Congratulations Saju Peter PMP

Hi Aby, I cleared the PMP exam yesterday. I would term it moderately difficult. Thank you very much for your course.

regards

saju

Fwd: PMP exam on the 12th of May

Hi AB,

Thanks for all the support, I have cleared my PMP exam on the 12^th of May 2009. Really appreciate your support.

Regards,

Ali

Abrachan Pudussery
www.abrachan.com
Mobile : +91 9895372115
Gtalk : abrachan
http://www.linkedin.com/in/abrachan

The teacher in me is happy ! Congratulations Pramod PMP !

pramodmeher: Hi Aby
This is Pramod from Doha,Qatar
took your PMP Class last year on May
10:24 me: hello
hello
how are u
ok
pramodmeher: I passed the exam y'day
Thank you very much
me: great man....congratulations
pramodmeher: for you for approach and tips what u have gave to us
me: my day is made

Expert !

"An expert is someone who has made every mistake possible within a very narrow field of inquiry."

A better India, A better World

Whenever I see books based on one's life experiences, generally I buy them and so far I have not gone wrong while choosing books based on this criteria. Now I am reading this book 'A better India, Better World' by Narayanamurthy, Infosys founder member. I have completed just two chapters. I must say that it is truly reflecting the views of the present day India. Must read.

# 11 Implementing Agile

Sprint planning meeting agenda

Total hours : 8

Sprint start date : ?????? End Date : ??????

Objective of the meeting

• To agree and commit to a set of features that will be 'done' during the sprint
• To agree on the demo date, time, participants and the acceptance criteria
• To estimate the story points for the features agreed upon
• To estimate the activity level effort requirements to complete the agreed upon features
• To agree on the daily scrum (stand up) meeting place and time
• To set the tracking board
  
  First half
  
  1) The scrum master explains the agenda for the meeting
  
  2) The product owner shares the 'theme' of the sprint to the team
  
  3) The product owner shares his/her priority of the features with the team
  
  4) Discussion time on the features (reference material - user stories)
  
  5) Derive the points for the features
  
  6) Lock in the features for the sprint
  
  Second half
  
  1) Decompose the features into activities
  
  2) Estimate the approximate effort required to complete the tasks
  
  3) Set the tracking board for the sprint
  
  4) Decide the daily stand up (scrum) meeting time and place
  
  5) Decide the demo date

#10 Implementing Agile

Reality Check - Sprint-0

The team is selected, the scrum master is identified, scrum training is provided to the team, product owner has explained the 'product vision' to the team and every one is ready to get into the first sprint. Are we really ready?. It is a good time to do a reality check with the team. Here is the questionnaire;

1) Do I really understand the product vision?. Do I need further clarity on this?

2) Do I understand the scrum framework?. Do I need further clarity on this?

3) Do I understand the technology to be used in the project?. Do I need any formal training?

4) Do I have the facilities and equipment to do my work properly?

5) Do I understand the definition of 'done' within this sprint?

6) Am I clear about my responsibilities within the sprint?. Do I need further clarity?

7) Can I commit to this sprint?. Will other known priorities affect my availability to this sprint?

8) If other priorities are going to affect the availability, please mention;

8.a) How many hours / day I will be available to the sprint?

8.b) Which are the hours I will be available to the sprint?

If the scrum master can get this filled up by all the team members including himself, the will be able to take care of lots of known unknowns :-)

PMBOK V3 to V4 quick update document

http://www.pmforum.org/library/papers/2009/PDFs/may/Bernate-PMBOK-Dif-English.pdf

Congratulations Lester PMP

Dear ABY,

I passed my PMP Exam yesterday.

Thank you and your support staff for your support and assistance
during the preparation phase. The Class Tube has been a huge help and
I have seen that there has been a good effort in progressively
introducing improvements.

Please let me know when you are having your next session in DXB as I
have some friends who may wish to attend.

Thanks and Best wishes to you and your team and will be in touch.

Incidently I have joined RAKBank again from GE on a project basis with
the Core Banking Project.

God Bless !

Regards,

Lester

--
Abrachan Pudussery
www.abrachan.com
Mobile : +91 9895372115
Gtalk : abrachan
http://www.linkedin.com/in/abrachan

Congratulations Pascal

Hello abrachan,

I am PMP now.

Thank you for your help.

Best Regards,

Pascal
--
Abrachan Pudussery
www.abrachan.com
Mobile : +91 9895372115
Gtalk : abrachan
http://www.linkedin.com/in/abrachan

#9 Implementing agile

Bottom up Vs top down

While the top down sponsorship is important for implementing agile, implementation has to be bottom up. Start with smaller teams with a need of change. Pick up projects which are in the start up stage, or look for projects which are almost failures, and then implement agile as a recovery strategy. The key is to look for teams with a need for agile, and create early success stories around them which will make scaling agile easier.

# 8 Implementing agile

Right team selection

"Serve food only for the hungry" - is the right approach while selecting the agile team members. Look for those guys who are really unhappy with the current way of doing things and for the habitual early adopters. Ignore those ones who are resistant to change during the early stages, till the tipping point is reached. Once the tipping point is reached, the fence sitters also will get converted.

#7 Implementing agile

Right attitude

" Obstacles are the things we see, when we take our eyes off the target "

Agile is all about risk taking, and making things happen. Making this happen in an offshore / out sourced environment is quite challenging, as the work environment is not conducive for risk taking. There is no silver bullet to achieve this. The team leader, the team and the HR should work on this together.

# 6 Implementing Agile

How elaborate the user stories should be?

While writing the user stories, one will always get into a dilema on 'How detailed, the user stories should be?". There is no silver bullet answer to this. The user stories should be estimatable. The user stories should contain enough information, so that one can estimate it. If the detailing is less, the conversations will be higher, which is actually encouraged in agile circles. This is perfectly allright, if the product owner has the details to provide, when the conversations happen. If tyhe product owner gets struck at this stage, without answers to the queries, then that can become a bottle neck for the project progress. If the degree of clarity of features is lower with the product owner, then it is a good idea to expand the user stories as detailed as possible. This will make the product owner think through and prioritize features.

In an off shored environment, it is always better to have detailed user stories for the initial sprints, till the team members and the product owner gets a hang of it. During the later sprints, once the product owner's and the team members understanding are in sync, then the user stories can become leaner.

Must watch

http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/1081/Chicken-a-la-Carte

Unique design

Passed PMP

Dear Mr. Abrachan,

I am happy to inform you that I passed the PMP exam on 29th Apr. Your
study material and specially the simulation tests were very useful.

Thanks a lot for all the guidance and support.

Regards

Nilima Patwardhan

Consultant, Best Practices

Oman Computer Services

Muscat

Oman

--
Abrachan Pudussery
www.abrachan.com
Mobile : +91 9895372115
Gtalk : abrachan
http://www.linkedin.com/in/abrachan