Saturday, February 25, 2006

Certified ScrumMaster Training in Denmark


CSM Training in Denmark
28-29 March 2006
Contact scrum@eos.dk
Eastfork Object Space (EOS), Margrethepladsen 3, 8000 Århus C, Denmark
Tel: +45 8732 8787 / Fax: +45 8732 8788 / Mob: +45 4072 8483


Get Agile in Denmark with Jeff Sutherland, Ph.D., the co-creator of Scrum. The course was formulated to train and certify ScrumMasters and is used worldwide for ScrumMaster training. The book, Agile Project Management with Scrum, by Ken Schwaber is required reading for the course.

Of course, there will be updated material and training exercises in the course which you cannot get from books. Dr. Sutherland has done research and development on Scrum using his last five companies as laboratories. His entire current company at PatientKeeper is run by a MetaScrum, and is one of the most advance implementions of Scrum worldwide. Mary Poppendieck, in her latest book on Lean Software Development says:

Five years ago a killer application emerged in the health care industry: Give doctors access to patient information on a PDA. Today there is no question which company won the race to dominate this exploding market; PatientKeeper has overwhelmed its competition with its capability to bring new products and features to market just about every week. The sixty or so technical people produce more software than many organizations several times larger, and they don’t show any sign that the size of their code base is slowing them down.

A key strategy that has kept PatientKeeper at the front of the pack is an emphasis on unprecedented speed in delivering new features. It will not surprise anyone who understands Lean that PatientKeeper has to maintain superb quality in order to support its rapid delivery. CTO Jeff Sutherland explains it this way:

“Rapid cycle time:
  • Increases learning tremendously
  • Eliminates buggy software because you die if you don't fix this.
  • Fixes the install process because you die if you have to install 45 releases this year and install is not easy.
  • Improves the upgrade process because there is a constant flow of upgrades that are mandatory. Makes upgrades easy.
  • Forces quick standardization of software via new features rather than customization and one off.
  • Forces implementation of sustainable pace….. You die a death of attrition without it.
  • Allows waiting to build new functionality until there are 4-5 customers who pay for it. This is counterintuitive, and caused by the fact … everything is ready within 90 days."
The entire CSM syllabus will be made available upon registering for the course so you can look it over and bring it with you to the sessions.

Bliv Scrum certificeret
- og få indsigt i en af de agile metoder, der understøtter Lean Thinking

To dages Scrum certificering finder sted den 28.-29. marts

Jeff Sutherland, en af fædrene til Scrum, kommer til Danmark for at certificere to nye hold af Certified Scrum Masters. Jeff Sutherland har mere end 30 års erfaring med softwareudvikling og 15 års praktisk arbejde med Scrum.

Scrum er siden 1993 implementeret med succes i flere tusinde projekter over hele verden. Virksomheder som Microsoft, HP, IBM, Yahoo, Xerox, Primavera, CapitalOne, Federal Reserve Bank og BBC har alle indført Scrum som en af virksomhedens værktøjer til effektivisering.
Der er i dag mere end 3000 certificerede Scrum masters i USU, Europa og Indien.

Den agile metode Scrum, understøtter filosofien om Lean Thinking og Lean Software Development. I EOS praktiserer vi Scrum internt ligesom metoden anvendes i forbindelse med vore forskellige kundeprojekter. En vigtig dimension i Scrum er at sikre et højt motivationsniveau og engagement hos de involverede medarbejdere og holde fokus på de ledelsesmæssige aspekter i projektorganisationer.

Scrum er ligesom Lean udsprunget af Toyota fabrikkernes effektiviseringsproces i produktionsmiljøet. Scrum´s gudfædre er, Hirotaka Takeuchi og Ikujiro Nonaka.

Tilmelding på: scrum@eos.dk

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Where GANTT Charts Should Be Banned


GANTT charts have some utility when a Product Owner has to present to naive users (non-Agile managers) to get a project funded.

Once implementation of the plan starts, the team enters the fog of war, just like a squad of troops entering battle. Military generals fully understand that once the enemy is engaged, all plans are shattered and the front line must self-organize to win the day.

Taking the GANTT chart into a Scrum Sprint or XP iteration has people look at a planning document that is absolutely wrong after the first day. At best it gobbles up a full time resource in the futile effort to keep the chart up to date. Even worse, it may lead the team to do the wrong thing and lose, i.e. a failed Sprint goes up in flames.

The GANTT chart was banned from Sprints for these reasons when I led the initial implementation of Scrum in 1993. 13 years later I don't see any reason to change this. In fact after consulting with leading companies up and down Silicon Valley and in other parts of the world this past year, getting their burndown charts updated daily and visible to the entire company is a top priority. Any distraction by GANTT charts is an exercise in futility.