SPaMCAST 663 - Prioritizing Badly, Freestyling User Stories, Essays and Conversations

Software Process and Measurement Cast

This week we explore the impact of process (it really isn’t a bad word) problems in prioritization. Prioritization requires a steady hand and consistency. The process for prioritization should have more in common with a well-oiled basketball or futbol team than five-year-olds playing soccer in the schoolyard. How the moving parts work together is a process We also have a visit from Tony Timbol discussing freestyling user story formats in his To Tell A Story column. Re-Read Saturday News This week we focus on Chapter 6 of g. This chapter is titled “Simplify Cooperation.” Cooperation requires communication. Messing communication up is a problem, a problem that is the responsibility of every person involved in trying to communicate. Last week’s experiment focused on evaluating each task as I put it on my short list for operacy. One of the outcomes was that I broke work into smaller chunks which were simpler and more practical. I also found parts of the work that I did not have to do in order to satisfy the goal of the task (the agile definition of simplicity). I am contemplating how to build the idea of operacy into how I approach and talk about user stories. This week, I am going to focus on using more deliberative communication as a way to help guide conversations. This Week Week 8 - - Previous Entries in Week 1 - - Week 2 - - Week 3 - - Week 4 - - Week 5 - - Week 6 - - Week 7 - - Next SPaMCAST We talk with Sunny Han, CEO and Founder of Fulcrum. Sunny and I talked about entrepreneurship and building an ERP system from scratch. That sounds way too tame -- we talked motivation, we talked agile development, and we talked about what it takes to see a vision through to reality.