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Archive for March, 2011

The Best Estimating Technique

– March 30, 2011Posted in: Agile, Project Management

When you think of estimating and planning techniques, what method do you think of first? Do you use a parametric technique, Monte Carlo simulation, or something else? I was over at the Implementing Scrum website and found an awesome post, asking this same question. If you think people get crazy whether or not you should utilize an Agile approach or a traditional project management approach on a project, wait until you talk about how to estimate work. In the traditional project management world, I’ve seen people use SLOC and PERT to arrive at an estimate. In the Agile world, I’ve used story points and have seen others use gummy bears and t-shirt sizes.

In the end, I really don’t care what estimation technique is used and I’m pretty sure the customer won’t either. All anyone should be worried about is if the estimates are accurate and if you get the work done. Am I right or am I wrong? I would love to read your input.

Thank you to Mike Vizdos for letting me use his cartoon and for the inspiration for this post.

Pictofigo Promotion

Derek Huether

– March 30, 2011Posted in: Agile, Project Management

I’ve been working with Pictofigo for a few months now. I give them ideas for drawings I think others would find helpful. In turn, I get access to some pretty cool (and original) stuff. It’s quid pro quo at its best. There are currently over 900 drawings available for free on the Standard Pictofigo site. In addition to those, there are 13 Premium items. These items range from a few free desktop wallpapers to Scrum posters and traditional project management posters. What’s the difference and why pay for stuff? The standard site has drawings at 72 dpi resolution, perfect for a blog, website or presentation. The Premium site has drawings at 300 dpi resolution, suitable for print or products. Yes, I do offer links from my site to CafePress, if you want printed posters. But, the actual high resolution drawings are available if you want to print out a few posters at a lower overall cost. I got a notice today that Pictofigo is going to run a half off promotion on their premium content. Because I like to encourage and support entrepreneurs, I wanted to write this quick post. If you’re in the market for some original drawings, look them up. They are constantly iterating on the site so check back often. If you have an idea for a drawing or poster, give them a shout. If you want, you can send me the request and I’ll forward it along. To be clear, I am not Pictofigo. I merely love what they do and want to see them succeed.

HT: Pictofigo

Popularity: 1%

Tags: Free, Pictofigo, Project Management, Scrum, SDLC

Individuals & Interactions over Processes & Tools

Derek Huether

– March 29, 2011Posted in: Agile, Project Management

It’s pretty exciting to hear that LinkedIn just reached over 100 million users. Upon review this morning, my LinkedIn profile stated that I have 149 connections, adding it links me to 3,156,950+ professionals. Unfortunately, I believe a tool is only as good at the individual(s) using it. I’ll admit, I don’t really get LinkedIn. I don’t leverage it the way it was probably intended. To me, it’s an online resume with connections to people who I should have some kind of affiliation with. I think of it more as Classmates.com for business. I actually have a majority of my LinkedIn contacts as a result of an extended Fail Whale that happened on Twitter last year. Twitter may be great for interactions but it’s not so great as a professional contact management tool.

A few days ago, I received a LinkedIn connect request from someone I interact with on Twitter. She wrote

Derek, Would you have any interest in connecting on LinkedIn? I went to send an invite but for some reason the option isn’t there!

Since we’ve interacted on Twitter and share some professional affiliations, I figured I’d add her to my LinkedIn connections. I logged into LinkedIn to send her the connection request and realized why she did not see the option. The LinkedIn user interface had recommended she connect with me, though we were already connected.

In the end, we just laughed it off. We’re still following each other on Twitter. We’ve reaffirmed that we’re connected via LinkedIn. But, it raises an interesting question. How useful is an interaction tool if you don’t interact with other individuals? How useful is have connections, if you don’t connect with them?

Like the drawings? Get them free on Pictofigo!

Popularity: 1%

Tags: Agile Manifesto, linkedIn, Twitter

Describing the SDLC

Derek Huether

– March 28, 2011Posted in: Project Management

While assisting an IT department through a Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) audit, I had to document an organization’s Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC). The SDLC includes activities and functions that systems developers typically perform, regardless of how those activities and functions fit into a particular methodology. Many assume SDLC is referring to a software development process. In turn, there’s a lot of debate about different development practices and approaches. For example, when I lead Scrum teams for an organization, as part of an overall SDLC, all of the Scrum activities took place during the Implementation phase. When changes were deployed to the Production environment, the Support team leveraged Kanban. From Planning to Analyzing to Designing, they leveraged a Waterfall process. It all began with a request for a change.

Because a picture is worth a thousand words, Pictofigo has created a SDLC poster, with a little input from me.
You can either purchase it from CafePress as a poster or you can download it from the Premium Pictofigo site.

Popularity: 1%

Tags: Analyze, Audit, Design, Implement, Plan, SDLC, SOX, Support

Say Goodbye to that Expensive Meeting

Derek Huether

– March 25, 2011Posted in: Agile, Project Management

Back in August (2010) I wrote about attending a $17,904 meeting. It was painful to watch the PMO have a 3 hour meeting every month that seemed to cost so much but deliver so little value. As a follow-up post, I wrote about the value proposition for the expensive meeting.

I am happy to report that the meeting in question has been cancelled indefinitely. In one year alone, the cost savings is $214,848. Wouldn’t you like to have that kind of money added to your budget? I want to be clear that I’m not being a hater of meetings. I’m being a hater of waste. Time and money are precious and I strongly believe we need everyone to communicate more. But it’s about communicating effectively. I can facilitate the communication of more strategic information, without saying a word, by using a enterprise level Kanban. I can facilitate the communication of more tactical information, by having Daily Scrums or Stand-ups.

Though the cancellation was months in the making, I commend those who finally made the difficult (but necessary) choice. It’s easy to complain about things but accept the status quo. It’s hard to ask why and then act on it appropriately.

Drawings by Pictofigo