The Whiteboard

Ampt

7:00 PM

so if I think that implementing a logging class will take 8 hours, that could be 8 SP

the individual tasks under that don't need to be estimated

they can be, if you want more detail, but I find it overly tedious.

Kit Z. Fox

OK. But you track development progress by Task, right?

Jimmy Hoffa

and when someone says they're going to estimate a task, start screaming like a tornado alarm until they apologize

psr

@enderland I've tried habenero (a bunch of lesser spices too), mango juice, and shredded chicken, no beans. Hard to get right but best chili I've eaten when it works. Possibly if I had a recipe it would go better. Beer with a beef chili is another (smaller) gamble.

enderland

@JimmyHoffa historical point: moses did a great job in introduction and most of Israel botched the execution, consistently. ;)

Ampt

Yes, I do, but Stories are all or nothing - you either complete it, or you don't

you don't get 4 points for half finishing an 8 point story.

Kit Z. Fox

7:01 PM

So that there is a way to go back and see if your estimates are accurate and adjust, is what I'm getting at.

enderland

@psr shredded chicken... hmmmm

Ampt

@KitZ.Fox absolutely. you should only plan a certain amount of stuff at once - usually 1-2 sprints worth

Jimmy Hoffa

of stories

not tasks

Ampt

and you should always review your estimates at the beginning of each story.

it's meant to be fluid. If you guys totally over estimate your first sprint, go back and try and re-estimate some more stuff

it's going to take a while to get good estimates, but when you do, it works really well.

Kit Z. Fox

OK. So when I'm writing stories, is there a rough guideline for how big they should be? Like if something is 20 points, would that mean that maybe it should be divided into smaller stories?

Or if it's 1 point, then merge it with something related?

Ampt

7:03 PM

yeah, that's really all just based on your team and how they feel about it

ideally stuff should be homogenous - lots of the same story point value

if you end up with stuff that's 1 point and stuff that's 100 points in the same backlog, something's wrong

Usually I see 4-40 points as being a decent range

Kit Z. Fox

Is there any benefit to trying to break stories along developer lines, like "this is back-end, this is front-end"?

Ampt

stuff smaller than 4 should be combined (if possible)

stuff over 40 should be split up

Kit Z. Fox

Or is that too much helpfulness?

Ampt

Depends on your team comp. If your team is broken up that way, then yeah, absolutely do that.

Jimmy Hoffa

@KitZ.Fox stories should be from a user/stakeholder aspect so no (unless you don't have non-technical consumers/stakeholders)

Ampt

7:04 PM

ideally everyone on your team should be able to do every single story in the backlog - in the real world that doesn't always happen

Kit Z. Fox

Stories won't be coming from the user/stakeholders, at least not this round.

Ampt

you get some people who are good at UI stuff, some who are good at services, etc.

Jimmy Hoffa

@KitZ.Fox bad idea; you need to set expectations up front

Ampt

@KitZ.Fox @JimmyHoffa is actually on point.

go all in - if you half ass this now, you're going to be stuck with the half assed version forever

Jimmy Hoffa

Doing it like that to begin with will cause future plannings to result in people saying "Well let's just do that with this because it's easier and we did it like that before"

Ampt

7:05 PM

just rip the band-aid off

Kit Z. Fox

No. I'm invested in team success, not process success. I don't have time to train users how to write stories.

Jimmy Hoffa

@KitZ.Fox haha welcome to why every agile process fails... everyone wants to be "agile" but never commits to it

Kit Z. Fox

So they will get my requirements written into user stories and we'll get this thing out the door.

Ampt

Well then at least communicate that this is a temporary thing until you get it smoothed out

Jimmy Hoffa

@KitZ.Fox you won't have users writing stories though; I said "user stories"

Kit Z. Fox

7:06 PM

@JimmyHoffa It was a bad decision to make this conversion precisely because business is not committed.

Ampt

Does your company value their devs?

in your opinion?

Kit Z. Fox

They complained about releases taking too long, neglecting to mention it is because they take weeks to reach consensus.

It's not us, it's them.

@Ampt Yes.

Ampt

because done right, the devs will love this, which may give you leverage to get it working right

it allows devs to set their own schedules and timelines, which is nice.

It also allows them to have some input in what's coming down the pipeline and when

that, to me, is hugely liberating.

Kit Z. Fox

The devs want agile. I'm happy to support converting to whatever works for them. I also know that there is no way we will have have business savvy enough to manage their part of the process.

Jimmy Hoffa

@KitZ.Fox they already failed if they think this is a way to just get done faster

Kit Z. Fox

7:09 PM

"Make it alphanumeric and set it to O" is my case in point.

Ampt

who's going to be the "Scrum master?"

Kit Z. Fox

@JimmyHoffa I agree.

Jimmy Hoffa

it does provide benefits and may increase your release quality and speed - but that may take a while and it costs a lot up front - a lot

Ampt

or, who's the manager of the devs?

Jimmy Hoffa

It's really hard to convince management trying to spend less that they need to put down a huge up front investment

Kit Z. Fox

7:09 PM

@Ampt That hasn't been mentioned yet. I think the current project lead. I would be happier if it were me.

Ampt

@KitZ.Fox you may end up becoming the product owner. A very important role as well

Jimmy Hoffa

@KitZ.Fox scrum master isn't a managerial role

if done poorly.. it's an organizational support role

Kit Z. Fox

The project lead is instrumental in business's complaint that they don't get communication from us.

Jimmy Hoffa

that is to say - you probably don't want to be scrum master, you don't get to tell people what to do as scrum master

It's like project janitor

Ampt

yeah, that's a good way to put it

Kit Z. Fox

7:11 PM

He is not invested in the project because he has many other projects that he is managing.

Ampt

sorry, I read that wrong.

Kit Z. Fox

@JimmyHoffa I'm a moderator. Janitor is my regular business.

Ampt

ok. make one of the devs scrum master

@KitZ.Fox no, you are the buffer between clients and backlog

you groom the backlog, set priorities, work with devs to decide features

Kit Z. Fox

I mean on SE, I'm a moderator.

Jimmy Hoffa

yes, a dev as scrum master is typically a very good thing.

Ampt

7:12 PM

If you think that business isn't going to be active in this, go in their place.

Duga

@RichardTaylor If you want a better answer, ask a more specific question. This site is for professional and enthusiast programmers. If you are neither, and you cannot perform at least some debugging and figure out which parts of the code are at least generally responsible for displaying the message and interrupting the login/signup process, then you probably will not be able to ask an on-topic question here. Nothing in your question is responsible for rendering anything to the browser. We can't help you with code you haven't posted. — meagar ♦ 1 min ago

Ampt

be the stand in that takes the rigid business and turns it into a well groomed, prioritized backlog

Kit Z. Fox

@Ampt Yes, that seems to be what I'm saying. So that is product owner?

Ampt

then you'll really be invaluable.

@KitZ.Fox Yup.

user41796

@KitZ.Fox Yes, but you can walk away from SE as need be as it's not your full time job

Kit Z. Fox

7:13 PM

Well, there is one good choice for scrum master amongst the devs.

user41796

If you prefer to code, then you don't want to be scrum master. But I may have missed a nuance there as I've only been skimming the conversation

psr

@KitZ.Fox features are highlighted in blue on the spreadsheet.

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 does that fit in your head as a mod - similar type of work as note-taking/organizing information/communicating between and on behalf of the team?

Ampt

I'll give you an example - one place I was at made snow plows. Our end users were snow plow drivers. Not exactly the most technical savvy, or easiest to get to sit down and talk about development or features

Kit Z. Fox

@GlenH7 I don't code anymore, except for test automation.

Jimmy Hoffa

7:14 PM

I don't really see scrum master and SE mod as even remotely similar

Ampt

so we had a product owner who was the buffer - he had good ties with the counties we worked with and access to drivers, and he would figure out what they wanted and act as the "product owner"

Shog9

I hope you called him "Mr. Plow"

Ampt

It worked really, really well, because he was active and easily reachable, and had intimate knowledge of what was wanted.

user41796

@JimmyHoffa they aren't

Kit Z. Fox

@Shog9 fancy meeting you here.

Jimmy Hoffa

7:15 PM

@Shog9 we could use Mr. Plow right now.. you didn't have to go in did you?

Shog9

it's fancy meeting me anywhere

user41796

@KitZ.Fox He drops in at opportune times

Ampt

@Shog9 he was my bosses bosses boss, so I just called him Sir. He was in charge of sales as well.

user41796

@Shog9 Welcome back, been a bit since I've said "hey" to you from here

Kit Z. Fox

I have a hat like his now. I'm wearing it RIGHT AT THIS MOMENT!

Shog9

7:16 PM

@JimmyHoffa lord no. Did plow my driveway last night though.

Ampt

@KitZ.Fox is this helping at all?

Shog9

@GlenH7 you said that yesterday!

Kit Z. Fox

@Ampt Oh yes. Thank you so much.

Shog9

I mean, you phrased it like "Oh, I'm so insulted right now" - but I knew how you really felt.

Ampt

Cool, glad I could help!

user41796

7:17 PM

@Shog9 My bad. The head cold was horrific yesterday

user41796

I apologize for anything I may have said.

Kit Z. Fox

So the devs and tester are the ones who will write tasks, right? I'm not expected to do that.

Ampt

@KitZ.Fox Yes.

enderland

@JimmyHoffa how about if the titles were

Shog9

oh wait, that was Jimmy

enderland

7:17 PM

> sheep herder

Ampt

tasks can and should be very developer focused.

Shog9

so it has been a while. Good to see you again, @Glen!

user41796

@Shog9 Understandable as to why you kicked him then

Jimmy Hoffa

@Shog9 you don't tell me what to do!

Ampt

"make class X in package Y.", "Test implementation of Z"

Jimmy Hoffa

7:18 PM

@enderland nah, more like sheep-poop-and-food-organizer

Kit Z. Fox

Who handles the sprint review, typically?

Jimmy Hoffa

the sheep get to do whatever they want. Sometimes they poop on the scrum master, just because he's there.

Ampt

@KitZ.Fox scrum master and product owner

psr

@JimmyHoffa In practice the PMs seem to often get re-titled Scrum master if there's an agile re-branding without much real change.

Jimmy Hoffa

@KitZ.Fox just stand in front of a mirror and say "You did a good job this sprint. We are proud of you and we think you're beautiful every day." Review, done.

Kit Z. Fox

7:19 PM

@JimmyHoffa I thought I might just rock in a corner, stroke my hair, and mumble to myself.

Ampt

you'll probably include your PM as well

Jimmy Hoffa

@psr yes, as I've seen many times. Often times QA takes it too in such situation

Kit Z. Fox

If we have one.

Ampt

you can have more than one product owner as well

or stakeholder, whatever your preferred nomenclature is.

Kit Z. Fox

sighs so complicated.

Jimmy Hoffa

7:21 PM

> I FOUND A BUG WHEN TESTING, AS SCRUM MASTER I AM DISPLEASED, DEV I AM YOUR MASTER NO! UN-BUG! NONE-BUG! NO-BUG! DO YOU HEAR ME DEV??

Kit Z. Fox

Well, OK. This will get me started.

Ampt

@KitZ.Fox once it clicks, it clicks, trust me.

I'm doing all this off of memory from years ago

Kit Z. Fox

@JimmyHoffa That's weird. I usually get along great with the devs when I test their shit.

And I get to move back into my cube on Monday, so maybe I can get the team together to talk through this stuff. Cuz of course the guy who is insisting we do it hasn't gotten us together to talk about how we're going to do it yet.

enderland

@Ampt I like that you make this disclaimer now, rather than... oh like 5 hours ago :P

Shog9

Just remember: agile people make up so many words for the things they do because otherwise it's all incredibly boring. So really, they're just role-playing. Role-playing Games

Kit Z. Fox

7:22 PM

@Shog9 Oh I love RPGs!

Ampt

@enderland Don't worry, I still bill at the same rate!

Kit Z. Fox

I'm going to be great at this!

user41796

@Shog9 Nice plug there

Shog9

right? So natural, you barely even noticed.

Kit Z. Fox

@Ampt Really? I charge more every year.

user41796

7:23 PM

So Shog has just declared Agile process questions on-topic for RPG

4

user41796

Y'all heard it first here in The Whiteboard

Ampt

@Shog9 What do become level 89 Scrum Wizard Master??

user41796

Actually, that could be a hilarious April Fool's prank....

Kit Z. Fox

@GlenH7 In the role of Scrum Master, should I allocate my points to features or user stories?

enderland

I don't know how or when I first found this chat but man am I ever glad I did

Ampt

7:24 PM

stuck on boss "HR Manager"

Shog9

23

Q: How do you get a new player engaged in an old campaign?

A group of three players had been going through my campaign for a year and a half, when a fourth player was added around level 15. The new player entered in media res: there was a ton of back story, more than a hundred NPCs and the rest of the group was running from one important quest to the nex...

TELL ME that doesn't sound like an onboarding problem for any established dev team...

Ampt

@KitZ.Fox Project planning stuff usually doesn't get points or tracked... for me it's always just been the dev work. but you could just shove it in there anyway.

user41796

Change a few words and that's the exact same problem!

user41796

Adventures of the Scrum Master ought to become the next April Fool's prank

Kit Z. Fox

@Ampt I was thinking in terms of how to distribute skill points for for instance, the Monk class.

Ampt

7:26 PM

@KitZ.Fox doh.

Jimmy Hoffa

> RPG.SE: If the Scrum Master rolls a 13, but the velocity is below 10, are the devs still suffering from torpor?

Ixrec

this should be an actual board game

though maybe it'd be lost on all the non-programming sites

Kit Z. Fox

@JimmyHoffa That is a much better version of my attempt.

rolls skill checks against Humor and Vanity

Ampt

oooh does that make me the wizened wizard NPC?

Aaron Hall

I role-play as a programmer. I have a custom IDE with +2 to Python, and I'm about to dual-wield Visual Studio.

Kit Z. Fox

7:29 PM

@Ampt You're a wizard.

Thomas Owens

Am I missing any organization / project level process frameworks? I've got the SEMAT Kernel, CMMI, Unified Process, Scrum, and Disciplined Agile Delivery.

Ampt

"Here, take this scroll. You'll know when to use it"

Kit Z. Fox

@AaronHall rofl

I dual-boot. That must mean something.

user41796

@AaronHall But that combination of tools creates a nasty negative taken away from the roll

Aaron Hall

Yeah, Visual Studio is like the equivalent of a Zwiehander, so I get like double-penalties using it on the off hand.

Jimmy Hoffa

7:31 PM

@AaronHall I guess that makes me a barbarian with how many Zweihanders I'm weilding right now. I have one mounted on my helmet!

Aaron Hall

your DM must be crazy

Jimmy Hoffa

Genuinely though, if you're having trouble with visual studio we can help. Until you mention it's all VC++ which is like a crazy form of Visual Studio for insane people because C++ toolchains are all bonkers.

Aaron Hall

I have an Emacs wand of orgmode that I play with at home and meetups to make presentations with.

Ixrec

VC++ was cool, until I tried porting to linux and realized the VC++ compiler had let me get away with loads of non-standard junk

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ixrec truth. Better off sticking with mingw

Ixrec

7:34 PM

thus began my month-long struggle to get mingw working

Jimmy Hoffa

(I don't care what anyone says, RHIDE was awesome)

Ixrec

being cross-platform sucks

Jimmy Hoffa

in C/C++

Aaron Hall

I have to level up my emacs to do anything else with it. I just got to see Gerald Jay Sussman talk, and I still don't know Lisp.

Ixrec

yup

Aaron Hall

7:35 PM

He made a function that would work symbolically and, uh, literally.

Jimmy Hoffa

@AaronHall use spacemacs because tuning emacs yourself to the facilities spacemacs has would be nuts

Aaron Hall

yeah, I keep meaning to, can I run it in a container until I'm sure I like it? I kinda screwed up my system emacs by compiling and installing a new version. So it probably doesn't make a difference.

Jimmy Hoffa

@AaronHall yes, you can. Just gotta plunk down the spacemacs folder from github and you can turn it right off by moving it or some such if you don't want it

I don't remember exactly, they say how on their thing to trial it

github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs

oh it's an entire emacs.d that's right, just rename yours and use theirs

don't like it? switch back to your emacs.d

Aaron Hall

I did ask him, to the laughter of everyone else at the Lisp meetup (many of whom knew my connection to the Python meetup) why MIT switched from Lisp to Python.

And they were recording the whole thing, I'll post a link here when they put it up.

Kit Z. Fox

Is there some kind of typical way of naming user stories?

Thomas Owens

7:47 PM

What do you mean "naming user stories"?

Kit Z. Fox

Are they not usually named?

We're tracking ours with TFS.

Thomas Owens

All requirements should be identified, but they don't need to be named.

Kit Z. Fox

So they need names.

Thomas Owens

The identifier should be unique.

It could be a name or a number.

Kit Z. Fox

OK.

Jimmy Hoffa

7:48 PM

@KitZ.Fox just put whatever description you want in it. Are you using the TFS scrumboard?

Kit Z. Fox

@JimmyHoffa Working toward it, I think.

Jimmy Hoffa

towards it? yeesh

user41796

Just come up with a short, meaningful name that captures the essence of the story

Kit Z. Fox

Here's my first attempt at a user story:

> As a product stakeholder, I can view the search terms that are used when users search for products so that I can identify common terms that could be converted to filters for more effective searching.

Is that basically the kind of thing I'm suppposed to write?

Thomas Owens

@KitZ.Fox Change "product stakeholder" to a more meaningful role.

MetaFight

7:49 PM

that's exactly what I was going to say.

Kit Z. Fox

@ThomasOwens Yeah that's a placeholder.

Jimmy Hoffa

@KitZ.Fox like I said at the beginning, define roles before anything further

Thomas Owens

But yeah, it's really good.

Kit Z. Fox

@JimmyHoffa They are defined, but posting them here is telling you too much about where I work.

Aaron Hall

Roles and Goals. - Stephen Covey

Jimmy Hoffa

7:50 PM

The whole concept behind agile/scrum is to be close to the customers so you deliver what they want. It's completely focussed on their perspective, so define them first and stories will be much easier to formulate based on what those roles would actually want

@KitZ.Fox oh gotcha

Kit Z. Fox

Is there any kind of thing that I need to add to that? I feel like I'm leaving a whole bunch of stuff out.

MetaFight

> As Mecha-Hitler, I can view the search terms that are used when users search for products so that I can identify common terms that could be converted to filters for more effective searching.

Kit Z. Fox

@MetaFight How did you--oh. hahaha. Yes, it's funny because of different other chap.

MetaFight

Jimmy Hoffa

@KitZ.Fox It's supposed to be what the users actually want and why. Nothing more. The whole point is to let engineers design solutions that help people, so yeah it's going to be vague.

Kit Z. Fox

7:53 PM

I probably feel like I'm leaving things out because I usually 1. over-specify in reaction to the jerk dev I used to work with and 2. end up having to test it so I stick stuff in that helps me hit all the special conditions later.

Jimmy Hoffa

You can break stories into multiple stories if you think it's not clear enough - make them smaller more specific things

Kit Z. Fox

Like, shouldn't I say which types of search-y things are important?

Or does that get figured out when the devs are designing?

Jimmy Hoffa

In fact I don't like that story because it dictates how to solve the problem in a way. You want to "view" the used terms. How about, you just want a way to know what terms are used. Maybe it'll be a daily e-mail sent to people notifying them of search term rankings

Kit Z. Fox

Or are those separate stories?

@JimmyHoffa He specifically wants an on-demand report.

Jimmy Hoffa

@KitZ.Fox separate probably- is it something the user wants? Why does the user want it and what specifically do they want?

Kit Z. Fox

7:55 PM

OK. Let me try again.

Jimmy Hoffa

@KitZ.Fox ok, on-demand report should be in there then. Nobody said it couldn't be transmitted directly into his brain through an implant; not the same as viewing. What if he's blind! Then the devs should do it in braille! The possibilities! Oh goodness!!

Kit Z. Fox

... he's not blind.

Jimmy Hoffa

Nov 6 '15 at 20:35, by enderland

2 days ago, by Jimmy Hoffa

yesterday, by MichaelT

Jul 28 '14 at 18:52, by Jimmy Hoffa

<--- Helping.

Ixrec

and of course, the report needs to be viewable in Oculus Rift

Kit Z. Fox

Well, that goes without saying. We have two. We need to derive benefit from the investment.

Now this is getting dumb:

> As a product stakeholder, I can log into the management site and view a report that tells me which search terms and what type of search functions were used when users searched for products over a period of time that I can define by date selection so that I can identify common terms that could be converted to filters for more effective searching.

Jimmy Hoffa

7:59 PM

@KitZ.Fox that's multiple stories

Kit Z. Fox

There must be a way to let this be more than a sentence.

Oh.

Jimmy Hoffa

logging in is a separate thing

what type of search functions is a separate thing also

Transcript for