Difference between “Done” and “Shippable”

There has been a lot of discussion on various agile forums and blogs about the difference between ‘Done’ and ‘Shippable’. It might sound like both mean the same, however discussions on the lists and various blogs suggest that these are still widely misunderstood, mis-used terms. Here is a roundup of recommendations about how to handle “Done.”

Read rest of this round up on my news post on InfoQ.

So your Agile adoption failed! Ever heard of Shu-Ha-Ri?

This story would interest you if you are new to Agile and are planning to adopt it with full enthusiasm.

Xlabs started Agile adoption with the full fanfare. It had the upper management support and the team was convinced about its values and the results it could bring to the table. Four iterations down, Xlabs started feeling that things were not working out as well as they expected them to be. They tried for a few iterations more with even more disappointing results. Finally they came to the conclusion that Agile was overrated and worked only for a few organizations. Let down by the results they moved back to what they had been doing for ages, waterfall. The management however was reading about the agile development success stories around the world and decided to do a root cause of what went wrong.

Within a week the process auditing folks came out with the basic flaw with the way Agile was adopted. Xlabs had no idea about Shu-Ha-Ri! and hence they adopted agile in the incorrect way thus leading the current state of affairs.

So what is Shu-Ha-Ri and why is it so important?

Agile Offshoring : It’s hard work but it works!

This article is based on my personal experience that I went through when we started adopting the Toyota way of working. It has since been published on TSS (The Server Side) and can be accessed here.

Software Off-shoring is a reality of the day however there are many projects which fail due to incorrect off-shoring. Apart from tremendous advantages, off-shoring brings additional complexity, risk and avenues for wastage. This experience report will discuss how we turned off-shoring into a successful model based on Toyota manufacturing Process. We call this methodology ‘Lean Agile Off-
shoring.’

Our goal to go offshore was to deliver software faster by leveraging a vast talent pool at offshore location with higher efficiency. We chose Scrum and the Toyota way of working because of its strong foundation in successful new product development. The Toyota principles can be very well applied to any software development project. The underlying points discuss the Toyota way of working and how they were mapped to make our off-shoring process lean.

The overall methodology remained Scrum and Toyota way of working helped us to look at improving on a daily basis.

15 Stand-up commitments to a greater Scrum

15 Stand-up commitments for those crucial 15 minutes

It is another great day, sun shining bright, traffic snarls continuing on roads, the team getting ready for another productive agile day with droopy faces! Droopy faces , why ???

Well because they have to get over the stand-up ritual first before they can get started with some real work.

But is the stand up a ritual??? Aren’t stand-ups supposed to be exciting and energizing???

If this a common question disturbing you for a while then it is time to stand up for the stand-up. The details that follow are meant for any team practicing any Agile methodology like Scrum and who has started thinking that stand-ups are no more than an empty ritual which has to be pushed out at the start of the day.

If you are a stand up team member a.k.a pig then you must commit to the list below to make sure that you do your part for a successful stand-up. If you are not a stand up team member a.k.a chicken then the list below would let you know what not to do and what to expect.

Say aloud, I am committed to the success of the project and I make the following commitments