In the Pig and Chicken analogy for Scrum participants (Jeff Sutherland explains Pigs & Chickens), the Pig is the one who is required to make the biggest commitment and put his proverbial skin in the game. For the Pig, it is an all or nothing proposition. They either meet their commitment or they do not, there is no gray area. However, many teams fail to get this level of commitment from their Pigs, or don’t even ask for it in the first place. This is the genesis of the Outlier Pig.
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The prioritization of Stories is a core practice in the Scrum agile development process. In fact it is probably the single most important responsibility of the Product Owner – making sure the Product Backlog is prioritized properly to maximize business value (a.k.a ROI). However, there is a common anti-pattern that I see regularly in which the Product Owner and the Delivery Team act complicitly to establish a priority order for Stories that are being committed too within a single Sprint. The need to do this comes from a negative place and it has dramatic consequences for the Delivery Team.
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A colleague of mine forwarded an article to me during this last week, which he prefaced with the following statement …

guys, I’ll write it in all caps and bold:

I AM NOT PROMOTING OR IN AGREEMENT OF ANY OF THE POINTS THE ARTICLE MAKES.

… which begs the question, why did he send it not only to me, but an entire team of people? I choose to believe it was because he is an enlightened soul that understands that the best way to reinforce your own beliefs is to read more of the opposing point of view, not more of the view you already have. I am lucky to have a few of these souls working for me right now.
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SoCal Code Camp is back, November 21st & 22nd

Code Camp is a place for developers to come and learn from their peers. This community driven event has become an international trend where peer groups of all platforms, programming languages and disciplines band together to bring content to the community.

Who is speaking at Code Camp? YOU are, YOUR PEERS are, and YOUR LOCAL EXPERTS are…all are welcome! This is a community event and one of the main purposes of the event is to have local community members step up and offer some cool presentations!

Bill Crane, the vice president of engineering at LinkedIn, says local members of the social networking site may haveorange-prize Orange County as a geographic designation for members’ profiles within two weeks.

http://jan.freedomblogging.com/2009/09/16/linkedin-working-on-oc-geographic-designation/22015/

Another purpose of measuring capacity is to improve throughput. If you plan for less than your capacity, you get less done than you could have. If you plan for more than your capacity, you get less done than you could have.

- Kent Beck
(original signatory of the Agile Manifesto)

Agile Open California is a coalition of agile practitioners and advocates with an intention to provide an opportunity for learning, networking and growth to the Agile community in California and others who are interested.

Using the Open Space Technology framework, we hold Gatherings where sessions are self-organized around topics important to the participants. We invite you to take this opportunity to share your experiences, test new ideas and learn what other practitioners are thinking and doing!

http://agileopencalifornia.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=19&Itemid=46

Agile 2009 Conference

August 24 – 28, Chicago, USA

Don’t wait! The early bird pricing is still available! Only $1799 for a
regular registration – and many discounts are available. See
http://agile2009.agilealliance.org/ “Registration” tab for more details.

NEWS! Agile Conference Program has been Announced

Alistair Cockburn will give keynote “I Come to Bury Agile, Not to Praise
It”

Agile software development was defined from small, colocated projects in
the 1990s. It has since spread to large, distributed, commercial
projects around the world, affecting the IEEE, the PMI, the SEI and the
Department of Defense. Agile development now sits in a larger landscape
and needs to be viewed accordingly.

Jared Spool will give keynote “The Dawning of the Age of Experience”

Experience design is no longer a nice-to-have luxury of a few
organizations with tons of money and exceptional visionary management.
It’s become commonplace for organizations that build products and web
sites. In his usual entertaining and insightful manner, Jared will talk
about what it takes to build a design team that meets today’s needs.

More info on the keynotes http://agile2009.org/keynotes

Agile 2009 is the premier international Agile conference. The full
program has just been announced, and you can see all of the sessions
listed here:
http://agile2009.org/programOverview

Show your support – Get a cool badge for your website or blog! When
visitors click on it they’ll be directed to the Agile Alliance home
page. Get your badge here
http://agile2009.agilealliance.org/badges

Sign up to receive email updates about the Agile 2009 conference – click
the button here http://agile2009.agilealliance.org/

Now is the right time to register!
———————————-
* Super early bird prices are available, but they are selling out fast

* Airline tickets prices are still low

* Our partner, United Airlines, offers a special 5% discount on top of
their lowest fares. Check out the page
http://agile2009.agilealliance.org/information

* The official hotel – Hyatt Regency – has rooms set aside at special
rates for you. Link to it via the ‘Registration’ tab at
http://agile2009.org/programOverview to get the discounts.

Jurgen Appelo talks about Agile methods and complexity.

So Now You Are an Agilist… What’s Next – Jurgen Appelo – 09-04-2009 from Skills Matter on Vimeo.

We finished reviewing “User Stories Applied – For Agile Software Development” by Mike Cohn as a group.

This was the second book we have reviewed as a group by Mike Cohn. Previously we also reviewed Agile Estimating and Planning

I can highly recommend this book if you are looking to improve your use of User Stories and you need a gentle introduction to some other Agile topics. The book specifically ties the use of User Stories to both Scrum and XP and shows the benefits of using User Stories over other requirements gathering techniques. In addition it provides guidance on how to generate User Stories and also how to ensure the stories are of the correct level of precision.

We will definitely be adopting many of the processes in the book, particularly those related to generating the stories up front and identifying user types and creating personas to represent important user groups.

The link below will take you to Amazon.com to purchase the book if you are interested.