Edge of Chaos

January 13/14 is the Old New Year holiday. Seems like today is the latest appropriate time to look back  and recall the most interesting blog posts by TargetProcess in 2009 :)

Based on visitors count, the posts are ranked as follows (descending order):

1. Lean and Kanban Software Development Digest: In May 2009, this digest came along right on time as Kanban adoption started to grow. We’ve been sifting through the Lean/Kanban buzz and considering if Kanban might be a good tool for our development process, so this post has the most valuable findings we’ve made and shared with agile community.

2. Refactoring vs Rewrite: This post is a real train of thought of a Product Owner trying  to make a decision on how to proceed with product development — rewrite or refactor. Can well be used in textbooks for software product management :)

3. Mind Maps: Scrum, Extreme Programming, Lean: Another by-product of our research on agile development processes. The specific value of mind maps is that they help grasp complex things with visual representations.

4. Tale: Deadline and Technical Debt: Once upon a time…  Who could ever expect that the fundamental principles of product management can be outlined in a fairy tale ? :) There we go:  smart Arthur, the cunning king, quest for princess — the metaphorical expression of the danger of technical debt in software development.

5. 5 Wrong Reasons to Apply Kanban. For some reason (no pun intended), 5 wrong reasons ranked higher than 5 right reasons. Maybe it’s just human psychology — to go from “what’s wrong”  instead of  “what’s right” …

6. How We Use Kanban Board. The Real Example:  Once we figured that Kanban process is just the right thing for us and put it in action, we shared this  experience with our blog readers.

7. 5 Right Reasons to Apply Kanban: There they are :)

8. Zero Defects? Are You Kidding Me? : Can this juicy frog be sure that it swallowed the very last bug? This post is a warning against the so-called “zero defects mentality” in software product management.

9. Simple Rules, Complex Systems and Software Development: Complex systems function at their best when guided by simple rules. Look at ants, birds, space rockets and … software development.

10. BDD and User Story Specification: Examples — This post includes some real user story specs in BDD for TargetProcess product. Enjoy and use.

These are the TOP 10 posts  in 2009 from TargetProcess agile blog (click here for more)

Happy OLD NEW YEAR! :)

I’ve started using BDD to create user stories specifications several months ago. It works great. Very good format. Developers understand it without problems, Testers can write acceptance tests quickly and it is easy to follow for Product Owner.

Here are some examples of real user stories specs in BDD for TargetProcess product:

As a Scrum Master I want to see Release BD Chart drawn by weeks

As a Scrum Master
I want to see Release BD Chart drawn by weeks
When Iterations practice is disabled
So that I can benefit from BD chart

Given any development process
When I turn off Iterations practice in Admin -> Process -> Edit
And navigate to Release BD chart
Then iteration velocity replaced by weekly velocity
And Chart end date is the same as Release end date
And BD chart drawn by weeks instead of iterations
And Chart Start Date is the same as Release Start Date

As a Scrum Master I want to see Lead/Cycle time progress

As a Scrum Master
I want to see Lead/Cycle time progress
So that I know whether we are improving our development process or not

Scenario #1
Given Reports section in project and Bug Tracking practice is disabled
When I navigate to Lead and Cycle Time Report
Then I see Lead Time chart
And chart contains 1 line for stories

Scenario #2
Given Reports section in project and Bug Tracking practice is disabled
When I navigate to Lead and Cycle Time Report
Then I see Cycle Time
And chart contains 1 line for stories

Scenario #3
Given Reports section in project and Bug Tracking practice is ENABLED
When I navigate to Lead and Cycle Time Report
Then I see Lead Time chart
And chart contains 2 lines (for stories and bugs)

Scenario #4
Given Reports section in project and Bug Tracking practice is ENABLED
When I navigate to Lead and Cycle Time Report
Then I see Cycle Time
And chart contains 2 lines (for stories and bugs)

Additional Info
X-axis – Months (display 12 last CALENDAR months)
Y-axis – Lead time or Cycle Time (in days)

To display value for given months, we take stories completed this month (determined by End Date).
For example, in June we’ve completed 5 stories, in July 10.
Then lead/cycle time will be calculated for June by sum(5 stories lead time)/5 and for July sum(10 stories lead time)/10.

Charts should have labels for each month.

Story line color: #507cb6
Bug line color: #cc060d