Tag Archives: critical numbers

DevOps Overview for Scrum Masters

Requires System Thinking DevOps creates a process (system) where by the development team and IT operations teams communicate issues, define priorities, complete work and report outcomes. DevOps grew out of the necessity that development and IT operations teams understand who … Continue reading

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I Love my Teams!

I love managing and mentoring teams. Creating high performing teams out of groups of individuals has always been a major PM challenge and remains a distant dream for many. Discovering Agile Scrum offered just the framework I was looking for. … Continue reading

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How to Decompose Epics & Stories

Assigning Epics effort estimates is risky business. However, since organizations usually require schedules and budgets when uncertainty is at its highest, continuously defining effort as the decomposition process evolves may work. It must be remembered, no estimate is completely accurate but this process does … Continue reading

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Numbers, Time and Benchmarks

What do you value? Numbers and time are interesting. They have no value in themselves, but success is constantly measured by them. Sports teams, businesses, families and even religious organizations have their set of sacred numbers and times. Either is simply … Continue reading

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Project Cost Example

Important Please read the previous post explaining this model, before reviewing the example below. This example uses the following steps. Adds employee salary, benefits and contractor fees as cost variables. Calculates how much these variables cost each week. Sets highest number of story points … Continue reading

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Book Review – Naked Statistics Stripping the Dread from the Data

Title – Naked Statistics Stripping the Dread from the Data Author – Charles Wheelan Publisher – W. W. Norton & Company Summary – The need for getting good data is widely understood. Bad numbers lead to bad decisions leading to bad … Continue reading

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Managing Software Quality Assurance Test Rounds – Part Five (Critical Numbers)

In his book The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business, the author Josh Kaufman recommends isolating two to five critical indicators, or what he calls Key Performance Indicators (KPI). These numbers should measure throughput and of a given system. The goal … Continue reading

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Managing Software Quality Assurance Test Rounds – Part Six (Discovering What Went Wrong)

When discovering and resolving issues two attributes are absolutely necessary. These are a calm head and an experimental mindset. Uncertainty is inevitable. The sooner this is accepted, the better you will become at solving problems. Having numbers that expose issues … Continue reading

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Managing Software Quality Assurance Test Rounds – Part Four (Test Round Scenario)

Now that we understand the overall project risk and have our project matrix in place, we are ready to actually plan our tests and follow the critical numbers. The purpose of this example is not to be entirely accurate in every … Continue reading

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Managing Software Quality Assurance Test Rounds – Part Three (Developing the Project Matrix)

Now that we understand how to assess the project risk, we are ready to actually plan and manage our test rounds. Since software development is a dynamic process, each level of testing must allow a great amount of flexibility. Offering … Continue reading

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Managing Software Quality Assurance Test Rounds – Part Two (Assessing Quality Assurance Risk)

“What gets measured gets managed and what gets managed gets done.” – Peter Drucker Before the project is organized and critical numbers are calculated, I recommend running a risk assessment exposing weaknesses in your quality assurance planning and processes. This analysis … Continue reading

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