tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26536039150507537632011-04-21T13:10:55.582-07:00Jim Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02483515342360962432noreply@blogger.comBlogger31100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653603915050753763.post-1528361734760997302007-11-04T15:04:00.000-08:002007-11-04T16:02:55.827-08:00Noise (pronounced "NOISE!!!") has moved to a new home at <a href="http://code.google.com/p/noisevst/">http://code.google.com/p/noisevst/</a><br /><br />It's bigger than the old place, but the neighbours are a bit weird.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2653603915050753763-152836173476099730?l=ablogisforchristmas.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Jim Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02483515342360962432noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653603915050753763.post-62708208154840329432007-03-27T03:57:00.000-07:002007-03-27T04:10:04.662-07:00<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">I have, over the years, witnessed many abuses of the agile term, Velocity.</span><br /></span><ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">It's used as a stick for managers to beat developers with:</span><span style="font-family:verdana;"> "[Y]our velocity of 3.913 is too low. It needs to be at least 4.239 for us to deliver</span> <span style="font-family:verdana;">on time". </span><br /></span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">It's used as a meaningless indication of work completed in an iteration:</span><span style="font-family:verdana;"> "Our customer was on holiday and could not sign off any stories. Our velocity last </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">iteration was therefore 0". </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">Or, my favourite:</span><span style="font-family:verdana;"> "We completed 10 points last iteration. That's 5 more points than the previous </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">iteration. Thanks for working twice as hard!"</span></span><br /></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">It's used to attribute some kind of precision to a process which has none (see quote</span></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"> <span style="font-size:85%;">#1).</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">It's used to support all kinds of crazy non-science during planning:</span><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"> "Our velocity last iteration was 10. Bob is off this week so I will deduct 1 point, </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">however Alice is back from holiday and is more experienced than Bob, so I will add 1.5 </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">points back. Plus another point because the clocks go forward tomorrow".</span></span><br /></li></ul><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">But the thing that really REALLY bugs me is that velocity is so often used to measure </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">the wrong thing. Hands up if you release working software each iteration? I don't mean </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">"signed off" or "demoed" features, but actual working software, running in a production </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">environment and ready for the customer to use? If you don't, but you still measure </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">velocity per iteration, and you still "sign up" for the same number of points you </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">"finished" last iteration... why? Why measure velocity? It doesn't tell your customer </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">when their software is going to be ready, because you aren't measuring your success at </span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-style: italic;">delivering working software</span>. All you're measuring is the speed at which your team </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">writes code, which is not the same thing.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">To figure out when the software is <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> going to be ready, you now have to factor in </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">all kinds of deployment, load-testing, performance-tuning and emergency bugfixing at the </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">end of your *real* release cycle, but you haven't got a clue how long that work will </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">take because you've never done it before, and therefore have no velocity!<br /><br /></span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2653603915050753763-6270820815484032943?l=ablogisforchristmas.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Jim Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02483515342360962432noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653603915050753763.post-5031535681601472222007-01-03T10:23:00.000-08:002007-01-03T10:25:08.633-08:00...don't expect me to know what the hell Shu Ha Ri means.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2653603915050753763-503153568160147222?l=ablogisforchristmas.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Jim Arnoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02483515342360962432noreply@blogger.com2