Blogs

Some updated Agile metrics to share.

The NKU Digitorium is an amazing place to hold a conference. We were so impressed at our recent Agile training event, February 3rd. Below is a photo of the cool presentation screen as we were setting up for the day. We sure hope to be back there again soon. Thank you NKU for a great conference!

While driving into work yesterday, I found myself reflecting on this past year coming to a close. OK, it was really more like, “Holy cannoli, we’re almost halfway through December already! Where did the year go? That was way too fast.”

 This led me to also recall it has now been three years since the infamous reversal of fortunes the market abruptly experienced in fall 2008. Three years.

In a CIO Innovators video interview* on SearchCIO.com, Frank Wander, CIO of The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America, shared his thoughts on collaboration and innovation.

The interview contains several poignant points. But one thought, shared by Wander, was especially profound: embed IT in the business. According to Wander, at Guardian, they don’t run “IT projects,” they run “business projects.”

This point highly resonates as a refreshing evolution from the past ten years of CIO’s striving to get IT aligned with the business. Now we can finally see IT for what it is: an actual part of the business that can significantly contribute to business value—not a separate cost center that drives up budgets and goes past deadlines.

Here is some Friday humor for you if you have ever encountered the infamous phrase, "Agile won't work here."

View this quick (under two minutes), funny (at least we think so) movie depicting how the conversation tends to unfold. Let us know if this has happened to you to. Please share your conversations too.

Looking for some agile metrics?

Then we have some references for you.

Below is a sampling of the agile results our teams have experienced--both within our Agile Development Center and at our clients' work sites, working alongside their team members.

Please see for yourself and explore if these results may be a benefit to your organization or team. Then, please contact us if you would like to discuss how you can get there.

I attended the Microsoft //BUILD/ conference September 13-16, in Anaheim, CA. This was the public world’s second introduction to the next version of company’s OS, Windows 8. It was also the first time that any real depth about the product was provided.

The general consensus from those I spoke with was they were very pleased with the features shown.

I'm in the beginning throws of an article for agile project managers. If you are tracking your project using a burndown chart, can you send me what you have? I'm really interested in the burndown charts for the first 3 to 12 months of a project. If you want to include any commentary on them that would be nice also. If the burndown chart is included in a sprint review slide deck, you could just send me the slide deck.

Please forward to info@sds-consulting.com. Thank you in advance.

Author: Rob Keefer, Agility Practice Director

Join SDS at the Happy Hour and Retrospective, 4:30-6:30pm, as part of the Path to a·gil·i·ty conference on May 26th, at the Arena Grand Movie Theater in downtown Columbus, OH.

We will treat you to a cocktail and you can enter to WIN an iPod and iTunes gift certificate in honor of "Agility Rocks!"

Take a few minutes to hear benefits companies can experience from Cloud technologies. SDS Cloud Specialist and Windows Azure MVP, talks with Dave Neilson during a recent trip to Redmond, WA.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZXNf27tkN8

Take our advice. Try the cloud for 30 days, for free. Here is what you get:

Windows Azure
3 Small Compute Instances; 3 GB of Storage; 250,000 Storage Transactions

SQL Azure
2 One-GB Web Edition Database