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Thursday, 27 August 2009

Case Study: Fully Distributed Scrum

Fully Distributed Scrum - Agile2009, Schoonheim & Sutherland, Xebia India TBD case | Xebia Blog

Guido Schoonheim shares a case study about "fully distributed scrum". The study describes a project which involved 200 developers, located in India and the Netherlands. You can find the slides at the end of the article, interesting read.

"What is Fully Distributed Scrum?

Offshoring classically is performed in a waterfall process fashion, meaning that one party writes specifications and chucks them over the wall to the other party who then chucks a software product back after a period of time. When evolved to Agile software development, this is the last thing you want to do. However you do need to deal with the distance between your local staff and your talent in an offshore location.

The only way to get the benefits of both Agile development (hyperproductivity with high quality and motivated people) and the benefits of offshoring (lower costs, availability of talent, up/downscaling with no risk) is to apply Agile to the offshoring dilemma. Xebia has made this the core practice and differentiator of our offshored development"

Wednesday, 26 August 2009

SCRUM training: games and exercises

The Agile Playground | Agile 2009

Tobias Mayer shared some games and exercises at the Agile Conference 2009 which aim at providing a deeper understanding of agile dynamics and principles. Maybe something useful for your next SCRUM workshop?

Saturday, 8 August 2009

agile best practices | offshore best practices | distributed Scrum

Ignite Outsourcing :: Israeli Scrum conference | agile best practices | offshore best practices | distributed Scrum methodology

When Scrum was first conceived, back in 2001, distributed software development and global teams where not as common as they are today. In this lecture, Aviram Eisenberg elaborates the main contradictions between Agile best practices and offshore best practices, and how can they be combined to create a successful distributed Scrum development methodology

Friday, 19 June 2009

Coconut Revolution (Bougainville: Our Island, Our Fight)

This is an incredible modern-day story of a native peoples' victory over Western globalization.

Sick of seeing their environment ruined and their people exploited by the Panguna Mine, the Pacific island of Bougainville rose up against the giant mining corporation, Rio Tinto Zinc. The newly formed Bougainville Revolutionary Army began fighting with bows and arrows and sticks and stones against a heavily armed adversary. In an attempt to put down the rebellion the Papua New Guinean Army swiftly established a gunboat blockade around the island.
But with no shipments allowed in or out, how did new electricity networks spring up on the island? And how were the people of Bougainville able to drive around the island without any source of petrol or diesel?

Watch as the world's first eco-revolution unfolds within the blockade. A David and Goliath story for the 21st century. A multi-award winning documentary

Tuesday, 16 June 2009

Beyond Test Driven Development: Behaviour Driven Development

Google TechTalks March 17, 2006 Dave Astels Dave Astels (co-author of "A Practical Guide to eXtreme Programming" and author of Jolt Award winning "Test-driven Development: A Practical Guide") has over 2 decades of experience in the software field, most of that involved with object-oriented technologies and techniques. Dave has been studying, practicing, teaching, evangelising, and coaching XP and Agile Processes since 1998. Dave's experience ranges from embedded process control systems to consumer products (both consumer electronics and shrinkwrapped software) to energy trading systems. Dave is an independant software consultant specializing in the areas of agile process, programming practices, and object design/architecture. Dave is one of the thought leaders in the area of TDD, and now BDD. ABSTRACT Test Driven Development (TDD) has become quite well known. Many developers are getting benefit from the practice. But it is possible that we can get even more value. A new practice is getting attention these days: Behaviour Driven Development (BDD). BDD removes all vestiges of testing and instead focuses on specifying the behaviour desired in the system being built. This talk will be focus on Ruby and will introduce a new BDD framework: rSpec. The ideas, however, are language independent.

Monday, 15 June 2009

The Brain that changes itself

Amazing video about the capacity of the brain to "rewire" itself. The player is quite simply shite, but it is definitely worth watching. You can find the video here.

Monday, 8 June 2009

How Pirates Shook European Politics

With 7.1 percent of the vote, the Swedish Pirate Party has shocked its critics and secured a seat in the European Parliament. The Pirates received more votes from those under 30 than any other party in the European elections yesterday, and this was celebrated with pints of rum and loads of pirate chants.

Tuesday, 26 May 2009

"Intellectual property is dead" by Eric von Hippel, Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management (2007)

EndOfIntellectualProperty < Main < Reprap

"The whole concept of intellectual property is only stable when copying is difficult and legal penalties mean significant losses for those who would copy. Make copying easy and undetectable (as computers have for music) and the very idea of intellectual property starts to fade.

But creativity doesn't fade with it. There is now an outpouring of music all over the whole world unmatched since that in late eighteenth century Vienna. This is happening because the same technology that is eliminating music copyright allows anyone to make music and to try to find an audience for it. Most musicians don't compose because they have rationally calculated that it is a good way to get rich, they compose because they are driven by an inner compulsion. And an inner compulsion is exactly what you'd expect from an evolutionarily-selected mating trait."

I recommend reading the entire article...

Thursday, 15 January 2009

Consumer Warfare

How to deal with unwelcome mail and telephone solitications

Sunday, 4 January 2009

The Gamer's Bill of Rights

The Gamer's Bill of Rights | Edge Online

# Gamers shall have the right to return games that don't work with their computers for a full refund.
# Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.
# Gamers shall have the right to expect meaningful updates after a game's release.
# Gamers shall have the right to demand that download managers and updaters not force themselves to run or be forced to load in order to play a game.
# Gamers shall have the right to expect that the minimum requirements for a game will mean that the game will adequately play on that computer.
# Gamers shall have the right to expect that games won't install hidden drivers or other potentially harmful software without their express consent.
# Gamers shall have the right to re-download the latest versions of the games they own at any time.
# Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers.
# Gamers shall have the right to demand that a single-player game not force them to be connected to the Internet every time they wish to play.
# Gamers shall have the right that games which are installed to the hard drive shall not require a CD/DVD to remain in the drive to play.

Sunday, 30 November 2008

50 Things Everyone Should Know How To Do

50 Things Everyone Should Know How To Do | Marc and Angel Hack Life

Knowledge is PowerSelf-reliance is a vital key to living a healthy, productive life. To be self-reliant one must master a basic set of skills, more or less making them a jack of all trades. Contrary to what you may have learned in school, a jack of all trades is far more equipped to deal with life than a specialized master of only one.

While not totally comprehensive, here is a list of 50 things everyone should know how to do.

Tuesday, 25 November 2008

Elephant Self Portrait

StumbleVideo - Elephant Self Portrait from That Happened!

Thursday, 20 November 2008

DVICE: 10 best ideas for greening your home that you've never heard of

A lot of environmentally friendly home renovations have emerged in the last couple of years, and they're easier to implement than ever before. Even better, lots of them look sexier, too. Follow the Continue jump below to read about the 10 newest green renovations you could be seeing in your home or your neighbor's soon

Friday, 7 November 2008

100 free Business Courses

Brain Trust: 100 Ivy League Business & Entrepreneurship Courses You Can Take for Free | BSchool.com Business Schools Directory

Whether you decide to take these courses on your own time or just skim through the information, we’ve compiled a list of 100 places to start looking for great business and entrepreneurship information.