Scrum User Group

Tobias Mayer is perhaps one of the more influential scrum trainers. (He’s definitely one of the most provocative.) His blog, “Agile Anarchy” has a new post about the importance of the scrum board to the scrum process as a whole.

I wanted to jump up and down when I read it. It speaks to me about why I hate the whole idea of an electronic board.

He also links to Xavier Quesada Allue’s blog, which echoes this practical approach to scrum and teams. I absolutely love his “Elements of taskboard design” which has real practical tips on what you can do to make your task board more effective. And he made me aware of “Super Sticky Post It’s“.

Now I’m off to convince Loren, Mistress of Stationery, to order us some of those. Sometimes the best tools are already out there.

Scrum(tm) – a 3M product

Popularity: 39% [?]

Registration for the first South African Scrum day is now open. Click here for details of Business and Technical track.

Please note that space is very limited and seats are selling quickly. Register now to secure your place.

We are featuring a remote keynote from Ken Schwaber, a CxO panel which will discuss what benefits scrum has had for their organisations and a number of industry experts drawing on their experience to relate better ways of doing scrum. A special session has been added for any scrum newbies: Scrum 101. This will give anyone a basic introduction to all the terminology, practises and roles.

We’re aware that too often Business is not involved in Scrum beyond the decision to adopt it. But excluding managers and executives from the implementation process may lead to Scrum being adopted only in part, not across the entire organisation. We want to change that by giving Business an equal opportunity to share in Scrum Day SA 2009, to hear how other SA companies are already reaping the benefits of Scrum across their entire operations. And executives will have a chance to pose their questions to Ken Schwaber, a co-founder of Scrum, as well as to local business leaders during a dedicated panel discussion time.

We’re hoping to see you at Scrum Day SA, Tuesday 1st September 2009, BMW Pavilion, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town. Registration starts at 08h00.

Remember: space is limited. Register now to avoid disappointment.

Popularity: 14% [?]

We’re excited to tell you that the Scrum User Group of South Africa
(SUGSA) is planning the first ever South African Scrum Day, in Cape
Town on 01 September, 2009. Yes, the first of Spring!

More details…

Popularity: 6% [?]

This is the first reminder for the next SUGSA Gauteng event on the 21st of May 2009 and we have some interesting updates for you on the evening’s content:

As promised, we have an organisation who will present a case study on the benefits realised with the adoption of Scrum and Agile…

Case Study:

Harry King of Rosami Products & Services, who are contracted to 2Dialog – a company based in Richardson, Texas, will be presenting a case study on how Scrum is assisting them in realising the expected benefits of Agile off-shore development in South Africa…

Book review:

Lionel Bisschoff will again entertain us with a book review

Agile and Scrum Committee Reading List:

The SUGSA Gauteng committee will for the first time reveal what we are reading and a list of subjects and books/articles on those subjects will be handed out.

So far we had overwhelming response and we are looking forward to see everyone… however, please don’t hesitate to bring friends/colleagues and whoever you think might benefit or add to the discussions planned!

Event registration:  http://www.scrum.org.za/resources/event-registration/event-registration-gauteng

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 The previous events were so well attended and using your feedback from this, we have decided to use this event for an open discussion around Agile and Scrum with help from a panel of experts.

Case studies will be presented for discussion, Scrum practitioners and organisations using Scrum will be present to share their ‘war-stories’ with us and to answer your questions.

 Join us for an evening of open discussion – bring your questions, bring your concerns, bring your own ‘war-stories’ and share with all of us… we are all keen to learn!

When: 21 May 2009

Time: 18:00 for 18:30

Where: Momentum Auditorium 1, Centurion, Pretoria (click for map)

Event registration:  http://www.scrum.org.za/resources/event-registration/event-registration-gauteng

Sponsors: Kaizania and Momentum

Refreshments will be served before and after the event.

For any additional information, please contact agile@kaizania.co.za.

Popularity: 6% [?]

The Cape Town chapter held it’s 4th event last night. We meet at Great Westerford, with venue and food kindly sponsored by Intec and drinks sponsored by Scrum Sense.

Hilton Giesenow, Development Manager at 3Fifteen and Microsoft MVP spoke on continuous integration (CI). He spoke of CI as a continuum and just one of a number of good software development practices. He outlined 10 steps to implementing good CI, with the first 3 being an essential starting point:

1. Source repository – gotta have this!
2. Make code self-testing with unit tests (for bugs in legacy code, write a failing unit test that reproduces the bug, then fix!)
3. Automate the build – use one of the great free tools such as Cruise Control from ThoughtWorks; trigger to run every 30 mins or on each check-in.
4. Everyone commits their code daily (at least).
5. Every commit should be built (all code is integrated)
6. Keep the build fast
7. Test in a clone of the production environment (use VM’s)
8. Make it easy to get the latest deliveries (for example use zip of exe)
9. Everyone can see the results of the latest build
10. Automate deployment

In the subsequent Q&A session we noted that:

• You can implement CI beneficially in any SDLC process, whether Waterfall, Scrum or other.
• Scrum is (deliberately) silent on software development practices, leaving teams and organisations to choose their own.
• It is essential that teams implement good practices such as CI to complement the Scrum process if they want to improve.
• Doing CI will provide you with useful metrics as a side-effect, for example code coverage by tests, number of automated tests.

We’re grateful to Hilton for taking the time to spend with us!

Popularity: 13% [?]