Micro PDCA: Improve Your Improvement
The concern about continuous improvement has been a constant at Facta TI since the company's inception. This concern made some practices emerge in a natural way, and they quietly became part of our days. In fact, they became so natural to us tha...
Agile Software Development: A People Business
Let's face it: People skills is not an area in which the software development community has traditionally excelled. The very traits that can help a developer excel at technical problem solving can often make him or her challenging to work with day...
Step 1: Use a Checklist
When you're about to engage in a risky activity, such as flying an airplane, it's wise to be prepared. The cost of a mistake may be measured in lives. Thankfully, aviators have figured out a simple but effective means to keep planes flying safely....
Should Defects Be Considered User Stories?
User stories and story points
A user story is a description of functionality at the lowest level of granularity that can be independently developed and demonstrated to generate feedback. Since, in Scrum, we focus on developing the smallest increm...
Becoming a Certified Scrum Professional
Considering the increasing number of companies practicing Agile, getting a ScrumMaster on the rolls has almost become mandatory. Consequently, lot of people (including PMPs) are getting themselves certified as ScrumMasters (or Certified Scrum Deve...
Is ScrumMaster Time Tracked in Sprints?
I recently was asked this question: "Typically, does the ScrumMaster have stories in any given sprint that track for iteration planning, backlog refinement, or any other sprint/Scrum tracking activities? Or does the ScrumMaster's time fall outside...
Risk Management in Agile
There is no definite consensus on the need for risk management within the Agile method. This has led many to believe that risk management is irrelevant in an iterative model. Some follow the approach of ignoring risks until they manifest into issu...