pyxis
Articles de pyxis :
- Pour faciliter l’intégration des travaux UX à un projet Agile, il est d’abord utile de mettre en place une stratégie d’intégration. Ceci afin d’apporter la présence et l’expertise UX adéquate au contexte du projet. Que ce soit en faisant d’abord un partage de connaissance entre les développeurs et les spécialistes UX pour que chacun ai des connaissances suffisantes de l’autre domaine pour faciliter les conversations et la conception du travail, en énumérant au début du projet les caractéristiques intrinsèques au logiciel (qualités techniques) et les caractéristiques extrinsèques du logiciel (qualités des interfaces et interactions) ou en nommant un champion UX au sein de l’équipe de développement et un champion technique au sein de l’équipe UX afin de toujours garder en tête les considérations qui relèvent de l’autre domaine.
- Pour réduire la pression sur le Product Owner de conserver une vision affaire autant qu’un vision utilisateur du logiciel à développer, il a été suggéré de mettre en place une “équipe Product Owner” qui partage les responsabilités de maintenir la direction du logiciel. L’”équipe Product Owner” est composée d’un représentant affaire et un représentant des utilisateurs et ensemble ils collaborent à déterminer l’orientation du logiciel qui sera développé.
- Enfin, pour faire en sorte que les équipes Scrum développent le bon logiciel et du logiciel utile à chaque itération, les présentateurs proposaient de revoir le concept d’itération et de récit utilisateur (user story). La proposition voulait qu’un projet en mode Scrum oriente la composition du carnet de produit (product backlog) vers une suite d’activités réalisées par un utilisateur pour atteindre ses objectifs, et non plus comme une liste de fonctionnalités à réaliser. Le logiciel développé est ainsi plus cohérent puisque la séquence de récit utilisateur qui seront réalisés reflètera la réalité des utilisateurs.
- Installing Urban Turtle
- Launching Urban Turtle
- Explaining Scrum in less than 120 seconds
- Grooming the backlog with Urban Turtle
- Planning the Sprint with Urban Turtle
- Tracking day to day work with Urban Turtle
Recommandation + embauche = 2000 $
Pour répondre à la demande incessante de l’Agilité, Pyxis a l’objectif d’embaucher 22 nouveaux collègues en 2012. Nous avons décidé de prendre la pénurie de main-d’œuvre en TI par les cornes : nous donnerons 2000 $ pour chaque personne recommandée embauchée.
N’hésitez pas! Recommandez-nous un de vos contacts pour un des postes suivants : Scrum Master, coach organisationnel, coach d’équipe ou conseiller technologique.
Si la personne recommandée est embauchée, nous vous remettrons 2000 $. C’est aussi simple que ça!
Conférence « The five dysfunctions of a distributed team »
Conférence donnée par Steffan Surdek dans le cadre de l’Agile Tour Toronto 2011.
Agile-UX – un sujet sur les lèvres de plusieurs
À Agile 2011, j’ai assisté à plusieurs sessions qui traitaient d’Agile-UX, un sujet qui est de plus en plus présent dans les conversations de la communauté UX. Il y a plusieurs conversations sur le sujet puisqu’il n’y a pas encore de propositions faites qui permettent de bien intégrer les pratiques d’UX à un projet en mode Agile. Parmi les sessions, trois ont été particulièrement révélatrices pour moi. De ces séances je retiens des éléments qui me permettront de progresser dans ma pratique, mais surtout qui pourront aider les praticiens qui sont dans la même situation et qui n’ont pas eu l’opportunité de participer à la conférence;
Les propositions amènent présentement une intégration à différents niveaux entre les pratiques Agile et UX. Cependant, ce sont des pistes qui adressent des difficultés rencontrées par les présentateurs (et même plusieurs participants aux sessions) qui tendent vraiment à former des équipes de projets qui contribuent à réaliser de meilleurs logiciels en prenant en considération autant la réalité des utilisateurs, que celle des différents équipiers présents à la réalisation du projet.
La réflexion sur ces propositions continuera certainement pour moi après la conférence, puisqu’il apparait de plus en plus important d’unir les efforts de tous pour créer le bon logiciel.
Mon expérience au Agile Coach Camp Montréal 2011
L’espace est maintenant fermé. Nous sommes tous retournés à nos familles, d’autres ont pris le train ou l’avion pour retourner chez eux, et nous nous retrouverons sûrement dans les prochains événements : Agile 2011, les prochains Agile Coach Camp, Agile Tour 2011…
Il y avait là une concentration de gens qui ont les mêmes passions et convictions que moi au niveau professionnel, et comme l’a dit Mathieu dans le cercle de fermeture, ça fait du bien! J’ai le sentiment de faire partie d’une communauté de gens généreux et très brillants.
Les sessions étaient parfois des réflexions provoquantes, parfois des discussions d’approfondissement, parfois des démonstrations ou des partages sur des sujets qui sont nouveaux pour la plupart; elles étaient toujours intéressantes, car peu importe qui y était, il y avait du contenu intéressant. Même trop, je dirais, pour ce que nous avons la capacité d’absorber en si peu de temps.
C’est bien souvent après coup que je constate l’ampleur de ce qui s’est passé. Dans un format « open space » comme celui des Coach Camp, nous manquons nécessairement tous quelque chose. Mais comme un des principes le stipule, « les personnes qui sont là sont les bonnes personnes ». Un corollaire : « là où j’étais à tout moment était le meilleur endroit pour moi ». Alors je lis les blogues, les tweet et les flipcharts des autres participants, et je constate que d’autres aussi ont vécu des moments magiques.
J’ai rarement vu un espace aussi « ouvert » pour un open space. Nous étions dans une grande pièce, et malgré le fait qu’il y avait pas mal de bruit, ça laissait beaucoup de place aux discussions impromptues, ce qui est l’essence même d’un événement de ce genre. Aussi, nous ne nous sentions aucunement mal à l’aise de changer de salle, car il n’y avait pas de porte à ouvrir ni de personnes à déplacer.
Je souhaite un succès aussi retentissant à l’équipe qui l’organisera l’an prochain à Toronto!
Are you attending Microsoft Tech·Ed 2011 Conference?
Are you attending Microsoft Tech·Ed 2011 conference next week in beautiful Atlanta, Georgia? Please, do not missed this great session featuring Urban Turtle.
DEV271-INT Would You, Could You with TFS
Speaker: Richard Hundhausen
Thursday, May 19 | 8:30 AM – 9:45 AM | Room: B301
You’re considering Team Foundation Server, or perhaps you have already deployed it. You think you know what it is capable of, but do you? Microsoft built in many extensibility points which developers have used to build interesting and useful add-ons. These solutions include tools for managing requirements, product and sprint backlogs, work items, and software deployments. In this session, we discuss the partner ecosystem and demonstrate some of these products. See how to go beyond the out-of-the-box capabilities of Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server without custom development or going to other ALM platforms.
Furthermore, if you want to learn more about agility, here are two Birds-of-a-Feather (BOF) sessions that I will lead.
BOF09-DEV Is Scrum better for My Projects?
Discussion leader: Mario Cardinal
Wednesday, May 18 | 8:30 AM – 9:45 AM | Room: B209
Have you thought about, or are you using Scrum as a project management framework for agile software development? Jump start your learning or, if you’re a Scrum veteran, share what you have learned with fellow developers. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses, best practices, pitfalls, and more with in this session.
BOF17-DEV Agile Development: Can it Work for Everyone?
Discussion leader: Mario Cardinal and Phil Japikse
Thursday May 19 | 1:00 PM – 2:15 PM | Room: B209
As software developers, engineers, and craftsmen, we are focusing more and more on improving the code that we write, shifting from mere Delivery to Code Elegance. But our customers typically want the lowest cost, fastest to market option. Whether you are struggling with this issue or your team has found the perfect solution, join us to learn (and to share) how to manage this balance.
Do not hesitate to say hello, either at these sessions or simply by stopping at the Microsoft booth. I will hang around the Microsoft® Team Foundation Server 2010 demo station during the week.
Agile Lessons Learned 15 : Step Into The Light
This week I fell upon some old code I wrote back in 2006 when I was first learning Python. What a mess. I could not believe I was so proud of this code back then.
I remember being very proud of the fact that each and every single method, no matter how small or how high on McCabe's cyclomatic complexity was thoroughly commented.
Back then, I was told this would greatly help other developers maintain the code. Well let me tell you what, I wrote the whole darn thing myself and the comments did not help me out one bit understand this code today. Talk about wasted time.
Time I could have spent writing automated tests. I spent the better part of two years building a system from the ground up WITHOUT a single automated system test. The system as a whole had a single class written using TDD and about two dozen unit tests ever executed on it.
Did it work ? Yes. Can I prove it to you ? Probably, but with great difficulty.
Would I like to maintain a system like that ? Not in a lifetime. The cold hard truth is that by the standards I have today, this code is terrible.
Was I a slacker ? Not at all. Quite the other way around actually. Back then, this code was a clean as any other code I had ever seen at that point in my life. I really did work hard on making this system the best I could. I even got praised on the results.
So is this blog a twisted way to tell the world I'm a better developer than I was 5 years ago ? Nope. Actually, it's a praise to the developers I've met in the past 5 years. You see, 5 years ago I was not doing any pair-programming. I spent most of my days listening to indie rock* in my cubicle while writing Python all by myself.
Of course I was good. I was never challenged by anybody except when I went out of my way to get some help. Then it was back to more rock'n Python.
Then I met developers who were way better than me. First they put me through code reviews. Then I was pointed towards the right books. Then those crazy guys at Pyxis showed me how to do continuous pair programming.
It might seem intimidating to be constantly under the spotlight. I, for one, would never trade back the spotlight for my old cubicle.
So what are you waiting for ? Step out of your cubicle and step into the light. Grab the best developer your team has to offer and ask him to work with him. You'll be surprised at how much you can learn in a single session.
Who knows, you just might show him a dew things too.
In the meantime, thanks to Xavier, Frank, J-F, J-S, Ben, Ernst, Patrice, J-C, the Marcouz, Vince, Bob, M-A, Carl, Nico, Phil, Monica, Cheng and all the others I have forgotten with whom I had the chance to pair with in the past few years. What I know now, I owe to you.
Nick
*I do admit it was a heck of a period for me music-wise, discovering the likes of Arcade Fire, the Black Keys, the Flaming Lips, Wolf Parade, DeVotchka, Interpol, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Bloc Party, etc. Music I still listen to today.
15% discount for the first birthday of Visual Studio 2010
For the Urban Turtle team, the launch of Visual Studio 2010 was an important milestone. Finally, Microsoft was adding the ability to break down work items into hierarchies to Team Foundation Server (TFS). This was a banner feature that made possible the addition of the Scrum process template to the Visual Studio Gallery.
TFS combined with the Scrum process template was the beginning of a solution to turn TFS Agile… but that was not enough. To be truly effective, one must add the right skin through an intuitive web interface that simplifies Agile project management. To meet this need, as a third-party partner, we created Urban Turtle. Today, jointly with Visual Studio 2010, Urban Turtle is the premier Scrum tool for TFS.
As Somasegar states in his weblog:
More than 1,600 Visual Studio 2010 extensions have been submitted to the Visual Studio Gallery, with over 4 million extension downloads by users. Our partners continue to be able to build businesses around Visual Studio, and over the past year, partners have generated over $400 million in revenue from Visual Studio-based extensions.Urban Turtle is proud to join this exceptional group of partners. We want to go one step further and offer a promotion to all Visual Studio users. During the entire month of April, Urban Turtle is offering a 15% discount to all Visual Studio users who purchase an Urban Turtle license. You can join in the party and benefit from this discount by entering the ‘Happy B-day VS2010’ promo code at the time of purchase. (http://urbanturtle.com/pricing/)
New screencasts to easily get started with Urban Turtle
This getting started section provided short screencasts (2-3 minutes videos) to answer these recurring questions. Because it allows getting “inside” the product to show how small parts work, screencasts work particularly well to a highly-technical product such as Urban Turtle.
On the “Quick Start” page you will find the following screencasts:
Congratulations! You have received the Microsoft MVP Award
Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2011 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in Visual Studio ALM technical communities during the past year.
With fewer than 5,000 awardees worldwide, Microsoft MVPs represent a highly select group of experts. MVPs share a deep commitment to community and a willingness to help others. They represent the diversity of today’s technical communities. MVPs are present in over 90 countries, spanning more than 30 languages, and over 90 Microsoft technologies. MVPs share a passion for technology, a willingness to help others, and a commitment to community. These are the qualities that make MVPs exceptional community leaders. MVPs’ efforts enhance people’s lives and contribute to our industry’s success in many ways.
To recognize the contributions they make, MVPs from around the world have the opportunity to meet Microsoft executives, network with peers, and position themselves as technical community leaders. This is accomplished through speaking engagements, one on one customer event participation and technical content development. MVPs also receive early access to technology through a variety of programs offered by Microsoft, which keeps them on the cutting edge of the software and hardware industry.
As a recipient of this year’s Microsoft MVP award, I am proud to join an exceptional group of individuals from around the world who have demonstrated a willingness to reach out, share their technical expertise with others and help individuals maximize their use of technology. Being an MVP has opened many doors for me as a software architect and (sometimes rather pushy) Microsoft customer and the relationships I’ve been able to develop have added a great richness to my life. Thanks Microsoft 
DiscountASP.Net introduces a hosted version of Urban Turtle
Here is another proof that a hosted TFS is an option becoming increasingly affordable and feasible. We recently partnered up with DiscountASP.NET, the leader in Microsoft ASP.NET web hosting and Team Foundation Server (TFS) hosting. Under this partnership, DiscountASP.NET introduces a hosted version of our Urban Turtle solution which is available to their TFS hosting customers as an add-on. In addition, DiscountASP.NET customers get a 10% discount for on-premise Urban Turtle licenses. Customers can get more information on how to redeem this offer through the marketplace section in their control panel.
We launched our hosted TFS service last year and Urban Turtle was a popular request from our customers. We are excited to partner with Urban Turtle for a hosted implementation of their agile management tool.” said Takeshi Eto, VP Marketing and Business Development at DiscountASP.NET.At Urban Turtle, we think this is a great solution for teams of all sizes as well as first-time TFS users. Since there is no difference between an on-premise or hosted Urban Turtle solution, the learning curve is significantly reduced. You can read the Press Release announcing the partnership here To learn more about this hosted version, visit http://www.discountasp.net/tfs/.