Grumbling Tummy

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It has been a long time since I last attended an eXtreme Wednesday session: most probably over a year. In that time it seems I’ve forgotten everything I once learned on using Eclipse and Junit - well maybe not everything but it is close. What a crying shame as the guys over there really did teach me a thing or two!

At least I’ve managed to download the latest release candidate and get it installed with Java 1.5.0 running away. Now I can see a lot of Googling and eXtreme Wednesday mailing list messages being posted over the coming weeks.

I will be blogging on my experiences of relearning Eclipse and Java over the coming weeks both here and the more professional viewpoint over on the Roundtrip Solutions Blog.

After initially becoming certified nearly a year ago, I would always state CSM as “Certified Scrum Master”, but within a few months I became aware of more experienced CSMs and ControlChaos, the definitive source of information on Scrum, stating it as “Certified ScrumMaster” - no spaces inbetween the Scrum and Master.

However, today I noticed a topic on one of the Scrum mailing lists that showed the community of CSMs, and more importantly the Gurus of Scrum, stating it in the spaced form. A quick search on Google revealed both spellings in existence in the wild.

Mike Cohn has informed me that the non-spaced version is the pure form. Or should that be the spaced version is the incorrect spelling?

This is now an interesting dilemna! To get maximum coverage on search engines both forms will need to be used judiciously… so here goes ….

John A Thomson - CSM - Certified Scrum Master - Certified ScrumMaster

… and oh yes, “for hire”!

Abdel was kind enough to enlighten the absentees from last week about my post of last week. After the initial shock and revulsion wore off, the professional quality conversation very rapidly slide gutter-wards (again).

Somehow we managed to get talking about Erotica type exhibitions and next thing you know someone is suggesting I should considered a Gimp Mask as a suitable item of clothing to be wearing while answering those emails.

I wonder if that comes in plain brown paper wrapping? Hey if it does then I can give Craig M the wrapping for use as book covering material, just like Mummy used to do with our school books. Perhaps this is his supply chain for said materials.

In the FDD Book Signed posting I indicated that FDD tool support was sadly lacking. Well it is less than a week and it would appear that a tool has been built to meet my gripe:

FDD Manager

Went along to the Feature Driven Development talk being run by Agile Scotland. An excellent session, by one of the FDD leaders David J Anderson, who talked for nearly two hours about his experience of building software and how FDD helps. He went on for a further thirty minutes answering questions, one of which was from me on tool support, before we all retired to the pub.

On the subject of tool support, it looks like this is a weakness at the moment. There may be tools to assist in the process later this year.

… and I got my book signed. Although I was disappointed that it didn’t say something like:

“To my dearest friend John….”

Did manage to convince David to place the presentation onto his blog soon.

Our regular eXtreme Wednesday meeting was interesting this week. However, some of the more interesting things weren’t appropriate for the RSL blog.

Namely, Jon Mountjoy and myself were attempting to instill the virtues of home working and how you had to be disciplined to actually get work done to Abdel. We discussed how the sun shining outside can be a diversion, how basically anything can seem more appealing than work, etc.

I can’t be sure how the conversation managed to dwindle downwards, all the way towards the gutter, but next thing I know I’m informing Abdel how very often I’ll be answering his emails in the nude, lying on top of my bed with the notebook computer perched across my thighs - well it is called a “Laptop”! I even gestured to scratching my personal region before starting the “Dear Abdel” part of the email. Needless to say he was disgusted by the image I had imprinted on his psyche! There will be times in the future when this could prove useful.

For those who regularly receive emails from me, well need I say more than….

“There is nothing like fresh air on the skin while you tap away on the keyboard!”

Blogging is also good in the raw!

Was awakened this morning by the ordered copy of Agile Management for Software Engineering by David J. Anderson dropping through the letterbox. It was ordered so I’d be ready for next week’s Agile Scotland event.

Thanks go to the excellent service of Computer Manuals.

By this time next week I should have an autographed copy and have met the man himself :-).

Hubert Smits has announced another well known speaker from the international agile world is coming to Scotland. David Anderson will be visiting us at 7pm on July 19th to talk about Feature Driven Design. Many thanks go to Clarke Ching, who managed to persuade him to come and speak for the Agile Scotland group.

The meeting is in the usual venue: the offices of Currie & Brown (ground floor), the address of which is:
1 Osborne Terrace
Edinburgh
EH12 5HG

Route description: 2 minutes “out of town” from Haymarket Station, turn left, the office is app. 200 yards down the road just before Donaldson’s School/College.

Subject: Feature Driven Development (FDD).

Speaker: David Anderson

Author of “Agile Management for Software Engineering - Applying the Theory of Constraints for Business Results” will be discussing Feature Driven Development and where it fits in the agile world.

Biography -
David Anderson’s Online Bio

David has 22 years experience in the software development business. Until April 2004, he held the position of Director of Emerging Technology at 4thpass Inc - a Motorola subsidiary in Seattle, WA. David was a member of the team which created the agile software development method known as Feature Driven Development in Singapore between 1997 and 1999. David introduced FDD at Sprintpcs.com, the Internet business unit of Sprint PCS in Kansas City, MO, where he reported to John Yuzdepski, VP & GM. He was one of a core team of 8 senior managers and junior execs who created the technical product offer for the launch of PCS Vision. He also launched the Sprint Application Developer program for wireless data applications in October 2001. David had brief spells working as a consultant for Nokia USA in Irving TX, and Eircell in Dublin Ireland.

Earlier in his career he held managerial positions in two startups in the UK - Rombo, a video imaging company - and MDi Systems, a document imaging company. Prior to starting college, David was a leading computer games developer with Ocean Software in the UK with over 20 titles published including the game of the Sylvester Stallone movie “Rambo”.

David holds a degree in Electronics and Computer Science from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK. His first book, “Agile Management for Software Engineering” was published in September 2003 by Prentice Hall Professional Technical Reference, Upper Saddle River, New York.

Hubert Smits of Agile Scotland has announced that Mary Poppendieck has decided to come to the UK. She’ll be visiting Edinburgh in the week of 11 October and will be providing training in Lean Software Development. The full course details are HERE.

The training will take two days, and will be provided on the 11 and 12th of October (depending on the availability of premises). Hubert will confirm the venue in the next weeks, but expects to go to one of the Universities, as they provide good facilities in a nice atmosphere.

The cost for the training will be £ 300.00, including all course materials, lunches and refreshments. Dinner and hotel are not included. Hubert expect to go out for dinner with the attendees in a local venue, details will follow once he knows how many people will attend.

If you’re interested in attending this course then reserve your seat in an email to Hubert Smits.

More information on Lean Software Development and Mary’s work can be found at http://www.poppendieck.com.

Thanks go to Clarke Ching for stepping into the breach earlier this evening.

Hubert Smits was originally down to do a session on Agile Methods to the British Computer Society in Dundee. Unfortunately he got called away on business, but did manage to arrange for Clarke to fill his shoes.

Clarke gave an interesting talk, which mainly focussed on the bad things about waterfall development, leading onto the solution: Agile practices and methods. I think everyone enjoyed the session and got a nice handout to take away - thanks again Clarke.

Hey this seems like a perfect case of a fast changing requirement fixed through the practice of Agile Presenting :-).

One of the Dr Who Dalek films was on TV this morning. I know others have commented on how this superior race was looking to take over the universe, well the universe that is on the ground floor and level ground. It occured to me that the whole failure of the Daleks may be tracked back to their Waterfall project methodology.
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A few of us met last night to pull together an “Xtc” style eXtreme Programming group. The mission, if we chose to accept it:

To learn and enhance XP skills within the context of doing real world projects

This blog entry will self destruct in 30 seconds…

For those who are interested we should be meeting every Wednesday evening from 7 till 10, and then onto the pub! Keep watching for more info on Scottish Developers and Agile Scotland Yahoo Group.

Congratulations go to my good friend Craig Murphy on becoming the third Certified ScrumMaster in Fife.

Technically, Hubert Smits is the second since he was an acting Glaswegian (weggie) when he went through the course.

Make a guess who was first in Fife?