An agile project management tool is better suited than general software tools or traditional project management tools for agile software development. General tools like wikis and spreadsheets do not support the needs of distributed teams or large teams with features for concurrent access, real-time reporting, and integration with other development processes. While traditional tools can perform release and iteration planning, they lack concepts important for agile like product backlogs, burn down reports, and task boards. A dedicated agile project management tool can integrate requirements, planning, tracking, testing and feedback to better support the entire agile development process.
The document discusses Agile methodology, which is an iterative software development approach based on self-organizing teams. It describes when Agile is useful, such as for complicated projects or when requirements are unclear. Specific Agile methods like Scrum are outlined, including Scrum roles, sprints, and meetings. Advantages include rapid delivery and adaptation, while disadvantages include potential lack of documentation. Tools can help with requirements, planning, tracking, and quality assurance in Agile projects.
The document provides an overview of Agile methodology compared to the traditional Waterfall model. It discusses some of the pain points of Waterfall like frequent requirement changes and estimation inaccuracies. Agile is presented as an alternative that allows for more flexibility through short iterative sprints, prioritized backlogs, and responding quickly to changes. Specific Agile practices like Scrum, user stories, and daily stand-ups are explained. The document concludes with best practices in Agile and a call for questions.
Scrum is an agile framework for project management that uses short iterative cycles called sprints. It involves 3 roles - Product Owner who owns requirements, Scrum Master who facilitates the process, and a self-organizing team. The team works in sprints to develop user stories from the product backlog, demos progress daily, and uses burn down charts and velocity metrics to track work.
What Exactly Is The "Internet of Things"?Postscapes
The document discusses the results of a study on the effects of exercise on memory and thinking abilities in older adults. The study found that regular exercise can help reduce the decline in thinking abilities that often occurs with age. Specifically, older adults who exercised regularly performed better on memory and thinking tests compared to those who did not exercise regularly.
To obtain a foundational understanding of how the Internet of Things applies to your business, begin by exploring the answers to five key questions. To learn more, check out our special Internet of Things section in Deloitte Review Issue 17: http://deloi.tt/1TwfcmI
This document provides an overview of agile methodology and compares it to traditional waterfall development. It describes waterfall development as a sequential process with distinct phases completed one after another. Agile approaches like Scrum and Kanban are presented as more iterative and adaptive alternatives that focus on delivering working software frequently in short cycles through self-organizing cross-functional teams. Key aspects of Scrum like sprints, daily stand-ups, and product backlogs are defined. Kanban emphasizes visualizing and limiting work in progress to optimize flow. Both aim to incorporate feedback and respond rapidly to changes over rigidly following pre-defined plans.
Software Carpentry and the Hydrological Sciences @ AGU 2013Aron Ahmadia
This document discusses bringing computational skills training to hydrologists through Software Carpentry workshops. It notes that while many hydrologists are focused on their research, computational methods are now essential. Software Carpentry teaches practical skills like the Unix shell, version control with Git, Python and R programming, and databases. These intensive, short workshops have been effective at training graduate students. The document encourages hydrologists to host their own workshops and support computational literacy by discussing code and practices in their papers.
This document discusses some of the challenges with traditional software development approaches and how adopting agile and lean principles can help address them. Specifically, it notes that traditional "big design up front" approaches are problematic because they are not well-suited to environments with significant change and do not prioritize delivering value to users. Agile and lean methods emphasize close collaboration, delivering working software frequently that provides user value, and adapting to change rather than treating it as a problem. The document recommends starting with practices like retrospectives, test-driven development, and daily stand-ups to begin adopting agile principles.
The document discusses Agile methodology, which is an iterative software development approach based on self-organizing teams. It describes when Agile is useful, such as for complicated projects or when requirements are unclear. Specific Agile methods like Scrum are outlined, including Scrum roles, sprints, and meetings. Advantages include rapid delivery and adaptation, while disadvantages include potential lack of documentation. Tools can help with requirements, planning, tracking, and quality assurance in Agile projects.
The document provides an overview of Agile methodology compared to the traditional Waterfall model. It discusses some of the pain points of Waterfall like frequent requirement changes and estimation inaccuracies. Agile is presented as an alternative that allows for more flexibility through short iterative sprints, prioritized backlogs, and responding quickly to changes. Specific Agile practices like Scrum, user stories, and daily stand-ups are explained. The document concludes with best practices in Agile and a call for questions.
Scrum is an agile framework for project management that uses short iterative cycles called sprints. It involves 3 roles - Product Owner who owns requirements, Scrum Master who facilitates the process, and a self-organizing team. The team works in sprints to develop user stories from the product backlog, demos progress daily, and uses burn down charts and velocity metrics to track work.
What Exactly Is The "Internet of Things"?Postscapes
The document discusses the results of a study on the effects of exercise on memory and thinking abilities in older adults. The study found that regular exercise can help reduce the decline in thinking abilities that often occurs with age. Specifically, older adults who exercised regularly performed better on memory and thinking tests compared to those who did not exercise regularly.
To obtain a foundational understanding of how the Internet of Things applies to your business, begin by exploring the answers to five key questions. To learn more, check out our special Internet of Things section in Deloitte Review Issue 17: http://deloi.tt/1TwfcmI
This document provides an overview of agile methodology and compares it to traditional waterfall development. It describes waterfall development as a sequential process with distinct phases completed one after another. Agile approaches like Scrum and Kanban are presented as more iterative and adaptive alternatives that focus on delivering working software frequently in short cycles through self-organizing cross-functional teams. Key aspects of Scrum like sprints, daily stand-ups, and product backlogs are defined. Kanban emphasizes visualizing and limiting work in progress to optimize flow. Both aim to incorporate feedback and respond rapidly to changes over rigidly following pre-defined plans.
Software Carpentry and the Hydrological Sciences @ AGU 2013Aron Ahmadia
This document discusses bringing computational skills training to hydrologists through Software Carpentry workshops. It notes that while many hydrologists are focused on their research, computational methods are now essential. Software Carpentry teaches practical skills like the Unix shell, version control with Git, Python and R programming, and databases. These intensive, short workshops have been effective at training graduate students. The document encourages hydrologists to host their own workshops and support computational literacy by discussing code and practices in their papers.
This document discusses some of the challenges with traditional software development approaches and how adopting agile and lean principles can help address them. Specifically, it notes that traditional "big design up front" approaches are problematic because they are not well-suited to environments with significant change and do not prioritize delivering value to users. Agile and lean methods emphasize close collaboration, delivering working software frequently that provides user value, and adapting to change rather than treating it as a problem. The document recommends starting with practices like retrospectives, test-driven development, and daily stand-ups to begin adopting agile principles.
Coming Together: integrating industrial design and interaction designJoannes Vandermeulen
The document discusses integrating user-centered design (UCD) into industrial design and interaction design practices by drawing inspiration from lean manufacturing and agile software development approaches which emphasize eliminating waste, empowering teams, continuous improvement, and deciding design elements as late as possible to incorporate more user feedback. It proposes several strategies to enhance collaboration between disciplines like offering co-located design studios, delaying design decisions, and using high-impact but lightweight representations to incorporate user input earlier in the design process. Case studies of products that employed UCD practices showed successes in meeting user needs within tight development timelines.
This document discusses how implementing design patterns for simple programs like "Hello World" can result in over-engineering and introduce unnecessary complexity. It provides an example of implementing the Observer pattern for a basic "Hello World" program in Java, creating two interfaces and two classes where a simpler approach would suffice. The document cautions against feeling obligated to use design patterns if there is no meaningful benefit, and notes that patterns can evolve into antipatterns if used inappropriately or without need.
Software Carpentry for the Geophysical SciencesAron Ahmadia
This document summarizes a presentation given by Aron Ahmadia at the ESIP Winter Meeting in January 2014 on Software Carpentry for the Geophysical Sciences. The presentation discussed how most scientists do not have strong computational skills and rely on outdated tools. It introduced Software Carpentry, which teaches practical computational skills like the Unix shell, version control with Git, and programming in Python and R. These skills can help scientists more effectively manage, share, and validate their work. The presentation encouraged scientists to get involved by attending or hosting Software Carpentry workshops, and contributing teaching materials relevant to earth sciences.
The document provides guidance on various aspects of user experience design such as getting started on a project, conducting user research, designing the user interface, developing content strategy, and front-end development best practices. It offers tips on building relationships with users, using paper prototypes for testing, prioritizing top tasks in design, and other strategies for creating a positive user experience. The 50 topics covered provide a comprehensive overview of UX design processes and considerations.
The document discusses prototyping and is divided into three parts. It introduces prototyping as an iterative process to test ideas and choose the best path. Different types of prototypes are suited for different purposes based on factors like the target group, environment, platform, time, and desired outcome. Examples will be shared of prototyping work done for clients in various industries. The final part will be a case study of a service design prototyping exercise.
This document discusses how traditional project management approaches can fall short for complex work, and introduces Agile product development using Scrum as a framework. It explains that Scrum focuses on maximizing business value through collaborative customer engagement and empirical process improvement over comprehensive planning. Scrum is presented as a practical method for complex work where needs may change, using short development cycles called sprints to iteratively deliver working software or products.
How to sustain a tool building community-driven effortJordi Cabot
This document discusses key dimensions for sustaining a tool building community-driven effort based on experiences developing modeling tools. It covers onboarding users and contributors, governance models, community health analysis using graph techniques, and optimization strategies. The document advocates an entrepreneurial path for tool development by releasing prototypes as open source software and improving them for real use cases to build a community and offer commercial services.
This document discusses best practices for developing data science products at Philip Morris International (PMI). It covers:
- PMI's data science team of over 40 people across four hubs working on fraud prevention and other problems.
- Key principles for PMI's data science work, including being business-driven, investing in people, self-organizing, iterating to improve, and co-creating solutions.
- Challenges in data product development involving integrating work between data scientists and other teams, and practices like continuous integration/delivery to overcome these challenges.
- The role of data scientists in contributing code that is readable, testable, reusable, reproducible, and usable by other teams to integrate into
Web 2.0 & CMS - The Path From Solutions Back To NeedsScott Liewehr
Scott Liewehr presented on successfully integrating web2.0 tools in enterprises. He found that over 80% of wikis fail because organizations implement tools before understanding user needs and without planning. Liewehr recommends organizations first learn about their audiences' needs and how tools like communication and collaboration platforms can meet those needs. They should then start small by finding a specific use case where the tool enhances existing workflows. Planning is still required even for grassroots tools to avoid failures seen with poorly planned SharePoint rollouts and ensure web2.0 benefits the organization.
Why software will never be the same... Discuss why agile and lean development methodologies alone are not enough to compete in today's software startup market. Explore real-time prototyping and minimal viable experiments that can accelerate learning down to hours, not sprints.
Why prototyping digital services is very importantLaura Oliver
I gave this short presentation in Barcelona Service Jam where business people, designers and researchers meet together to come up with a new and innovative service
Applying an intersectionality lens in data scienceData Con LA
This document provides an overview of applying an intersectionality lens in data science. It begins with defining intersectionality and explaining why it is important in data science. The rest of the document uses examples to illustrate how to apply an intersectionality perspective throughout the data science process, from problem definition and data collection to analysis, delivery and evaluation of results. It emphasizes avoiding assumptions, collecting data equitably, analyzing with care and presenting findings objectively. The document concludes by providing action steps for applying lessons around intersectionality to work.
Data science is not Software Development and how Experiment Management can ma...Jakub Czakon
Working on data science projects that are run as if they were software development can sometimes feel like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. In this talk, I will explain why that happens and what people do to try and fix it. Lately, in the context of machine learning, the concept of experiment management, which treats ml experiments as first-class citizens, has been gaining a lot of traction. I will discuss what it is, what are the benefits of using it, and how you can apply it in your work to make run your projects more efficiently.
Crunching the numbers: Open Source Community Metrics at OSCONDawn Foster
Co-presented with Dave Neary at OSCON 2011.
Every community manager knows that community metrics are important, but how do you come up with a plan and figure out what you want to measure? Most community managers have their own set of hacky scripts for extracting data from various sources after they decide what metrics to track. There is no standardised Community Software Dashboard you can use to generate near-real-time stats on your community growth.
Like most open source projects, we have diverse community infrastructure for MeeGo, including Mailman, Drupal, Mediawiki, IRC, git, OpenSuse Build Service, Transifex and vBulletin. We wanted to unify these sources together, extract meaningful statistics from the data we had available to us, and present it to the user in a way that made it easy to see if the community was developing nicely or not.
Building on the work of Pentaho, Talend, MLStats, gitdm and a host of others, we built a generic and open source community dashboard for the MeeGo project, and integrated it into the website. The project was run in the open at http://wiki.meego.com/Metrics/Dashboard and all products of the project are available for reuse.
This presentation will cover the various metrics we wanted to measure, how we extracted the data from a diverse set of services to do it, and more importantly, how you can do it too.
Crunching the numbers: Open Source Community MetricsDawn Foster
Every community manager knows that community metrics are important, but how do you come up with a plan and figure out what you want to measure? Most community managers have their own set of hacky scripts for extracting data from various sources after they decide what metrics to track. There is no standardised Community Software Dashboard you can use to generate near-real-time stats on your community growth.
Like most open source projects, we have diverse community infrastructure for MeeGo, including Mailman, Drupal, Mediawiki, IRC, git, OpenSuse Build Service, Transifex and vBulletin. We wanted to unify these sources together, extract meaningful statistics from the data we had available to us, and present it to the user in a way that made it easy to see if the community was developing nicely or not.
Building on the work of Pentaho, Talend, MLStats, gitdm and a host of others, we built a generic and open source community dashboard for the MeeGo project, and integrated it into the website. The project was run in the open at http://wiki.meego.com/Metrics/Dashboard and all products of the project are available for reuse.
This presentation will cover the various metrics we wanted to measure, how we extracted the data from a diverse set of services to do it, and more importantly, how you can do it too.
Talk delivered by Craig Smith at Scrum Australia 2014 in Sydney on 21 October 2014.
With 73% of the world using Scrum as their predominant Agile method, this session will open up your eyes to the many other Agile and edgy Agile methods and movements in the world today. For many, Agile is a toolbox of potential methods, practices and techniques, and like any good toolbox it is often more about using the right tool for the problem that will result in meaningful results.
Take a rapid journey into the world of methods like Mikado, Nonban, Vanguard and movements like Holocracy, Drive and Stoos where we will uncover 40 methods and movements in 40 minutes to help strengthen your toolbox.
BEST PRACTICES FOR COMMUNICATING WITH KEY PROJECT STAKEHOLDERS A Case StudyEna Arel
Convincing the organization to embrace a new IA is no small task. Effective communication with key project stakeholders is essential for winning—and keeping—their support in managing change. Cross-functional stakeholders typically present diverse and, sometimes, conflicting requirements that must be successfully reconciled. This presentation describes how the Mathworks Documentation Group engaged with various stakeholders across the organization to redesign and implement a new Help system over the past three years. Learn how our communication strategies and tactics helped us to build organizational consensus around requirements and structure design reviews to inspire support for the new IA across the organization.
Is Agile Data Science just two buzzwords put together? I argue that agile is a very practical and applicable methodology, that does work well in the real world for all sorts of Analytics and Data Science workflows.
http://theinnovationenterprise.com/summits/digital-web-analytics-summit-london-2015/schedule
The Power of Virtual Collaboration in Project ManagementCitrix Online
This new eBook explores how companies can implement virtual collaboration tools throughout the project lifecycle to effectively manage projects from start to finish.
OpenID AuthZEN Interop Read Out - AuthorizationDavid Brossard
During Identiverse 2024 and EIC 2024, members of the OpenID AuthZEN WG got together and demoed their authorization endpoints conforming to the AuthZEN API
Coming Together: integrating industrial design and interaction designJoannes Vandermeulen
The document discusses integrating user-centered design (UCD) into industrial design and interaction design practices by drawing inspiration from lean manufacturing and agile software development approaches which emphasize eliminating waste, empowering teams, continuous improvement, and deciding design elements as late as possible to incorporate more user feedback. It proposes several strategies to enhance collaboration between disciplines like offering co-located design studios, delaying design decisions, and using high-impact but lightweight representations to incorporate user input earlier in the design process. Case studies of products that employed UCD practices showed successes in meeting user needs within tight development timelines.
This document discusses how implementing design patterns for simple programs like "Hello World" can result in over-engineering and introduce unnecessary complexity. It provides an example of implementing the Observer pattern for a basic "Hello World" program in Java, creating two interfaces and two classes where a simpler approach would suffice. The document cautions against feeling obligated to use design patterns if there is no meaningful benefit, and notes that patterns can evolve into antipatterns if used inappropriately or without need.
Software Carpentry for the Geophysical SciencesAron Ahmadia
This document summarizes a presentation given by Aron Ahmadia at the ESIP Winter Meeting in January 2014 on Software Carpentry for the Geophysical Sciences. The presentation discussed how most scientists do not have strong computational skills and rely on outdated tools. It introduced Software Carpentry, which teaches practical computational skills like the Unix shell, version control with Git, and programming in Python and R. These skills can help scientists more effectively manage, share, and validate their work. The presentation encouraged scientists to get involved by attending or hosting Software Carpentry workshops, and contributing teaching materials relevant to earth sciences.
The document provides guidance on various aspects of user experience design such as getting started on a project, conducting user research, designing the user interface, developing content strategy, and front-end development best practices. It offers tips on building relationships with users, using paper prototypes for testing, prioritizing top tasks in design, and other strategies for creating a positive user experience. The 50 topics covered provide a comprehensive overview of UX design processes and considerations.
The document discusses prototyping and is divided into three parts. It introduces prototyping as an iterative process to test ideas and choose the best path. Different types of prototypes are suited for different purposes based on factors like the target group, environment, platform, time, and desired outcome. Examples will be shared of prototyping work done for clients in various industries. The final part will be a case study of a service design prototyping exercise.
This document discusses how traditional project management approaches can fall short for complex work, and introduces Agile product development using Scrum as a framework. It explains that Scrum focuses on maximizing business value through collaborative customer engagement and empirical process improvement over comprehensive planning. Scrum is presented as a practical method for complex work where needs may change, using short development cycles called sprints to iteratively deliver working software or products.
How to sustain a tool building community-driven effortJordi Cabot
This document discusses key dimensions for sustaining a tool building community-driven effort based on experiences developing modeling tools. It covers onboarding users and contributors, governance models, community health analysis using graph techniques, and optimization strategies. The document advocates an entrepreneurial path for tool development by releasing prototypes as open source software and improving them for real use cases to build a community and offer commercial services.
This document discusses best practices for developing data science products at Philip Morris International (PMI). It covers:
- PMI's data science team of over 40 people across four hubs working on fraud prevention and other problems.
- Key principles for PMI's data science work, including being business-driven, investing in people, self-organizing, iterating to improve, and co-creating solutions.
- Challenges in data product development involving integrating work between data scientists and other teams, and practices like continuous integration/delivery to overcome these challenges.
- The role of data scientists in contributing code that is readable, testable, reusable, reproducible, and usable by other teams to integrate into
Web 2.0 & CMS - The Path From Solutions Back To NeedsScott Liewehr
Scott Liewehr presented on successfully integrating web2.0 tools in enterprises. He found that over 80% of wikis fail because organizations implement tools before understanding user needs and without planning. Liewehr recommends organizations first learn about their audiences' needs and how tools like communication and collaboration platforms can meet those needs. They should then start small by finding a specific use case where the tool enhances existing workflows. Planning is still required even for grassroots tools to avoid failures seen with poorly planned SharePoint rollouts and ensure web2.0 benefits the organization.
Why software will never be the same... Discuss why agile and lean development methodologies alone are not enough to compete in today's software startup market. Explore real-time prototyping and minimal viable experiments that can accelerate learning down to hours, not sprints.
Why prototyping digital services is very importantLaura Oliver
I gave this short presentation in Barcelona Service Jam where business people, designers and researchers meet together to come up with a new and innovative service
Applying an intersectionality lens in data scienceData Con LA
This document provides an overview of applying an intersectionality lens in data science. It begins with defining intersectionality and explaining why it is important in data science. The rest of the document uses examples to illustrate how to apply an intersectionality perspective throughout the data science process, from problem definition and data collection to analysis, delivery and evaluation of results. It emphasizes avoiding assumptions, collecting data equitably, analyzing with care and presenting findings objectively. The document concludes by providing action steps for applying lessons around intersectionality to work.
Data science is not Software Development and how Experiment Management can ma...Jakub Czakon
Working on data science projects that are run as if they were software development can sometimes feel like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. In this talk, I will explain why that happens and what people do to try and fix it. Lately, in the context of machine learning, the concept of experiment management, which treats ml experiments as first-class citizens, has been gaining a lot of traction. I will discuss what it is, what are the benefits of using it, and how you can apply it in your work to make run your projects more efficiently.
Crunching the numbers: Open Source Community Metrics at OSCONDawn Foster
Co-presented with Dave Neary at OSCON 2011.
Every community manager knows that community metrics are important, but how do you come up with a plan and figure out what you want to measure? Most community managers have their own set of hacky scripts for extracting data from various sources after they decide what metrics to track. There is no standardised Community Software Dashboard you can use to generate near-real-time stats on your community growth.
Like most open source projects, we have diverse community infrastructure for MeeGo, including Mailman, Drupal, Mediawiki, IRC, git, OpenSuse Build Service, Transifex and vBulletin. We wanted to unify these sources together, extract meaningful statistics from the data we had available to us, and present it to the user in a way that made it easy to see if the community was developing nicely or not.
Building on the work of Pentaho, Talend, MLStats, gitdm and a host of others, we built a generic and open source community dashboard for the MeeGo project, and integrated it into the website. The project was run in the open at http://wiki.meego.com/Metrics/Dashboard and all products of the project are available for reuse.
This presentation will cover the various metrics we wanted to measure, how we extracted the data from a diverse set of services to do it, and more importantly, how you can do it too.
Crunching the numbers: Open Source Community MetricsDawn Foster
Every community manager knows that community metrics are important, but how do you come up with a plan and figure out what you want to measure? Most community managers have their own set of hacky scripts for extracting data from various sources after they decide what metrics to track. There is no standardised Community Software Dashboard you can use to generate near-real-time stats on your community growth.
Like most open source projects, we have diverse community infrastructure for MeeGo, including Mailman, Drupal, Mediawiki, IRC, git, OpenSuse Build Service, Transifex and vBulletin. We wanted to unify these sources together, extract meaningful statistics from the data we had available to us, and present it to the user in a way that made it easy to see if the community was developing nicely or not.
Building on the work of Pentaho, Talend, MLStats, gitdm and a host of others, we built a generic and open source community dashboard for the MeeGo project, and integrated it into the website. The project was run in the open at http://wiki.meego.com/Metrics/Dashboard and all products of the project are available for reuse.
This presentation will cover the various metrics we wanted to measure, how we extracted the data from a diverse set of services to do it, and more importantly, how you can do it too.
Talk delivered by Craig Smith at Scrum Australia 2014 in Sydney on 21 October 2014.
With 73% of the world using Scrum as their predominant Agile method, this session will open up your eyes to the many other Agile and edgy Agile methods and movements in the world today. For many, Agile is a toolbox of potential methods, practices and techniques, and like any good toolbox it is often more about using the right tool for the problem that will result in meaningful results.
Take a rapid journey into the world of methods like Mikado, Nonban, Vanguard and movements like Holocracy, Drive and Stoos where we will uncover 40 methods and movements in 40 minutes to help strengthen your toolbox.
BEST PRACTICES FOR COMMUNICATING WITH KEY PROJECT STAKEHOLDERS A Case StudyEna Arel
Convincing the organization to embrace a new IA is no small task. Effective communication with key project stakeholders is essential for winning—and keeping—their support in managing change. Cross-functional stakeholders typically present diverse and, sometimes, conflicting requirements that must be successfully reconciled. This presentation describes how the Mathworks Documentation Group engaged with various stakeholders across the organization to redesign and implement a new Help system over the past three years. Learn how our communication strategies and tactics helped us to build organizational consensus around requirements and structure design reviews to inspire support for the new IA across the organization.
Is Agile Data Science just two buzzwords put together? I argue that agile is a very practical and applicable methodology, that does work well in the real world for all sorts of Analytics and Data Science workflows.
http://theinnovationenterprise.com/summits/digital-web-analytics-summit-london-2015/schedule
The Power of Virtual Collaboration in Project ManagementCitrix Online
This new eBook explores how companies can implement virtual collaboration tools throughout the project lifecycle to effectively manage projects from start to finish.
OpenID AuthZEN Interop Read Out - AuthorizationDavid Brossard
During Identiverse 2024 and EIC 2024, members of the OpenID AuthZEN WG got together and demoed their authorization endpoints conforming to the AuthZEN API
Programming Foundation Models with DSPy - Meetup SlidesZilliz
Prompting language models is hard, while programming language models is easy. In this talk, I will discuss the state-of-the-art framework DSPy for programming foundation models with its powerful optimizers and runtime constraint system.
How to Get CNIC Information System with Paksim Ga.pptxdanishmna97
Pakdata Cf is a groundbreaking system designed to streamline and facilitate access to CNIC information. This innovative platform leverages advanced technology to provide users with efficient and secure access to their CNIC details.
In his public lecture, Christian Timmerer provides insights into the fascinating history of video streaming, starting from its humble beginnings before YouTube to the groundbreaking technologies that now dominate platforms like Netflix and ORF ON. Timmerer also presents provocative contributions of his own that have significantly influenced the industry. He concludes by looking at future challenges and invites the audience to join in a discussion.
Have you ever been confused by the myriad of choices offered by AWS for hosting a website or an API?
Lambda, Elastic Beanstalk, Lightsail, Amplify, S3 (and more!) can each host websites + APIs. But which one should we choose?
Which one is cheapest? Which one is fastest? Which one will scale to meet our needs?
Join me in this session as we dive into each AWS hosting service to determine which one is best for your scenario and explain why!
Best 20 SEO Techniques To Improve Website Visibility In SERPPixlogix Infotech
Boost your website's visibility with proven SEO techniques! Our latest blog dives into essential strategies to enhance your online presence, increase traffic, and rank higher on search engines. From keyword optimization to quality content creation, learn how to make your site stand out in the crowded digital landscape. Discover actionable tips and expert insights to elevate your SEO game.
HCL Notes und Domino Lizenzkostenreduzierung in der Welt von DLAUpanagenda
Webinar Recording: https://www.panagenda.com/webinars/hcl-notes-und-domino-lizenzkostenreduzierung-in-der-welt-von-dlau/
DLAU und die Lizenzen nach dem CCB- und CCX-Modell sind für viele in der HCL-Community seit letztem Jahr ein heißes Thema. Als Notes- oder Domino-Kunde haben Sie vielleicht mit unerwartet hohen Benutzerzahlen und Lizenzgebühren zu kämpfen. Sie fragen sich vielleicht, wie diese neue Art der Lizenzierung funktioniert und welchen Nutzen sie Ihnen bringt. Vor allem wollen Sie sicherlich Ihr Budget einhalten und Kosten sparen, wo immer möglich. Das verstehen wir und wir möchten Ihnen dabei helfen!
Wir erklären Ihnen, wie Sie häufige Konfigurationsprobleme lösen können, die dazu führen können, dass mehr Benutzer gezählt werden als nötig, und wie Sie überflüssige oder ungenutzte Konten identifizieren und entfernen können, um Geld zu sparen. Es gibt auch einige Ansätze, die zu unnötigen Ausgaben führen können, z. B. wenn ein Personendokument anstelle eines Mail-Ins für geteilte Mailboxen verwendet wird. Wir zeigen Ihnen solche Fälle und deren Lösungen. Und natürlich erklären wir Ihnen das neue Lizenzmodell.
Nehmen Sie an diesem Webinar teil, bei dem HCL-Ambassador Marc Thomas und Gastredner Franz Walder Ihnen diese neue Welt näherbringen. Es vermittelt Ihnen die Tools und das Know-how, um den Überblick zu bewahren. Sie werden in der Lage sein, Ihre Kosten durch eine optimierte Domino-Konfiguration zu reduzieren und auch in Zukunft gering zu halten.
Diese Themen werden behandelt
- Reduzierung der Lizenzkosten durch Auffinden und Beheben von Fehlkonfigurationen und überflüssigen Konten
- Wie funktionieren CCB- und CCX-Lizenzen wirklich?
- Verstehen des DLAU-Tools und wie man es am besten nutzt
- Tipps für häufige Problembereiche, wie z. B. Team-Postfächer, Funktions-/Testbenutzer usw.
- Praxisbeispiele und Best Practices zum sofortigen Umsetzen
Full-RAG: A modern architecture for hyper-personalizationZilliz
Mike Del Balso, CEO & Co-Founder at Tecton, presents "Full RAG," a novel approach to AI recommendation systems, aiming to push beyond the limitations of traditional models through a deep integration of contextual insights and real-time data, leveraging the Retrieval-Augmented Generation architecture. This talk will outline Full RAG's potential to significantly enhance personalization, address engineering challenges such as data management and model training, and introduce data enrichment with reranking as a key solution. Attendees will gain crucial insights into the importance of hyperpersonalization in AI, the capabilities of Full RAG for advanced personalization, and strategies for managing complex data integrations for deploying cutting-edge AI solutions.
Climate Impact of Software Testing at Nordic Testing DaysKari Kakkonen
My slides at Nordic Testing Days 6.6.2024
Climate impact / sustainability of software testing discussed on the talk. ICT and testing must carry their part of global responsibility to help with the climat warming. We can minimize the carbon footprint but we can also have a carbon handprint, a positive impact on the climate. Quality characteristics can be added with sustainability, and then measured continuously. Test environments can be used less, and in smaller scale and on demand. Test techniques can be used in optimizing or minimizing number of tests. Test automation can be used to speed up testing.
In the rapidly evolving landscape of technologies, XML continues to play a vital role in structuring, storing, and transporting data across diverse systems. The recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) present new methodologies for enhancing XML development workflows, introducing efficiency, automation, and intelligent capabilities. This presentation will outline the scope and perspective of utilizing AI in XML development. The potential benefits and the possible pitfalls will be highlighted, providing a balanced view of the subject.
We will explore the capabilities of AI in understanding XML markup languages and autonomously creating structured XML content. Additionally, we will examine the capacity of AI to enrich plain text with appropriate XML markup. Practical examples and methodological guidelines will be provided to elucidate how AI can be effectively prompted to interpret and generate accurate XML markup.
Further emphasis will be placed on the role of AI in developing XSLT, or schemas such as XSD and Schematron. We will address the techniques and strategies adopted to create prompts for generating code, explaining code, or refactoring the code, and the results achieved.
The discussion will extend to how AI can be used to transform XML content. In particular, the focus will be on the use of AI XPath extension functions in XSLT, Schematron, Schematron Quick Fixes, or for XML content refactoring.
The presentation aims to deliver a comprehensive overview of AI usage in XML development, providing attendees with the necessary knowledge to make informed decisions. Whether you’re at the early stages of adopting AI or considering integrating it in advanced XML development, this presentation will cover all levels of expertise.
By highlighting the potential advantages and challenges of integrating AI with XML development tools and languages, the presentation seeks to inspire thoughtful conversation around the future of XML development. We’ll not only delve into the technical aspects of AI-powered XML development but also discuss practical implications and possible future directions.
Essentials of Automations: The Art of Triggers and Actions in FMESafe Software
In this second installment of our Essentials of Automations webinar series, we’ll explore the landscape of triggers and actions, guiding you through the nuances of authoring and adapting workspaces for seamless automations. Gain an understanding of the full spectrum of triggers and actions available in FME, empowering you to enhance your workspaces for efficient automation.
We’ll kick things off by showcasing the most commonly used event-based triggers, introducing you to various automation workflows like manual triggers, schedules, directory watchers, and more. Plus, see how these elements play out in real scenarios.
Whether you’re tweaking your current setup or building from the ground up, this session will arm you with the tools and insights needed to transform your FME usage into a powerhouse of productivity. Join us to discover effective strategies that simplify complex processes, enhancing your productivity and transforming your data management practices with FME. Let’s turn complexity into clarity and make your workspaces work wonders!
Removing Uninteresting Bytes in Software FuzzingAftab Hussain
Imagine a world where software fuzzing, the process of mutating bytes in test seeds to uncover hidden and erroneous program behaviors, becomes faster and more effective. A lot depends on the initial seeds, which can significantly dictate the trajectory of a fuzzing campaign, particularly in terms of how long it takes to uncover interesting behaviour in your code. We introduce DIAR, a technique designed to speedup fuzzing campaigns by pinpointing and eliminating those uninteresting bytes in the seeds. Picture this: instead of wasting valuable resources on meaningless mutations in large, bloated seeds, DIAR removes the unnecessary bytes, streamlining the entire process.
In this work, we equipped AFL, a popular fuzzer, with DIAR and examined two critical Linux libraries -- Libxml's xmllint, a tool for parsing xml documents, and Binutil's readelf, an essential debugging and security analysis command-line tool used to display detailed information about ELF (Executable and Linkable Format). Our preliminary results show that AFL+DIAR does not only discover new paths more quickly but also achieves higher coverage overall. This work thus showcases how starting with lean and optimized seeds can lead to faster, more comprehensive fuzzing campaigns -- and DIAR helps you find such seeds.
- These are slides of the talk given at IEEE International Conference on Software Testing Verification and Validation Workshop, ICSTW 2022.
HCL Notes and Domino License Cost Reduction in the World of DLAUpanagenda
Webinar Recording: https://www.panagenda.com/webinars/hcl-notes-and-domino-license-cost-reduction-in-the-world-of-dlau/
The introduction of DLAU and the CCB & CCX licensing model caused quite a stir in the HCL community. As a Notes and Domino customer, you may have faced challenges with unexpected user counts and license costs. You probably have questions on how this new licensing approach works and how to benefit from it. Most importantly, you likely have budget constraints and want to save money where possible. Don’t worry, we can help with all of this!
We’ll show you how to fix common misconfigurations that cause higher-than-expected user counts, and how to identify accounts which you can deactivate to save money. There are also frequent patterns that can cause unnecessary cost, like using a person document instead of a mail-in for shared mailboxes. We’ll provide examples and solutions for those as well. And naturally we’ll explain the new licensing model.
Join HCL Ambassador Marc Thomas in this webinar with a special guest appearance from Franz Walder. It will give you the tools and know-how to stay on top of what is going on with Domino licensing. You will be able lower your cost through an optimized configuration and keep it low going forward.
These topics will be covered
- Reducing license cost by finding and fixing misconfigurations and superfluous accounts
- How do CCB and CCX licenses really work?
- Understanding the DLAU tool and how to best utilize it
- Tips for common problem areas, like team mailboxes, functional/test users, etc
- Practical examples and best practices to implement right away
Generating privacy-protected synthetic data using Secludy and MilvusZilliz
During this demo, the founders of Secludy will demonstrate how their system utilizes Milvus to store and manipulate embeddings for generating privacy-protected synthetic data. Their approach not only maintains the confidentiality of the original data but also enhances the utility and scalability of LLMs under privacy constraints. Attendees, including machine learning engineers, data scientists, and data managers, will witness first-hand how Secludy's integration with Milvus empowers organizations to harness the power of LLMs securely and efficiently.
Generating privacy-protected synthetic data using Secludy and Milvus
Agiletools
1. TargetProcess, Inc.
Whitepaper
Agile Tools.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
“Every gun makes its own tune.”
Man With No Name
Michael Dubakov
And
Peter Stevens
www.TargetProcess.com
Phone: 877-718-2617
Fax: 607-398-7927
2. Table of Contents
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………...3
Why do you need a tool?………………………………………………………………6
Simplest tools………………………………………………………………………………7
General software tools…………………………………………………………………9
Old-school project management tools…………………………………………12
Agile project management tools…………………………………………………15
When is whiteboard better than everything else? ………………………17
Conclusion and Predictions………………………………………………………..20
Author Biographies……………………………………………………………………21
2008 TargetProcess, Inc., Michael Dubakov and Peter Stevens
Page 2
3. Introduction
Introduction
Agile software development adoption spreads over the world. According to the latest surveys, about
70% of organizations adopt agile practices (http://www.ambysoft.com/surveys/agileFebruary2008.html)
and stick with it. During the last 10 years, agile methods jumped from nowhere to the peak. Such rapid
revolution demands new tools. There are many developers-focused tools appearing including JUnit,
Eclipse, Cruise Control, etc. However, the project management community is less self-sufficient and
unable to create new tools for the new methodology in their spare time. As a result, most companies
are still using old-fashioned project management tools like MS Project or generic tools like spreadsheets
for project planning and tracking.
The table below contains results of project management tools usage taken from TargetProcess leads
(from May to July). People requested trial or free versions of TargetProcess. There were 371 requests
with answers about tools usage.
Tool Category Answers
Traditional 89
Spread sheets 60
None 65
Agile 41
Bug Tracking 44
Collaboration 20
Wiki 24
Other 12
In-House 16
371
The question was in a free form and the answer was typed. Surprisingly, 18% of the respondents do not
use any tool at all. Most likely, many people in the "None" category use paper and whiteboards.
However, it is just an assumption.
2008 TargetProcess, Inc., Michael Dubakov and Peter Stevens
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4. • 24% companies use traditional project management tools (vast majority use MS Project).
• 16% use Spread Sheets (vast majority use MS Excel).
• 12% use various Bug Tracking tools (JIRA is the winner in this category).
• 11% use Agile Project Management Tools (open source XPlanner is a leader).
Tool Answers Category
MS Project 81 Traditional
Spread sheets 60 Spreadsheets
None 65 None
Rally 7 Agile
JIRA 17 Bug Tracking
XPlanner 12 Agile
VersionOne 9 Agile
Basecamp 9 Collaboration
Trac 16 Wiki
Mantis 10 Bug Tracking
Other Bug Tracker 17 Bug Tracking
custom/in-house 16 InHouse
dotProject 8 Traditional
Other Collaboration 11 Collaboration
Mingle 6 Agile
ScrumWorks 7 Agile
VSTS 7 Other
Wiki 8 Wiki
Paper 5 Other
371
2008 TargetProcess, Inc., Michael Dubakov and Peter Stevens
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5. In total, 52% use traditional tools, excel or bug tracking tools for project management. Are these the
best choices for software development projects?
In this article, we discuss various approaches for agile project management and provide comparisons
between the simplest tools (index cards and whiteboards), spreadsheets, traditional project
management software and agile project management software.
2008 TargetProcess, Inc., Michael Dubakov and Peter Stevens
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6. Why do you need a tool?
Let's assume that we have a large and shiny nail. What is the best tool for the nail? Hopefully, the
answer is obvious to most of us. Now, let's assume that we have a development team and a "shining",
promising, cool new agile development process. Most likely the hammer will not help.
To tackle this problem, it is essential to have at your disposal a tool that enables requirements
gathering, iteration planning, progress tracking and reporting. You can't rely on memory for
requirements gathering. You can't rely on the universal perception for iteration planning and you
definitely can't rely on telepathy for progress tracking and reporting. You need a tool that will do the job
with minimum effort and minimum side effects.
“I think that people and how they interact on a project are the most important thing, and I think that
they need to create a way of working -- a process -- that works best for them. Because their interactions
are critical to project success, I suggest that teams begin the work with an approach that will bring them
together as people, not one that will let them remain apart, communicating electronically”.
— Ron Jeffries
2008 TargetProcess, Inc., Michael Dubakov and Peter Stevens
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7. The Simplest Tools
If you ever tried Extreme Programming or Scrum, you are familiar with the simplest tools commonly
used for the fine-grained short-term project plans creation and progress tracking: Index Cards and Big
Visible Charts (http://xp123.com/xplor/room-gallery/index.shtml).
The beauty of cards is threefold: Cards have one more
benefit. Cards are tangible.
1) They are flexible. People love to use
2) They are easy to use when working in a group. Used to manage the sprint. something tangible like
paper, post-it notes,
3) They are part of an extremely easy to understand overview of the state of
markers, etc. They provide
the project. a feeling of control and real
feedback. For some reason,
So whether you are brainstorming user stories, planning tasks for the current they stimulate the
sprint, or reviewing the sprint in a retrospective, cards are easy. They let people imagination and good ideas
work in parallel, and are very effective for communicating and prioritizing pop up more often.
information.
The drawbacks of cards are also threefold:
1) Reusing data.
2) Backing up data.
3) Having remote access to the data.
So if you use cards to create your product backlog, that's fine, but now yourCEO wants a report on which
stories have been completed and which are forecasted to be completed by which sprint. This is easy to
do if you have a spreadsheet, but first you have to enter all the data by hand, a job which usually falls on
one person. Related to reuse is backup (and possibly other security issues): what happens if you lose the
cards?
Things are different in a distributed team. Everybody needs to see the task board. In a meeting,
everybody needs to not just read, but also to post the cards on the wall and it is required to send the
sprint contract to the customer. There are teams using web cams and Skype connections to broadcast
the task board to remote sites, but even that seems like a weak alternative. The remote sites have read-
only access to the cards, if they are even legible.
Moreover, using cards to manage the Scrum data (e.g. backlogs, taskboards, and burndown) does not
address how to manage other documentation (e.g. design documents, and program documentation).
And finally, how well does the approach scale? When you have hundreds or thousands of stories?
You may use cards for the Sprint Retrospective and for the initial product brainstorming. For the first
sprints, this is a good place to start, but most teams will quickly reach the natural limits of this approach.
2008 TargetProcess, Inc., Michael Dubakov and Peter Stevens
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8. Pros Cons
• Easy to learn and easy to use • Don’t work for distributed teams
• Flexible, may be adopted for team • Don’t work for large teams
• Inexpensive • Lack of reporting
• Manual remaining time update, burn
down update etc.
2008 TargetProcess, Inc., Michael Dubakov and Peter Stevens
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9. General Software Tools
Wiki is a very flexible tool. It can be used for almost any content management. There are teams that use
wiki for scrum development management. For example, you may setup Scrum area on the wiki with
structure like this:
• Sprint 1
• Sprint 2
• Sprint n
o Sprint Contract
Product Backlog at start of sprint (xls and pdf, as sent to the customer)
Status Overview from the Planning Meeting (current burndown chart, estimated
resources for next sprint, definition of done, time/location of next demo
meeting, etc.)
Sprint Backlog at start of Sprint (pdf - this is the actual contract)
Daily Scrum Spreadsheet (xls - updated daily)
Status Review from the Demo (stories/points accomplished, costs etc)
o Sprint Stories
Story 103 Some story -> all project documents related to that story
Story 105 Some other story
Wiki is not appropriate for backlog management, however a simple spreadsheet looks like a good
tool for that purpose. It is possible to consolidate all of the wish lists into one spreadsheet which
becomes the product backlog. It may have as little as 5 columns: Name, Effort, Priority and Estimate
and "reference number" column to make it easier to find individual stories.
Product Backlog in Excel
There are many possible ways to track sprint progress using spreadsheets (http://www.odd-
e.com/home_page/html_files/bl_templates.html). The simplest daily scrum spreadsheet contains a
list of all tasks and remaining effort for each day. The spreadsheet should be updated every day and
uploaded into the wiki to make it available for all parties.
2008 TargetProcess, Inc., Michael Dubakov and Peter Stevens
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10. Iteration Burndown Chart in Excel
The advantage of this approach is self evident: many companies have
The problem with Wiki
these tools and know how to use them. A spreadsheet is very flexible, so
and Excel is quite
you can slice and dice the data as you see fit. Data reuse is not a
common. These tools are
problem per se. Backup is handled by whatever mechanisms you have in simple, but general. They
place for your PC. do not have business
logic behind them, but
The wiki requires a lot of discipline so that you can find things. The basic provide frameworks to
Scrum flow was relatively easy, but data which did not obviously belong resolve simple data
to a single sprint was always somehow a special case and finding it later manipulation problems.
was hard. A good search tool is a prerequisite for using the Wiki.
2008 TargetProcess, Inc., Michael Dubakov and Peter Stevens
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11. Most likely the product backlog management will be inefficient with
It is good, but what are
the Wiki and spreadsheet. The Wiki is too inflexible as a data structure
the benefits? Wiki+Excel
and the spreadsheet is too flexible. The customer, when he had the will not work in
data, could too easily change the structure of the spreadsheet. Assuring distributed environment
the quality of the input was a problem and we had "file locking" and will not work for
problems: Either the customer could update or you could update, but large collocated teams
you could not see changes made by the other until you got the well. Concurrent access,
spreadsheet back, nor could you update unless you had agreed with real-time reporting,
the customer that you had the writable copy. integration with other
dev. process tools – all
these functions are just
Pros Cons
• Easy to learn and easy to use • Doesn’t work for distributed teams
• Cheap • Doesn’t work for large teams
• Limited reporting
• Limited visibility
• Manual remaining time update, manual
burn down update
2008 TargetProcess, Inc., Michael Dubakov and Peter Stevens
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12. Old-school project management tools
Most project managers are familiar with traditional tools like MS Project and it is natural for them to
plan iterations using well known tools. However, this desire may hurt agile adoption.
What does classical PM software do and what should agile project management software do?
Classical PM Software Agile PM Software
• Schedule a series of events • Product/Release backlog maintenance
• Manage dependencies between events • Release and Iteration plan
• Schedule people and resources maintenance
• Deal with uncertainties in the estimates of • Burn down reports
the duration of each task • Iteration velocity concept
• Arrange tasks to meet various deadlines • Task Board
• Calculate critical paths
Let’s evaluate how classical PM software functions correspond to the needs of an agile team.
• Schedule a series of events. The schedule of events is largely determined by the priorities of the
Product Owner and is negotiated from sprint to sprint with the developers. It is not required to
set dates for tasks and user stories.
• Manage dependencies between events. Dependencies are not required most of the time.
Software development teams may handle dependencies inside without any additional tool since
they are pretty obvious.
• Schedule people and resources. That may be helpful for large projects with several
development teams.
• Deal with uncertainties in the estimates of the duration of each task. The estimates are
handled in two levels of detail - 1) seat of the pants 'story points' for rough sizing and scheduling
at the release level, and 2) very detailed task estimates for monitoring progress through a sprint.
There is no need for additional uncertainties analysis.
• Arrange tasks to meet various deadlines. The only deadlines are sprint demos and they are
fixed by the sprint rhythm.
• Calculate critical paths. Critical paths are not important for single iteration. The development
team “feels” it during the iteration planning and daily scrum meetings since the iteration is
usually short. High level critical paths may be helpful for large projects with several
development teams, but still it differs from the usual critical paths in traditional PM tools. It may
include just releases and iterations, not tasks.
2008 TargetProcess, Inc., Michael Dubakov and Peter Stevens
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13. Iteration Plan in MS Project
"The trouble with Microsoft Project is that it assumes that you want to spend a lot of time worrying
about dependencies... I've found that with software, the dependencies are so obvious that it's just not
worth the effort to formally keep track of them." — Joel Spolsky
Let’s see how traditional PM tools support required agile practices:
• Product/Release backlog. Just do not exist in traditional PM tools. You will have to store
backlog in Excel or somewhere else and copy/paste features when required.
• Release and Iteration plan maintenance. May be done in traditional PM tools without
problems.
• Burn down reports. Just do not exist in traditional PM tools.
• Task Board. Just do not exist in traditional PM tools.
• Iteration velocity concept. If you create iteration in traditional PM tools, Effort will be
Iteration Velocity in fact, but you don't have a clear velocity progress picture.
In short, the tool needed for successful agile project management should be the opposite of what
classical PM tools have to offer. It should compensate for classical PM tools’ weaknesses in an effort to
avoid frustration and gaps in communication among ALL of the team members.
2008 TargetProcess, Inc., Michael Dubakov and Peter Stevens
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14. How many features in MS Project will you use for Iterative Development? Resources and Tasks — that's
it. Tasks will be independent, so critical path is useless and Gantt chart is not very helpful. Resource
leveling sometimes helps, but in most cases conflicts may be resolved very easily during daily meetings.
Most reports are useless.
It appears, that traditional PM tools are too complex and don't bring enough value to justify its usage
in iterative planning.
Pros Cons
• May already exist in a company • Does not support agile development
• People allocation support concepts
• Limited reporting
• Limited visibility
2008 TargetProcess, Inc., Michael Dubakov and Peter Stevens
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15. Agile project management tools
The integration of the entire planning and development process is the major argument for a dedicated
tool. Almost any development process includes activities like:
• Requirements management (product/release backlogs).
• Planning (release/iteration planning).
• Tracking (project/release/iteration progress tracking).
• Quality Assurance (testing, bugs management).
• Feedback Gathering (feedback from customers, ideas, issues).
Most teams use several tools to manage all these activities. For example, the toolset may include MS
Project, Requisite Pro, Bugzilla, Test Run and Support Forum. Each tool does a part of the job, but it
takes time for people to export/import data between applications and often slice and dice data
manually to have the complete picture. The solution is an integrated project management software that
supports all development activities and provides information in a single shot.
Modern agile project management software combines common activities and provides open API for
advanced integration. It powers:
• User Stories and Epics management.
• Backlogs prioritization.
• High level release planning and low level iteration planning.
• Progress tracking via virtual burndown charts, Task Board and Daily Progress.
• Tests management via Test Cases support and integration with automated testing tools.
• Bugs management via Bug Tracking support and integration with external bug tracking tools.
• Customers’ requests management via Help Desk functionality or integration with third-party
tools like Salesforce.
In short, you get support for an integrated process (Lean Principle at Work: Eliminate Waste, in
particular, searching for information), starting from preparation through deployment and operations.
The other goal of agile project management tools is to integrate several teams. In the real world, several
teams work together on a single large project. Often the teams are separated by continents and time
zones. It is really hard to integrate them without a tool that can be easily accessible by all teams all the
time. Paper and whiteboards will not help; desktop applications will not help either. The only viable
solution so far is the web based software.
There are various opinions about distributed teams, including extreme:
"Distributed teams are not teams; they are at best a collection of people who communicate regularly.
But communication is not collaboration. A distributed team cannot create the kind of energy that comes
from human eye contact, from shared spontaneous laughter, from physical touch. True collaboration
requires all five senses. Distributed teams require managers, and thus can never be truly self-organizing.
2008 TargetProcess, Inc., Michael Dubakov and Peter Stevens
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16. Time differences and delayed response times inevitably slow down conversation, hold up decisions and
ultimately cripple agility." — Tobias Mayer
Without a doubt, is it better to have collocated teams. However many companies are distributed
geographically for business reasons and software development projects will be executed by distributed
teams. There are ways to mitigate the problem. For example, collocate teams for the first release,
exchange team members on a regular basis, use web cams and interactive software for meetings. Web
based agile project management tool is one more way to reduce the negative effect of distributed
teams.
Task Board in TargetProcess
What is the downside of an online tool? Mostly reduced flexibility compared to cards. A physical
taskboard is a much more effective Information Radiator than a web page and cards are extremely
productive for the kind of group work that occurs in Scrum — brainstorming stories, sprint planning and
the retrospectives. A program structures information the way it was designed to. If your needs are
different or simply not envisioned by the tool, then you have to figure out a work around.
Pros Cons
• Works for distributed teams • Limited visibility
• Works for large teams • Sometimes hard to adopt for existing
• Real-time reporting development process
• Integrated solution, provide connectors to • Significant learning curve
source control, but tracking, etc. • Maybe quite expensive
2008 TargetProcess, Inc., Michael Dubakov and Peter Stevens
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17. When is whiteboard better than everything else?
Let's try to compare the simplest tools with the web-based tools for the collocated team. Some areas
are definitely more important than others. Obviously, communication is more important than fancy plan
updating or automatic time tracking — therefore we'll use weights to assign relative values. There are
three weights (1-3) and four scores:
1 - Poor
2 - Average
3 - Goods
4 - Great
The formula is quite simple: Category score = Weight * Score.
Total score is just a sum of all categories' scores. In the end we expect to have some numbers that we
will use in our analysis.
Category Weight Simplest Tools Web-based Software Spreadsheets
Planning process 3 4 - Tangible and exciting 3 – simple, but less 2 - doable
exciting and visible
Plan visibility 2 2 – good for the team, poor 2– good for execs, poor 1 – poor for all
for execs for the team
Plan update 1 3 – re-stick some notes 4 – several clicks, from 4 – move some
anywhere rows or mark
them for release
Velocity tracking, Time 2 1 – manual, asking each 4 – automatic 2 – manual,
tracking person asking each
person
Burn Down Update and 1 1 – manual 4 – automatic 4 – automatic
other charts update
Communication 3 4 – just great 2 – exists 1 – no
Reporting 3 1 – poor reports since all data 4 – almost endless 3 - good
offline reporting capabilities reporting
capabilities
People involvement 3 4 – everyone involved 1 – may become a 1 – may become
problem a problem
Cost 2 4 – almost free 1 – may be quite 4 – almost free
expensive
Total: 57 52 43
We have 57 for tangible tools, 52 for web-based software tools and as little as 43 for spreadsheets. Are
you still using spreadsheets? Although the above scores are somewhat subjective, it is still clear there is
a better way than spreadsheets or other tools not designed for Agile.
2008 TargetProcess, Inc., Michael Dubakov and Peter Stevens
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18. Tangible tools are more preferable for agile processes — use them Another important question
if you can! But remember, that it remains the case for collocated is how can we alleviate
teams only! It is impossible to use usual tangible tools for potential problems that
distributed teams. Distributed teams hardly can share whiteboards may arise with web-based
and task boards. They need more formal processes and more tools for project
formal tools. Agile offshore development management in agile
(http://www.martinfowler.com/articles/agileOffshore.html) is environment? Some
there and definitely is better than the traditional waterfall process. thoughts:
More and more distributed teams use agile development processes
Focus on communication
successfully and that is the fact of life. What should you use in this
and collaboration. Do not
case? Obviously, web based software is a great tool for sharing
think that email is OK and
knowledge, project state and other project information. It enough. It is just not true.
coordinates distributed teams nicely. Use Skype, use web cams,
whenever it is possible —
In fact, there are some guidelines that you may think about when travel and meet in person.
reviewing the comparison table. Try to break the borders in
all possible ways.
You should prefer White Boards, Cards and Markers if:
Plan iterations as usual —
• You are trying Extreme Programming or Scrum for the first using cards! Enter data into
time (that's important). the system at the
• Team is collocated. completion of the planning
• You tried simplest tools, achieved great results and don't game.
feel a need to change anything.
Integrate information
You should prefer a web-based software tool for project radiators with software. For
management in agile projects if: example, you may bind
Ambient Orb to project
status. It will be green if
• You have a distributed team (offshore development). everything is OK and red if
• You have a large collocated team (20+ people). iteration is in trouble. You
• Your executives need status reports and without them may print out iteration plan
would not accept the agile process ("OK, if I can see real- on A3 paper and stick it to
time project status somewhere, you may try the wall.
XP/Scrum/Lean").
• You tried simplest tools and for whatever reason they did not work in your environment. (In that
case, you should try to define exact reasons for the failure. Perhaps, there are communication
problems or something else that can be fixed).
2008 TargetProcess, Inc., Michael Dubakov and Peter Stevens
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19. We may combine results in a small matrix.
No Status reporting required Status reporting important
Small Collocated Team Tangible tools Mix of tangible tools and web
based agile tools
Large Collocated Team Mix of tangible tools and web Web based agile tools
based agile tools
Distributed Team Web based agile tools Web based agile tools
2008 TargetProcess, Inc., Michael Dubakov and Peter Stevens
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20. Conclusion and Predictions
“A trend that will continue to influence software tools is ever-tightening release cycles. Where releases
once took years, an increasing number of software products will release new functionality to production
monthly, week, daily, or even more frequently. […] The trend towards support more frequent transitions
between activities will continue. More activities will be supported without large changes of context.”
—Kent Beck
Agile project management tools have a short history. It is obvious that current tools are just a first try
and they will evolve in the future. Currently three main trends may be mentioned.
Tangible – intangible linkage
Obviously, teams like tangible tools and agile software tools will use something tangible to provide
better user experience. Large sensor displays like Microsoft surface
(http://www.microsoft.com/surface/index.html) will be used for iteration planning, daily meetings, and
other interactive meetings.
Complete integrated development life-cycle solutions
Agile project management software is evolving into complete life-cycle solutions. Development teams
need a platform that combines and exposes information about all aspects of software development,
from initial requirements to unit tests results and source code commits.
Distributed collaboration tools
More and more companies will have development teams worldwide working on the same projects.
Distributed teams are a reality in a software development world and this trend will be progressing over
time. Agile tools will focus on distributed teams support better, providing integration with
communication tools like Skype and WebEx.
2008 TargetProcess, Inc., Michael Dubakov and Peter Stevens
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21. Author Biographies
Peter Stevens
My mission is to help you realize complex projects effectively. I provide coaching, training and project
management to help you get started with Scrum, save projects in crisis, and make your IT operations
leaner and more effective. I studied Computer Science at Colgate University and started my professional
life at Microsoft. I am a Certified Scrum Master.
Michael Dubakov
I am a founder of TargetProcess (“best agile project management software in the world”). My Mission is
to provide solutions to real problems in agile projects. I wrote several books about web development
and many articles related to almost all aspects of software development.
2008 TargetProcess, Inc., Michael Dubakov and Peter Stevens
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