Book Summary: Agile Software Development with Scrum

Agile Software Development with Scrum Ken Schwaber Mike Beedle

I really liked this book. Sounds like an interesting methodology. I'm trying to use some of the concepts at work (particularly the do work first and show it instead of discuss how to do it). Unfortunately my work environment isn't structured to fully support this development methodology.

Rough Schedule:

1. Sprint Planning meeting to determine what goals to set for a sprint
   
2. builds a product increment (working code) after a sprint (30 days of development time) Sprint Backlog cannot be changed from outside the team during a sprint
3. demonstrates product increment to team management and client after a sprint (Sprint Review Meeting 4 hours)
4. End of Sprint Meeting - reflect on what was accomplished during the sprint
5. **Ongoing-15 minute daily team (ideally sized at 5-8 staff) meetings stating:
   

1. what have I done since the last meeting
2. what will I do until the next meeting
3. what impediments are getting in my way

Scrum teams:

1. autonomous
2. self organizing
3. don't have roles assigned by management (no titles)
   
4. must not be disturbed or given direction by anyone outside the team during a sprint
5. need to be cross functional

Terms:

1. Scrum Master-facilitates meetings and removes impediments
2. Product Backlog -prioritized list of business and technical functionality that needs to be completed for the system
3. Product Owner-the only one who changes the product backlog
4. Sprint Backlog-states what needs to be done in the current sprint
5. Pigs-Team members
   
6. Chickens-interested parties who will not be assigned work (they may attend scrum meetings but not speak)
   
7. Release backlog - subset of the product backlog that is scheduled for a release
8. Shared Resource Scrum Teams - responsible for code used across multiple Scrum teams

Social Networking Sites (LinkedIn)

I use Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn.

Facebook primarily keeps me in touch with high school and college friends.
MySpace isn't as focused on school friends, it encompasses more people.

LinkedIn - This site focuses on professional connections. I've had it for a few years but haven't used it much because I don't know many people on it. Leo Dion just sent me this article on LinkedIn and I've decided to ramp up use of it. I think you should read the article and then decide if LinkedIn makes sense for you.

I've heard there are websites which will aggregate social networking sites (similar to the way Trillian works). I haven't found any of these to try out.

LinkedIn supports importing contacts from email clients which may help you start your network. I use Gmail. I had to export my contacts to csv files and then import them into LinkedIn to get it to work.