Rick Tonoli

Category: Agile

  • Accuracy and Precision

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    Rick Tonoli
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    Today I got asked what I thought was the difference between accuracy and precision as it pertains to relative estimation, I wasn’t ready for the question though and it’s been sitting on my mind bugging me so here are my thoughts: I would think accuracy would be how close the estimation was to the truth…

  • Continuous Improvement

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    Rick Tonoli
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    Thinking about continuous improvement the other day I tried to figure out what makes a continuous improvement process work and what makes it stick, these are my thoughts: It should be a slow, gradual process of change, no “sudden movements”. It should be a continuous flow of change, no settling down into a rut. It…

  • A great team

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    Rick Tonoli
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    For me agile is about many things but first and foremost it is about people and dynamics between people, you get the right recipe going and anything is possible. I work with what I think is a great team, but what makes them a great team? I’m not entirely sure but here are some of…

  • Velocity for the layman

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    Rick Tonoli
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    WARNING:This is a brain dump of an idea I’ve been playing around with, some confusion may occur! As a ScrumMaster I often struggle to explain the concept of velocity to people, a critical concept to grasp to understand how to report on progress and capability. I often get these questions thrown at me: How many features…

  • When will we be finished?

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    Rick Tonoli
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    I’m a firm believer that all work should have an agreed end date, but end dates are always a bone of contention and cause endless confusion and wasted arguments and disagreements. These usually hover around the “when will we be finished?” question and, more to the point, no properly defined (empirical) way of working it…

  • Star Trek, a model for Agility

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    Rick Tonoli
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    As a Trekkie I’m prone to watching reruns of old Star Trek episodes from time to time and I started seeing many similarities between an agile approach to “getting things done” and the way the crew of the Enterprise work. Yes, granted, it’s a militaristic structure but that’s not to say you can’t still be…

  • I’m not a child…

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    Rick Tonoli
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    Dear Manager, I am one of your developers, when you hired me you treated me with respect, you asked me about my skills and abilities and (I assume) hired me because of these. Please could you explain to me why, now, the respect is gone and I’m being treated like a mentally deficient child? If…

  • Trust…

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    Rick Tonoli
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    Forcing impossible deadlines, ordering people to be at work during certain hours, denying leave, bringing in consultants and hinting at using them as a yardstick for productivity… I often wonder what makes people resort to these tactics and if they know the net effect of them? Decreased morale, lowered productivity, lack of any desire to…

  • Change is good

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    Rick Tonoli
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    I’m often amazed at the number of dogmatic “prophets” out there when it comes to the latest fad’s of agile development. I myself am about getting productive and like to take the best of ALL worlds; change is not only inevitable but necessary, even changing of a process BUT, only if the change leads to…

  • Implementing an Effective Build Dashboard (for Hudson) (Part 3)

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    Rick Tonoli
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    Not really part of the dashboard configuration but more of a cool thing I thought I’d share the underlying layers (hardware, OS etc) behind our monitor. I decided to go with full portability and hands free start-up, I did this as follows: Installed Puppy Linux on a 2gb USB stick. Installed Firefox 3.x (needed for…