The Agile Triangle

Posted By: Lance Dacy on July 27, 2011

Jim Highsmith presented to DFW Scrum on July 26, 2011. We are grateful for his time and energy to come by and educate us on the true Agile Triangle and how to balance cost, scope, and schedule (which he ascertains are actually constraints, not foundational pieces of the Iron Triangle).

Fellowship Technologies is a proud sponsor of DFW Scrum as they strive to concentrate on various "bands" in Scrum. The process is small and simple, and relatively easy to understand. Doing it... well that is another story altogether. Scrum says "start with a backlog, prioritize it, estimate it, commit to a piece of it in a sprint, deliver potentially shippable product in the end, look back on ways to improve, rinse and repeat". I also add that our job…

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Conversation Paralysis

Posted By: Lance Dacy on July 7, 2011

Scrum teaches us that feature requests (user stories) are to be written in the language of the customer (As <some role> I need <some feature> so that I can <get some value>.) These small sentences actually pack a load of information for the technical team reading them and it forces the user to really think about their feature and what they are trying to accomplish. All too often, even the customer doesn't know exactly what they want, so this format helps them to succinctly describe their problem.

The beauty of the user story however is not necessarily the language or format. The user story is actually the place holder for the conversation that needs to take place. The team can then solve the user's problem by talking through the solution with the entire team's knowledge and wisdom at work (all the while conversing with the…

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