HL Arledge

Learn Scrum for a mere $2,200.00 plus airfare to Sweden

Take a look at this...

 

Scrum Leadership Summit
When? October 20 - 22
Where? Stockholm, Sweden
How Much? $2,200 (USD)

 

 

 

More Information:
http://www.scrumalliance.org/events/6--stockholm-scrum-gathering

This will be the first time that both Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland will be together at a Scrum Gathering and on a panel to take on all questions. Space is limited so if you can make it to Stockholm we suggest you register early.

Ken and Jeff are great guys, and the Scrum world owes them much.

In fact, I would love to go there and speak with them myself.

...but if your goal is only to understand Scrum, buy their books instead—and then get to work delivering.

Scrum is not a difficult tool to use, and it is extremely fast to learn, but your time and resources must be spent doing.

There really isn't that much to learn once you understand the basic problems you are trying to solve.

Of course, this doesn't mean you shouldn't go to Sweden anyway. Just find something better to see than a conference hall.

Agile and Lean really Hipopalorum and Lopopahirum

In his blog this week, Martin Fowler attempts to explain away the misconceptions that "lean" and "agile" software practices are two different methodologies. I wanted to add that the idea that these were different came from consultants who are trying to convince you that the differences are so complicated that you need a consultant to succeed.

Whether your talking about Extreme Programming, Scrum, Lean, or Agile, you are really talking about tools that follow the same basic practices and understandings that make these all work.

As I explained in my guest post at Management Craft, you are talking about common sense.

Agile practices work well in Software Development, but if you boil them down to their basic common denominators, you are talking about something that can work for anyone—without consultant hand-holding.

Being a history buff, this whole Lean versus Agile debate reminds me of something Senator Huey Long used to joke about in the 1930s.

There were two patented arthritis medicines on the market, one was called Hipopalorum and the other was Lopopahirum.

One you rubbed on your body from bottom to top and the other you rubbed on your body from top to bottom. The ingredients of the product were exactly the same. They were just being promoted by different salesman.

This is not unlike the different business consultants that confront us today.

Anyway, just to finish the story...

Long—aka "the Kingfish"—had been elected Louisiana governor, then United States Senator, and he announced his candidacy for President of the United States in 1935.

Most of his speeches compared our political parties to Hipopalorum and Lopopahirum—and their product vendors.

"The only difference between the two parties is one skins us from the top down and the other skins us from the bottom up."

Huey Long was assassinated in September of 1935.

This is the funniest Scrum thing I've ever heard

The following is from the agenda for the Agile 2008 Conference.

It describes one of the classes they offer...

"Come to this tutorial if you are an Agile coach or a Scrum Master and want to let your teams self-organize. They just don’t become self-organizing on their own."

For a mere $1,999.00, you can attend this conference and find out how to organize your self-organizing team.

Give me a break!

Scrum is common sense.

Attend one Scrum class if you need to—I do have two Scrum certifications—but once you understand the fundamentals of what works and what doesn't, move on, and get the job done.

Unless you're just looking for a tax write-off, stop wasting company money on consultants and conferences.

Once you understand the basics of creating a perpetual team—be it Agile, Scrum, Six Sigma, or Super Process Come Lately—there is simply nothing else to learn.

Get out there and make it happen.

Jack Welch remembers Tim Russert

On the news last night, I caught some folks trampling the memory of the late Tim Russert.

It frustrates me how low some will stoop.

Here's what Leadership Guru Jack Welch says about Tim...

He was a colleague and friend who was loved by everyone he touched.  My last encounter with Tim was a month ago, and it typifies everything about him.  I called to ask him to speak at a Boston charity.  Although I was long-retired and someone who could do nothing for him, he didn’t say, “Let me look at my calendar.” He said, “Tell me where and when.”

Why can't doctors afford software?

Did you see this report?

"Electronic health records, touted by the government as a way to reduce medical costs, are used by few doctors in the U.S. because they are too expensive for their practices, a Harvard University survey found.

The poll, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that just 4 percent of doctors use software that includes electronic prescriptions and drug-interaction warnings.

A larger group, 13 percent, opted for more basic software that only allowed them to enter notes and medical histories. Those who use the computer systems said they helped improve patient care."

Using computer records to lower cost and eliminate inefficiency has been a recurring theme among both major U.S. presidential candidates this year, and last week, the federal government offered $150 million in grants to promote use of electronic records among 1,200 doctors in 12 communities.

Perhaps, we should collect a fund—or maybe hold a telethon—to help starving doctors buy software and welcome them into the 21st century?

Everyone knows, they're not paid enough, and they are oh-so helpful when we visit.

This reminds me of a quote from Comedian Chris Rock...

"The last thing doctors cured was Polio, and that was back in the first season of I Love Lucy ...That's because when they cure you, they stop making money off you ...I've been watching the Jerry Lewis Telethon for more than 20 years now. Not one stitch of progress whatsoever. "

Full Moon has customers and staff howling

It's only Wednesday, but this week has been crazy.

Murphy's Law is everywhere, and folks are panicking over the smallest things. My usually successful requests for patience and rationality seem to have fallen on deaf ears.

I was scratching my head, wondering what was going on, when someone said...

"It must be the full moon."

And I knew they were correct.

Hear me out. That was not one of my usual tongue-in-cheek statements.

I wasn't kidding.

MySpace finally listened to me

After my many posts as well as others regarding the fallacies of building enterprise-level applications using ColdFusion and BlueDragon, rumor has it that MySpace has finally dumped them entirely.

Last year, the pulled sections of the flawed application, replacing it with a .Net application, announcing...

"...we wrote a custom configuration section that maps fuseaction URL parameters to ASPX extensions so that we'd maintain link integrity. The only place we aren't doing this is 'Browse' and certain other new features.

Meanwhile, the parts of the site that are running in Cold Fusion (CFML) are essentially doing so in ASP.NET 2.0 (via Blue Dragon)."

MySpace announced today that the all-new MySpace 2.0 will go online next Wednesday, but they are keeping hush-hush regarding the technologies they replaced and with what.

Most likely, their completely ASP.Net now, but we'll know more after Wednesday.

This blog did not make the Top 100

HR World released their annual list of Top 100 Leadership Blogs. 

No, this humble blog did not make its ranks.

However, Author Lisa Haneberg's popular blog, Management Craft did make the list.

...and guess who's sitting in for her today.

Game developers embrace Scrum

In an interview this week, Relic General Manager Tarrnie Williams tells Will Wright that Scrum is the most widely used management methodology for game programming.

"We use Scrum.

That’s the way we manage our projects and we really like it. We’re big fans.

We’ve done our last three productions with it; Company of Heroes was done with it.

We transitioned midway through Dark Crusade, Soulstorm—although it was an external project. Certainly our end game was done that way.

Opposing Fronts and Dawn of War II were also done with Scrum.

Those projects have been finished on time, on budget with little or no overtime."

Eventually, it seems, all development teams everywhere will be Scrum shops, as those who Scrum are consistently out producing those who do not.

As more and more teams outside of software development begin to understand why Scrum works, the same will be true of other industries.

I don't expect all industries to endorse Scrum itself, but once they understand the problems that this tool solves for them, these industries will likely adopt other Perpetual Team methodologies.

If they do not, they will likely lose their businesses to those who do.

Every Sherlock needs a Watson

No matter how brilliant those on your team are, they will fail without someone on the team accepting a "doctor" role—identifying and removing each team-player's pains—all obstacles to their success.

Kevin said to me last week...

"At first, I was a little concerned about these monthly one-on-ones you have with your staff. I thought having an open-door policy was enough. If someone had something to say, they would let management know. We shouldn't have to ask.

However, considering the good our new break room has brought, I've changed my mind. Maybe one-on-ones do improve communication. Maybe they are not a waste of time after all."

If everyone had outgoing personalities, Kevin's original perspective would have been dead on. The problem lies with those folks who keep their pains to themselves.

Those pains will eventually hurt enough to prompt them to look for another job—or to share the pain only with peers, causing a decrease in team morale.

If a manager identifies the pains early, he make me able to correct the problem, and that person will continue to support the team.