Managing teams

Scrum teams are supposed to be self-managing and course correct as needed based on what is learnt from sprint retrospectives. The two leadership roles in scrum are those of the product owner who defines the work to which the team commits and you have the scrum master who mentors and coaches the team into becoming a more cohesive, highly productive unit.

Companies adopt scrum and often give it their own twist. In our organization, being a scrum master, entails all that’s prescribed in the standard scrum manifesto, but there’s also other elements that more closer to a development manager role – e.g. hiring/interviewing team members, providing status updates on project, performing personnel appraisals, overseeing integration testing, selecting and implementing technical architecture of assigned projects, identify and manage priorities within the context of overall corporate objectives.

<span class="entry-utility-prep entry-utility-prep-cat-links">Posted in</span> .NET, Management, Mentoring, Scrum | Comments Off on Managing teams

Should we switch to React?

We have been using Angular for a while now, but when ever another Javascript framework such as React comes along and acquires popularity then everyone gets interested particularly when there’s hype surrounding the new framework, and we’re about to switch from AngularJS to Angular 2.

Of course a number of factors come into play while selecting framework including ,

  • Learning curve
  • Community Support/Industry adoption
  • Performance
  • Single-page apps
  • State Management
  • Licensing/Cost

After looking around, we decided to stay with Angular

<span class="entry-utility-prep entry-utility-prep-cat-links">Posted in</span> .NET, .NET Framework | Comments Off on Should we switch to React?

Motivating Teams

The most important part of being a team leader is to keep the team motivated, both at an individual and team level.

It involves ensuring,

  • Everyone is clear about what we are doing and more focused on the outcome then the effort involved.
  • Identify any individual limiting beliefs and help eliminate them
  • Constant communication/feedback
  • Celebrate accomplishments
  • <span class="entry-utility-prep entry-utility-prep-cat-links">Posted in</span> .NET, Agile, Management, Scrum | Comments Off on Motivating Teams

    WPF/MVVM UX

    I picked up a coding task, to add a feature to our WPF/MVVM based user interface for a legacy application. I’ve decided to use the Telerik RibbonBar control and as with any third party controls, you can run into issues and wrestle with it and support forums, to get the display to look just right.

    Telerik has this starting page, that helped.

    Also, trying out snoop.

    <span class="entry-utility-prep entry-utility-prep-cat-links">Posted in</span> .NET, WPF | Comments Off on WPF/MVVM UX

    Completing stories…

    As a scrum team, the intent is to complete all stories that are planned and committed for a sprint. The reality is though that not everything will get done for all kinds of reasons, to name a few,

  • incorrect estimates, where in something turned to be a lot bigger than anticipated. Perhaps the stories were not broken down enough
  • sudden loss in team capacity or changes in team makeup due to inclusion of some one new, or exclusion of someone
  • a number of customer issues popping up suddenly
  • technical resources suddenly unavailable
  • sudden priority changes to sprint stories or improper prioritization
  • The key is though teams have to deliver on what is promised, particularly if there an important customer waiting. We have been trying out these measures with some success, and continue to work on improving,

  • Breaking down stories as much as possible and not committing to anything that is over a certain number of points (generally 8).
  • Upto date team calendars with advance vacation plans and a buffer for unexpected absences
  • a bucket of hours for handling customer issues that pop up
  • Anticipate a sprint ahead of the type of technical resources needed and have it ready
  • On board team members in future sprints after a sprint of learning for new member
  • <span class="entry-utility-prep entry-utility-prep-cat-links">Posted in</span> .NET, Management, Mentoring, Scrum, Team | Comments Off on Completing stories…

    Agile Team leadership

    Each Agile team has it’s own unique challenges, and it changes as the team evolves. One of our challenges to functioning as a cohesive coding team, has been the relative differences in coding skill levels between various team members.

    After observing and talking to the team, it occurs to me, the following measures in upcoming sprints might help,

  • Encouraging more Partner/Peer coding
  • More granular design discussions
  • More comprehensive code reviews
  • Lunch and Learn sessions
  • We’re starting off with a lunch and learn session – I will kick start it with a session on WPF/MVVM.

    <span class="entry-utility-prep entry-utility-prep-cat-links">Posted in</span> .NET, Agile, Management, Mentoring, Scrum | Comments Off on Agile Team leadership

    Agile Retrospective

    Agile Retrospectives are important in building high-performance teams. The key part is that entire team needs to go in with an open mind for the purpose of learning and improving. As a scrum master/team lead, my role, was to get everyone engaged and participate. Having moved from years of waterfall to scrum, at our very first newly minted team retrospective there was really a lot of consternation and skepticism and a whole lot of silence. It almost seem like I needed a retrospective about the retrospective, in fact, I did one myself.

    We had jumped into the retrospective, following the script we had got from scrum training, which is on a white board, write and discuss what to start doing, stop doing, and continue doing. however, teams new to scrum, and to each other, seldom dive in and start talking. Needless to say, it was not a very productive retrospective, so ahead of the 2nd retrospective, did some research into fun retrospective games and sought ideas from the team.

    We started, the second retrospective by going around the room and having everyone say how the person to the left of them had helped them with during the sprint. That brought some suprising insights and we then went on to,

  • what three wins can we celebrate in the sprint
  • what three things can we improve
  • identified three actions to take, who and how
  • Needless to say this retrospective went much better. Subsequently we have tried different retrospective games, however starting with an appreciation first always worked best.

    <span class="entry-utility-prep entry-utility-prep-cat-links">Posted in</span> Agile, Management, Scrum, Team | Comments Off on Agile Retrospective

    Scrum Master

    So I’ve been tapped to be Scrum Master/Team Manager for a newly formed scrum team. We are moving from Waterfall to Agile, so it is a big change for most of the developers here. There is both skepticism and trepidation on what the change will be mean.

    Scrum is an agile way to manage a project, usually software development. A scrum master is responsible for mentoring and coaching a team, and responsible for carrying out all the scrum ceremonies in addition to other responsibilities. I’m looking forward to it.

    We are beginning with internal scrum training soon.

    <span class="entry-utility-prep entry-utility-prep-cat-links">Posted in</span> Agile, Management, Mentoring, Scrum | Comments Off on Scrum Master

    Steve Jobs, RIP

    Steve Jobs, RIP… we will miss you.

    <span class="entry-utility-prep entry-utility-prep-cat-links">Posted in</span> Tech Pioneers | Comments Off on Steve Jobs, RIP

    Facebook

    Everyone I know now is on Facebook, including people living in parts with no running water… ok, perhaps an over reaching statement. But just recently, a friend overseas with whom I’ve had long email and chat conversations, told me to check her Facebook updates instead…go figure.

    <span class="entry-utility-prep entry-utility-prep-cat-links">Posted in</span> Social Media | Comments Off on Facebook