[AccessD] Scrum (was: Find First in an Array? ...)

Salakhetdinov Shamil mcp2004 at mail.ru
Wed Feb 25 14:31:49 CST 2009


Hi Gustav,

My knowledge of Finnish language is almost at zero level - I used English while in Helsinki, and I have found that most of the people there knows English well enough to understand my English :)... 

As far as I currently realize SCRUM would be rather useless for "alone-wolf" working mode - SCRUM is to empower teamwork.

I'm thinking first of all about simple project as e.g. converting MS Access Northwind to .NET WinForms application - that first simple project would produce useful result as e.g. set rathwer clear figure based on working experience on how much it could take to convert simple MS Access applications to .NET as well as it could help to setup initial simple agile disributed environment. I'd expect there should be quite some more useful practical outputs from this simple project if it would be done SCRUM way as SCRUM results not only in percievable practical outputs but also brings group and personal experiences, which can't be achieved other way (at least I do not know such other ways)...

Not "preaching" here for any advanced rocket science software development - just thinking about something like "dumb" manual conversion of MS Access Northwind into .NET WinForms + .NET ReportViewer Northwind desktop sample app but with this conversion done using SCRUM development process applied as much as possible in distributed environmnet starting from scratch and keeping in mind that first of all a result - converted app should be delivered within max one man-month, and if all goes well then even within 1/2 man month with another 1/2 man month or less spent to build needed simple first version of distributed agile development environment. (1/2 - 1 man-month needed for such project is my current evaluation which could be wrong - this should be changed/reevaluated by team in the very beginning - and this evaluation should be a fun of playing SCRUM plannning pocker cards - http://jeffsutherland.com/scrum/2007/10/planning-poker-cards-get-them-here.html  - :) 

Development tools: VS2008, and no third party tools/controls for application development + some open source agile development tools - something like described here maybe:

http://blog.benhall.me.uk/2008/08/continuous-integration-builds-for.html 

No clear idea yet because to make this project a reality there should be at least seven team members who would be interested to commit up to one hour working on this project within working days within one month, and they should have some beginners experience to design .NET WinForms...

Anybody? (There could be main seven team members with many their proxies who can commit several hours of working on this project when main team members will be very busy with their everyday duties but if this project will ever get started then there should be equally distributed time spent over project weeks as this would allow to calculate so called team velocity based on rithm - and velocity value is quite important to evaluate how "powerful team is" and how much it would take for this team to make this or that future projects...)

The next project could be trying to make similar conversion but using some (nand made) conversion automation tools...

The third one could be substituting MS Access backend with MS SQL 2005(?) backend...

The forth one could be getting .NET Winform sample app "converted" to ASP.NET...
etc.

But it doesn't make sense to plan even for the second project now until first one will be done, and if that first one will be done then (according to SCRUM principles and expectations) there will be the other day, with its own needs, and that other day will define what other project is the most useful, practical and applicable to implement for all the interested parties: stakeholders/users, ProductOwner, SCRUMMaster and team members...

Thank you.

--
Shamil

-----Original Message-----
From: "Gustav Brock" <Gustav at cactus.dk>
To: <accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 17:07:34 +0100
Subject: Re: [AccessD] Scrum (was: Find First in an Array? ...)

> Hi Shamil
> 
> Yes, Finland is a nice place - I think - because last time I visited the country was about 35 years ago! But I still remember how to order two beers in Finnish - which by the way is a language very much different from most Western languages. Just to learn how to count to ten is a challenge.
> 
> I've always had the opinion that things like scrum is a bit overkill when you mostly work on your own projects, but if it can help keeping you organised including keeping track of notes and ideas, this could be the occasion to give it a go. And a "demo" project could be a good method to keep feet on the ground. 
> 
> What kind of project do you have in mind?
> 
> For those interested I think Danube may not be the best site to start - here is a place that starts at zero:
> 
>   http://www.scrumalliance.org/pages/what_is_scrum 
> 
> /gustav
> 
> 
> >>> mcp2004 at mail.ru 25-02-2009 15:59 >>>
> 
> Hi Max,
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> Sorry for some following off-topic guys.
> 
> I have been Finland for several days, and I have got DANUBE's (http://www.danube.com/) Certified SCRUMMaster training: I ilked it, and it was an "eye opener" in some of the areas of agile software development...
> 
> I also liked the foods, walking around Helsinki downtown, which is in some places very much alike to St.Petersburg's architecture, clear water and fresh air and a rather comfortavle Radisson SAS Royal Hotel staying: would I have had been more wealthy I would have been going travelling much more often to Finland, and the West Europe (and the States and Canada and Australia... :) (never been in the latter two)) - just to experience the difference of the living environment :)
> 
> It's so easy to get to Finland from here these days provided one have Shengen Visa: by own car, by express bus, train etc. even by taxi - still it's the other world with much more comfortable living envionment and much more user-friendly common atmosphere... (Making very big money one can create such a good living environmnet here also these days but that would be isolated one, and of course no one with even huge money can create such an "user-friendly" atmosphere as in Finland (I'm not afraid on snow and frost you know :)) - creating the latter needs "mind shift" of several generations...
> 
> Based on my new SCRUM experience I'm thinking to propose to develop a sample SCRUM-process driven small (half to one man/month) non-profit/open-source project here, I'm not committing for that activity yet, and I'm not asking volunteers to commit (there will be needed 7+/-2 developers) - I will try to prepare to it, hopefully soon - that project experience and results can be published on AccessD...
> 
> Maybe it's time to start an AccessD-SCRUM discussion list?
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> --
> Shamil
> 
> 
> 
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