Ján Masaryk, Zavádzanie Agile vo veľkej spoločnosti

http://prezi.com/0baa8ihqqexs/zavadzanie-agile-v-korporacii/

IT companies apply agile principles and methods to intensify the speed of delivery and its cadence while increasing business value delivered to customers.

But can be agile implemented in non-IT company as well?  The answer is yes. Agile is about principles, not technologies. It comes from industry and it has been adopted to IT.  Now, after more than 10 years of adoption of agile in IT, the other industries can learn from gains gained in this adoption.

OpenAgile is an agile framework that brings Scrum similar approaches not just to sales teams. It is open learning system that focuses on delivering the best business value to customers. It is based on truthfulness and systematic learning. It is created to help any team that needs to be organized, effective, and high-quality. In the tradition of open source, OpenAgile is freely available to all. Anyone can learn about it, use it, and then contribute back to it.

More about principles is written in OpenAgile Primer.

James Heidema, director of OpenAgile Centre for Learnig, explains OpenAgile on May 10th in Bratislava. James is an author of bestsellers The Passionate Manager & The Passionate Sales Manager. James trained thousands of people in business.

Come to 1 day workshop lead by James to learn how to engage your teams.

When: May 10th, 2013

Where: Bratislava, Slovakia

Price: 250 Euro

The next event in our Become Agile Leader serie is certification of product owners that will be provided by Robin Dymond.

The course will be held in Bratislava (Slovakia) on May 7-8th.

Registration is here.

About course

In this two-day class we cover your role in creating a successful product using Scrum. The Product Owner creates the product vision, sets the product goal and leads the effort to transform the vision into a successful product. The Product Owner steers and guides the Scrum team, bridges the gap between customers, business and development, and is responsible for reaching the product goal and return on investment (ROI).

Through simulations and exercises, you will learn how you can leverage Scrum to optimize value creation and customer satisfaction. You will learn how to create a product vision, create and manage the product backlog, prioritize the product backlog, create a realistic release plan, and progressively refine requirements. As a Product Owner your responsibility is to ensure value is delivered early and often. How do you make this happen? This course will also teach you the mindset to support, advocate and implement incremental delivery into production. Scrum transforms the way work gets done, and the Product Owner plays a key role in transforming the business to support regular delivery of value to your customers.

The agenda

The Course Agenda is determined in part by the class.

Topics may include:

• Agile Principles
• What is Scrum?
• Product Owner Role and Responsibilities
• Business Case to Product Backlog

o   A Product Owner Simulation

• User Stories and Acceptance Criteria
• User Story Mapping
• Paper Prototyping
• Prioritization Techniques

o   Hedgehog concept

o   Purpose alignment model

o   Real options

o   The Letters: An exercise in using objective data

• Estimating and planning

o   Release planning

• Organization & Delivery Models

o   Scaling for large product organizations

o   Off shore and distributed development

• Getting to Done

Parking Lot

As product owner you often need to have an overview what is happening to your backlog.  Parking lot (suggested by Mike Cohn) provides very usable overview not just about themes.

The version 5.7.31 brings additional filters based on releases and sprints.

Release overview in Parking Lot:

Sprint overview in Parking Lot:

Stories overview

Do you need to know where is all the effort spread in your backlog? Pie chart Stories overview now shows story points distribution by themes and by tags.

Stories in release

Do you need to see all stories that are planned for a release? Now you do not need to select sprint to see them. Just choose <Any sprint> in sprints combo box.

Fixes

• Assigning story to unassigned release didn’t work in all cases.
• Tags were not filtered by free text entered in Quick Filter edit box.

Today’s release contains more than 20 improvements we focused on. The main goal was to improve editing of stories, planning and provide better visibility of your  Kanban boards.

Swimlines in Kanban board

Swimlines in Kanban board brings visibility in complex backlogs. Button  displays menu from which user can choose based on what story attribute the swimlines should be created.

For example:

• Assigned – stories will be groupped based on team member who is assigned
• Story – will make stories more visible and separate visually tasks
• Status – visually distinguish which stories are completed already
• No swimlines command hides swimlines

But there are more: Status, Type, Tags, Release, Sprint, Theme, Business Value, Risk, Moscow, Satisfaction, card color and all custom fields.

Menu

We slightly changed the layout of main menu to make clean and moved commands supporting work with stories into separate backlog toolbar.

Project logo & selection

1. Logo and name of the current project (see ScrumDesk on the picture above)  is separated from login name and it has been  moved to the left side of menu.
2. Click on the name to display project details page.
3. Click on small arrow to display the list of all projects accessible by you.

User details

Information about current user are still available on the right side of top menu. Small arrow displays Login dialog. Click on the name of user displays popup with all user details that were available in SideView window in previous versions.

Backlog toolbar

Menu items related to backlog were moved to separate toolbar located above stories board so they are better accessible.

Toolbar allows to

• auto layout cards,
• add new card,
• delete card,
• change its color,
• open window with all details,
• refresh view,
• and switch board to different ways how to see the backlog.

Side View

SideView is now docked to the right side of ScrumDesk window. This panel is collapsible by click on small black bar.  

Some other improvements:

• Additional sort options in SideView/Project
• Less details on card of team member. All are available on mouse hover.
• Number of remaining days displayed in sprint overview panel
• Increased height of Tags chooser

Story details panel

Story details panel in SideView is new panel that provides easier access to story details without opening detail window.

It contains selected attributes, but in future versions we will provide others as well. All changes are saved immediately.

Panel is divided into more sections according to type of attributes.

Colored bar at the top indicates status of story. To change it you need just to click it and the menu appears.

Description and acceptance criteria edit lines will change the size to accommodate the content as much as possible.

Stories grid changes

Simplified access to story details directly from stories grid has been requested many times. The ID field is now split into two parts – color and ID.

Click on color rectangle displays popup with colors while click on ID displays story detail window.  Font size of texts in this grid has been increased to improve readability. The row number is indicated in row header now so users can find story faster.

Planning view

More of you asked to have more space in Planning view especially as Product owners work with stakeholders on future plans when more stories are necessary to be displayed.  As there were some information duplicated, sprint parts have been removed. Details of sprint are still accessible from combo boxes.

The new functionality is possibility to group stories into swim lines as in Kanban board. Swim lines can be configured by different attributes. Every group also displays the number of stories.

Other minor changes:

• Filter button on the board information panel.
• Sort by duration and rank (calculated based on risk, estimation and business value).
• Possibility to change the status of sprint from combo box.
• Indication how full sprint is comparing to given capacity.
• Releases and sprints are sorted in opposite direction. Older are at the bottom of lists.

Reports

Index cards document

The document Backlog (as stories card) has been renamed to Index Cards document. Except of this simple change there are new possibilities as well:

• possibility to choose any sprint or backlog,
• cards for all stories are created, not just cards, that should be done,
• card displays theme, tags and status,
• card displays colored bar on the left side based on  color of a card.

Release burn down chart

Release burn down chart shows only sprints that are related to given release.

This significantly improves visibility of predictions (how many sprints are necessary to complete the release).  Also, colors were lightened up so they are better visible on LCD.

Parking Lot

You missed an overview of your backlog from different perspectives. Parking Lot  now allows to display an overview based on themes, tags, person assigned and story type.

Coach is doctor now

The most visible change in module that helps teams to do scrum correctly is its new name. We decided to rename menu item to Diagnose as it is more clear what is an intent of this functionality.

We also added new rules:

• Rule Getting Things Done rule checks if team members work on one task at the same time so they are focused on finishing work.
• Rule Demo date before the end of sprint checks if sprint review meetings are scheduled appropriately.
• Rule Variable length of sprints checks if your team keep the cadence the same. Rule identifies sprints that are longer or shorter than default sprint length.

Other changes

• The last project is opened automatically.
• Tasks can have acceptance criteria as well.
• The latest releases are firsts in combo boxes.
• The latest sprints are firsts in combo boxes.
• Themes sorted alphabetically.
• Small task cards are not editable now to make drag & drop easier.
• Changes stories are indicated by red flag.
• Changes of the current user are displayed in Project/Latest activities page.
• Retrospective filter bars was not hidden if sprint tab has been activated.
• Fix: Can’t added tasks into new story created in project backlog stories grid view.

Bratislava, Slovakia
13 May 2013 (till 14 May 2013) 

Join our highly-interactive two-day class from the Agile Eastern Europe leader – Alexey Krivitsky.

Alexey has been mastering Scrum from 2004 as a ScrumMaster, an Agile Coach, and a Certified Scrum Trainer. Now he is a managing partner of SCRUMguides and Agile Eastern Europe Conference.

Register

Get ready for serious and exciting work!

Before the class you get a list of self-preparation materials including videos and articles that help you explore the current state of the Scrum framework. This also helps you start preparing for the online testing (mandatory for being qualified as a Certified ScrumMaster).

The class is designed to integrate people with different level of Scrum exposure and experience. It not only teaches the core concepts. It lets you practice the Agile mindset through a variety of workshops, exercices, and discussions guided by the experienced trainer.

Working in a cozy small group of students you will have a great opportunuty to discuss complex scenarios of Scrum adoption.

This will prepare you for stepping into the ScrumMaster / Agile Leader role in your organization.

You will have a wonderful opportunity to try the famous LEGO Scrum Simulation (translated now to 10+ languages), invented by Alexey back in 2009.

The class also covers advanced topics you can face in real-life projects:

• Setting up Scrum with Distributed / Offshore / Outsourced teams 
• Dealing with remote Product Owners 
• Including subject-matter experts and business analysts by visualizing the requirements pipeline 
• Integrating QA/testing activities in sprints 
• Combining Scrum with support and maintenance activities 
• Using Kanban with Scrum 

You will be exposed to modern thinking tools like Impact Mapping and User Story Mapping for helping your customers and Product Owners elaborate product ideas.

The class will exceed your expectations. It will energize and inspire you for experimenting with processes in order for riching levels of higher productivity, creativity, and fun at work.

PRICE

900 EURO – early bird, before March/31
1000 EURO – normal price

ScrumDesk partners and customers will get 5% discount

The latest version brings:

• [Fix] Previous values are reverted while editing stories or tasks.
• [Fix] Report Backlog Trend over time wasn’t calculated in case of missing history records.
• [New] Custom fields are exported into XLS format including appropriate field name for stories and tasks as well.
• [New] Custom fields are imported from CSV if they are stored.

ScrumDesk will offer an update once is started. The repository is not necessary to upgrade.

Few customers running ScrumDesk repository on servers in different timezone reported problems while editing stories or tasks in ScrumDesk. The values were not saved and previous values were reloaded from repository.

This behavior is fixed now thanks to collaboration with Andrea, Shane and Satiapriya.

Dropbox integration

The latest versions 5.6.20.101 brings possibility to link files stored in Dropbox cloud service. ScrumDesk uses Dropbox application model which means that only files stored in Dropbox in Apps/ScrumDesk folder

are available. The files might be linked to project, releases, sprints, stories and tasks as well.

For more information read the article How to link files from Dropbox.

WIP limits

Kanban guides teams to identify and work according to Work In Progress limits. This helps teams to focus on finishing stories rather than working on many of them without final results.

Users can configure theirs project WIP limits on task board view. Limited might be Checked Out and Solved statuses.

If you break WIP limit, then ScrumDesk will  indicates that by different background colors.

Further improvements

Dialog Projects

Description of a project is displayed in Projects dialog. Some users need this to distinguish projects.

Synchronization

Thank you all for your feedback about your experience with the background synchronizaiton.

Based on it we implemented these changes:

• Synchronized height and width of an index card
• Synchronized assigned user
• Fixed situation when new tasks appeared as stories on a desk
• Change of data by sync once they were saved
• BurnDown chart is updated by sync even for newly created sprints
• Task added by someone else will ends in crash if taskboard is filtered and newly added task should appears on a board
• Release & sprint in left panel, All releases & Sprint in right – new story added to the left didn’t appear

Burn Down chart and statistics

We changed an burn down chart algorithm to cover the different approaches how backlog is prepared and managed during the sprint. Thank you for your ideas!

Also, we added tasks duration statistics into SideView/Sprint panel.

Planning view

The planning view user interface has been simplified to provide an interface more focused on planning.

• Instead of list of releases and sprints combo boxes are displayed now.
• The list of stories is also made taller to provide more space for stories to work with.
• Edit lines are displayed with dark background. You asked to distinguish calculated details from details that need to be updated manually.

Fixes

• Crash if team member has been deleted by administrator form repository
• Meeting time has been updated even it was not necessary
• Parent story saved during the read
• Multiple null reference fixes

The latest versions brings possibility to link files stored in Dropbox cloud service. ScrumDesk uses Dropbox application model which means that only files stored in Dropbox in Apps/ScrumDesk folder are available. The files might be linked to project, releases, sprints, stories and tasks as well.

How to link a file from Dropbox

Click drop down list near + button to link a file from Drobox service.

If you do this for the first time, you will be asked to authorize ScrumDesk to access your Dropbox user account. Do not close this dialog until you will not authorize ScrumDesk on the page opened.

The authorization page should be opened in you web browser where you will be asked to login to Dropbox and allow ScrumDesk to access your Dropbox storage.

If you allowed an access you will be informed about that by our page:

Now you should see in ScrumDesk a list of files stored in the cloud.

Thumbnails are not displayed as Dropbox doesn’t offer this functionality yet.

This version fixes v.5.5 published the last week:

• Burn down charts were not displayed correctly in some cases (i.e. sprint backlog contains stories with long history).
• Fixes of the synchronization in five different cases (the first update in a day, update of a story in case tasks are changed, etc.).
• Minor visual improvements of the Kanban board (flat look, large card displays longer text).

The repository schema is not changed. Run ScrumDesk and you should be informed about availability of the update or go to http://www.scrumdesk.com/Download/FullNG/v5/Publish.htm.

Notice

This version requires an update of repositories. You will need SQL Server administrator account to finish upgrade.

Custom fields

In this version users have possibility to:

• keep custom data in custom story fields,
• fields are displayed in stories grid in the Backlog and in Sprint views,
• fields can be hidden or displayed in grid columns context menu,
• data can be changed in story and task detail windows,
• the names of fields can be customized in Project/Customization page.

We plan to continue in improving this functionality. Please let us know your needs by sending us an email to support@scrumdesk.com.

Coach module

Integrated coaching module has been improved by possibility to customize which rules are validated. Every rule can be turned on/off  by click on small check box.  All hidden rules are still available by click on new filter option Disabled.

The description how to fix a problem is moved above the list of identified issues therefore it guides team members to solve the issue.

Further improvements

• Further improvements of background synchronization
• Fixed additional burn down charts issues
• Stories with multiple tasks are synchronized correctly in case of multiple instances running on the same computer
• Cards printed in document Backlog stories (as cards) are sorted by story ID by default
• Possibility to sort stories by estimated duration in Planning view
• Removed buttons marking story as an internal or personal. These choices are still available in the detail window

As the number of customers and repositories increased significantly this year, we decided to to move our hosting services to new provider with higher bandwidth.

You can observe outages as DNS records will be changed as well. DNS records should be synchronized in few hours.

When? November 30th, 2012, after 4:00PM GMT +1

We would like to thank you for your patience.

We published new ScrumDesk update that brings:

• Improved synchronization of story tasks
• [Fix] Cards are not displayed for newly created tasks
• [Fix] Negative values in burn down charts

Thanks to all our customers who sent us very positive feedback on the last version supporting simultaneous editing of tasks. And thanks to customers who informed us about issues we did not identified.

In the newest version 5.4.12 we continuously focused on improvements of background synchronization.

• Sync interval shortened to 1 second, changes are synchronized immediately.
• We fixed few situations that were not synchronized in case of more complicated backlog changes.
• Moving story to different sprint is synchronized now.
• Burn down charts are updated instantly if your colleague did any change to story or task
• Duration and remaining time were not synchronized in some minor cases
• Fixed crash if new team member has been added in other ScrumDesk instance and any task has been assigned to her.

We hope this version will transform ScrumDesk into real-time online Scrum project management board.

You should be informed about available upgrade once you will start ScrumDesk. If not, then you can download it from http://www.scrumdesk.com/Download/FullNG/v5/Publish.htm. Repository upgrade is not required.

Do you have any request or issue? Feel free to contact our support or write your comment into our forum.

We have something cool today. Something unique.

WE HAVE AN INSTANT  BOARD

By this version you have an instant & continuously updated task board allowing everybody to have current backlog on a desk.

Simply to say it means simultaneous editing of stories.

Edit title or description. Estimate story. Move a card or change card’s color. Then check LCD of your colleague and you should see the same just in a few seconds.

This feature also helps to overcome the last issues with burn down charts as data should be up to date and refresh of stories is not critical anymore.

Integrated repository update

Starting ScrumDesk you should be informed about necessary update of your repositories. This is the first time you will see integrated update. The Database  Manager tool is not necessary to be used as it is fully integrated into ScrumDesk.

Minor changes

• Fixed changes tracking for selected attributes of story/task
• Added additional fields into changes tracking

New features

Autorefresh of reports

For all teams using LCD to display ScrumDesk reports we implemented refresh of reports every 5 minutes.

It can be turned on or off on Reports page in the upper top corner.

Capacity Planner

Scrum teams often calculate capacity of the team by using concept of ideal days.

You do not need any excel to calculate then anymore. Click Planning menu item and them Capacity planner button in status bar.

The planner consider following information for every team member:

• the number of days at work
• the number of hours focused on project  per day
• calculated total capacity of team member
• number of days/hours assigned in project to team member (in any release/sprint)
• calculated availability indicated free resouce (white background), limited (orange), or overassigned resource (red)

The planner shows statistic of  total capacity and availability of the team.

Charts fixes

Charts were not precise in case of parallel editing of tasks without previous refresh operation. We changed the way how data are processed so they are refreshed before charts are calculated.

Also, charts are now updated immediately upon change so they should reflect the current status of the board even board is not refreshed. Refresh is still necessary to update backlog as auto refresh of stories/tasks is not available yet.

Repository installation

New repository can be installed from ScrumDesk without any other tool.

Till today, it was necessary to use repository installation tool. We still support this scenario, however integration of setup procedure allows to start use ScrumDesk faster.

Repository dialog has been redesigned to better support On-Demand (hosted) repositories as well.

Minor changes

• Fixed tab order in story, task, sprint and release dialogs

ScrumDesk company, together with robime.it (We do IT, job portal+IT blog) and organizers of Agile Prague conference offer free ticket for Agile Prague valued for 5.000 CZK!

What you need to do is just to answer few questions. The questions are in Slovak language.

Fill-up the questionnaire on robime.it!

Why come to Prague, October 3.-4.  2012:

• Because you can see amazing Prague .
• Bacuse you can meet more than 100 agilists who apply Agile or try to get out of trenches,
• Because  you can hear about case studies of  Barclays, CA, IBM, Kerio, Seznam.cz,
• Because you can talk to speakers in an open space zone. Try to find solution for your problems!
• And you can learn more about ScrumDesk as well. We will be there.

Who is a speaker?

and 24 additional speakers. Btw, do you recognize speakers on the pictures?

And now, what you need is to fill-up the questionnaire on robime.it!

As Agile is spreading more and more in the field, there is bigger opportunity you can meet people who are involved in Agile for many years already.

We at ScrumDesk appreciate a new project that help you to recognize:

• who is who,
• what the story is behind that person,
• how can be given person helpful to you

The project Who is Agile? has been initiated by Yves Hanoulle (@YvesHanoulle) few months ago.  What a great addition into his products like Retroflection channel, pair coaching concept, Agile Quiz, etc. Btw., did you know this guy in his teenage burned down the house of his parents? But since then he  builds and builds and builds new stuffs.

With support of other editors  (Andrea Chiou @andreachiou, Marcin Floryan @mfloryan and Peter Doomen @AbOrigineMundi), the team collects life stories of agile coaches, trainers or significant community builders into one place.

Reading this book is great inside into the history of Agile, motivations which lead to deal with changes by agile approaches., and small personal/professional victories during agile introduction. Also, you might be surprised by roots of theirs experience, interests that bring so needed non-IT flavor into agile community.

The book is written & published in lean way as well.

Every week you can read about someone new and there is more than 200 life stories ahead of us.

The team publish the book via LeanPub platform and you can buy it from here http://leanpub.com/WhoIsAgile. The pricing model is interesting and mind challenging as well (starting at $4.49 with all future updates for free).

BTW. We are proud that thanks to Nicole Belilos and Alexey Krivitsky,  Yves did not forget to write about ScrumDesk co-founder, Dusan Kocurek as well .

Symptoms

Error “Could not load file or assembly ‘Microsoft.SqlServer.SqlClrProvider, Version=10.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91′ or one of its depedencies. The system cannot find the file specified.” is dosplayed during the installation of the repository

Explanation

Additional Microsoft components are required in case repository is installed on some legacy SQL Server versions. These components are sometimes missing in Windows.

Solution

For SQL 2008

Check if version 10.0.xxx is mentioned in error message. Install packages according your Windows edition (32 or 64) and processor (X – Intel, IA – Itanium) .

For SQL 2005

Check if version 9.0.xxx is mentioned in error message. Install packages according your Windows edition (32 or 64) and processor (X – Intel, IA – Itanium) .