once working in, and that the customer didn't have the agility in their organization and a technical setup that could support the Scrum process, they adviced me to try to sell it in anyways. Ok ok, fair enough and a good idea, I thought. A couple of weeks later, they went on about it again, and I tried to explain again, that the customer couldn't and didn't have it in his priorities to change into Scrum-projects. But it didn't really sink in to these pro-Scrum people - I could see, that they really didn't buy in (or listen) to my arguments. I just got "But it's the best, you've got to! You've got to!", followed by that crazy/orgasmic look in their eyes, that gives me the chills rather than the hots. To me, a process shouldn't become a religion and blur your mind from choosing a process, that really fits the setup. Bop bop... 

Third, no one's realizing that Scrum is often not applicable
Let's say that both management and customers want to commit to Scrum. To have a "true" Scrum project there are some prerequisites, that needs to be fulfilled. First, you need to have a Scrum master and a team that knows and can see the advantages in doing Scrum. Everyone in the producing team must sign up for it, and it's not enough to have the titles in place(!). No, it's not. But even if the project team do recognize the benefits, realize that you just don't have a Scrum project, if the customer doesn't want og cannot sign up for Scrum. Or maybe they can, but don't have the capacity in their organization to support the Scrum Customer-role and to keep up with the short cycles and many releases that Scrum introduces. It's a fair insight. If so, it's not really Scrum. Don't think that you can survive by letting your project manager fake the customer role and do "pseudo-Scrum", while the real customer continues to take showers in the "waterfall" process. It will lead to a shaky incompatible process or maybe no process at all.

Forth, people do pseudo-Scrum anyways
Please, don't.

Let me hear your comments ... :-)

Over time I have created accounts on several places, where I produce content for family, friends and others to see. I tweet on Twitter, I produce blog postings and I upload picturs of things, I find interesting on Flickr - just to mention some things. For every account, or should I say information source, there's a RSS feed.

Today, I'm starting out with an experiment. People don't have to look any more to find that exact RSS feed to keep themselves updated with my wierd movies or ramblings on Twitter (not that I could possibly think why people want to that, but... ): Instead they can use my new master RSS feed.

The master RSS feed contains the combined content of all sub-sources, which are: Twitter, my blog (the one you're reading right now), my mobile broadband user blog and associated Twitter account, Flicker, Youtube and delicious.

Check out the master RSS feed here.

The master RSS feed has been made by a combination of Google Feedburner and Yahoo Pipes.

... can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/christerdk/

Beware, the photostream may contains very silly pictures of yours truly :-)

Some images have comments, others rely on you to comment.

Cheers!

My mobile broadband posts have now been moved to this blog: http://www.mobilebroadbanduser.eu/

The existing blog posts in this site are still active but will gradually removed. Please update your bookmarks and your rss feeds.

Cheers!

 

I have had a rather long e-mail correspondance with a friend lately, that started from my initiatives on my "information diet". But, in one mail he wrote something that had me thinking for a couple of extra days, before I could answer. With permission, I hereby present you his observation:

An interesting observation with regards to IT is that I always think that IT-departments are very stressful. I work a lot with projects and it's always the IT projects that are the most stressed. And this in spite of the fact that IT projects are extremely structured through lots of models and methods. I've talked several times with my colleagues in the IT department and tried to understand why they're always running behind with their deliveries.  It seems that it is often the result of high pressure from the "customers" and then they give in and promise too much. Sometimes they don't even believe in the project plans right from the beginning. I think that's a very dangerous behaviour. I think that a lot of IT departments would be better off if they held back a little...

He really hit the spot, didn't he? Any comments?

Just a small personal comment on Seth Godin's blog entry about the three kinds of meeting. I agree on the three meeting types mentioned...

1. Information.
2. Discussion.
3. Permisson.

Very good distinctions ... but I'd like to see one more meeting type on the list:

4. Saying "I'm sorry" and explaining. This meeting occurs after you have taken initiative with the purpose of doing something good for your company, with reasonable risk, without permission - and unfortunately failed. The other party is normally the person(s) that could have said no to your initiative - or worse, have said yes but delayed it indefinitely.

As many bright ideas and initiatives are killed by Dr. Doom types less than 5 minutes after they're born, I suggest to aim for more type 4 meetings than type 3 meeting... no?

This is a continuation of my previous previous blog posting, where I explained the two first steps in my new "information diet".

Before I start, I have to say that the effect of the previous steps are more positive than I imagined. Dispite the fact that I only check mail two times a day now, there's been no incidents, where a quicker mail response would have been needed. This only proves my assumption that the necessity of being always-on always-available mail is actually quite artificial and really doesn't give us anything but a more fragmented work day.

Step 3 - Making my private inbox more light
I use gmail as my preferred e-mail application. From now on, everything that comes into my mailbox is directed directly to the Archive - except when the mail is from very very important persons. That way, the e-mail works for me, and the Gmail notifier notifies me only when these people write to me. This is a bit contrary to my business mail where I have no notification, but I choose to have it like this for now - mostly because I don't get that many mails from these people.

Step 4 - No news (at all)
I haven't seen or read any news for close to a week now. Not in the TV, not on the web. Nothing! Nada! The idea of this experiment basically to shut down all news input just to find out if too much time is spent on reading news with no real relevance. (Is this post relevant for you to read?) I'll continue the experiement for a whole week. After the initial week, I'll decide what news channels I'll pick up again.

Have you done something like this "information diet"? Leave me a comment and tell me about it!

Cheers!

Two weeks ago I decided that it was time for me for an information diet. I've started with these first two steps:

Step 1 - Business e-mail:
I implemented an information diet on my business e-mail two weeks ago. I now only check my e-mail at 11 and 16 every day. Everyone who sends me an e-mail will get an automated reply e-mail, which explains this new e-mail schedule and also gives my mobile number in case of (real) emergencies. Although people often are convinced of the opposite, there's never really an issue, that requires action immediately and cannot wait 4 hours. I have had many experiences, both at my current job at Cybercom and when I had my own Kompany, that confirms this.

The effect: Normally I get between 20-30 e-mails, whereof maybe 2-4 are of importance and requires some action on my behalf. The others are about trivial stuff in mass mails like when people are leaving the office that day, are being sick or coming in late. People that do work in my department, but whom I'm often not really depedent of. Instead of 20-30 interruptions a day, I now have 2X15 min of mail check everyday, and a lot more time to be effective.

One of our customers promptly wrote me a reply to the automated e-mail and congratulated me on the idea:

"Wow, that sounds reasonable!
I try to accomplish the same sometimes. ;-).
If not, I spend the whole day answering mails."

I hoped for such a velcome, but it was unexpected! Actually the most fuzz I've gotten are from colleagues, who gives me friendly comments about me being "Mr. Important" :-) But it's not about that, it's about being able to work concentrated in the information business, and not being interrupted by unimportant noise.

Step 2 - Facebook:
I've sent an e-mail to all my friends on Facebook today, stating that my attendance there will be less in the future. I like Facebook for the pictures and how it allows me to keep in touch with new and old friends, but I don't like how it positions itself as a instant messaging media: facebook e-mails, status comments and chat messages are being exchanged as if i'm on Facebook constantly ("I'm home now", "Are you coming over"?). There's two instant medias for me: my e-mail (I won't write it here, but it the easiest to guess) and MSN messenger.

I will continue to use Facebook, but more or less on a bi-weekly basis.

Effect: Not sure yet.

More steps to come... :-)

I experienced something rather cool this sunday. I finished reading Devil May Care, the new James Bond book, and did it while listening to a "sound track"!

Soma FM has a channel called Secret Agent (direct wma or see other types of media). It oozes "stylish, mysterious, dangerous" (and martinis) and it's simply brilliant as background music for spy books such as Devil May Care.

I was lucky to have the channel build up suspense in the music as I was coming towards the end of the book. Music from movies such as Mission Impossible, television series such as The Man From Uncle and great artists such as Henry Mancini was floating out of my speakers all rainy sunday afternoon. Quite the ultimate 007 experience ;-)

I urge you to have this channel in the background the next time you read a thriller - or at any other time in your life, because this is truly a channel that could potentially become the soundtrack of your life...

Oh, and just wait until the first sound bites comes along:
Some evil guy: "Do you know anything about alligators, Mr. Bond?"
Bond: "No, but I always try to keep them at arms length..."

Great!

 

And hey, remember to support the channel. Secret Agent and other channels are good and in high quality. They deserve the support!

I was at my sisters place this thursday. Her computer was acting all wierd. She had also started to have problems on Facebook a few days ago where the dynamic interface functions of Facebook suddenly began to throw errors... (javascript errors)

The word on the street is that a new kind of Facebook virus is out there to get us. I don't really know any details on that. My sister, however, had been searching the net, and from the huge result set of sites about "Facebook virus", she was getting a bit nervous.

We tried three different virus / trojan cleaners, but none of these reported about any installed virus og trojan. Then it struck me that it could be something with her settings. The following change of settings is a classic within the web developer community, because it enables a developer to see the last change he/she made properly.

In Internet Explorer, go to

Tools -> Internet Options and click Settings under "Temporary Internet Files". Here you check "Every visit to the page". Click OK twice.

The default setting is "Automatically". I'm not sure about what algorithm that is behind "Automatically", but basically it all comes down to how and when to use cached items on your laptop instead of downloading them from the web page in question.

After doing this change my sisters problems with Facebook were gone.

PS. The computer acting wierd and her problems with Facebook had nothing to do with each other. But that's a different posting...