Kill The Hi Yeah, you read it right; I mean the “Hi”; the ‘hi’ people often use as the first message of a conversation in online chat, the same ‘Hi.’ That “Hi” is a productivity killer, a waste of time, and an unnecessary formality that does not suit today’s remote-enabled chatting modes. The Game Of Hi And Seek Have you ever started your work day to see a “Hi” from a random person on the office chat? You naturally respond…
Scrum is not Agile! There, I said it! Okay, okay, before you all bring out the pitchforks, please allow me to explain what I mean: Scrum is not the same as Agile, Or Scrum is not the only Agile framework; there are many more Agile frameworks, and one should not use the words Agile and Scrum interchangeably; Or one should not assume Scrum when someone says Agile. That’s all, that’s all I am saying. (Yes, the title is a clickbait!)…
I take it that most people, by now, know what Feature Flags are. The interesting thing, though, is that depending on whom you ask, they’ll have a slightly different answer as they have a slightly different use for the flags. The UX designers see them as a way to test users’ responses to various interface choices and flows. Similarly, an advertiser will tell you that they use Feature Flags to test audiences’ responses to different campaigns. For software developers, they…
This is a discussion on Git, the version control system. It is intended for folks with: Limited or no knowledge of any version control system Experience with Centralized Version Control Systems Experience with DVCS, but specifically git. It covers the basics of version control, DVCS, and then goes on to describe Git in a practical way, with exercise to get the team quickly started on using Git. It also talks a bit about how Git works internally, giving insights into…
This is a myth-buster exercise. When it comes to microservices, the talks and blogs around are riddled with fancy and scary terms. This presentation is takes a different take on it. Instead of learning the terms, we discover the solutions to various problems and then learn what those solutions are popularly referred to as. We go through the history of software architecture to understand how it evolved in the good old days. Based on which we draw some rules of…
A few days ago I published this blog mocking the ‘Ceremony Focused Agile’ teams. But it is pointless to state what one thinks is not right, without also commenting on what one thinks is right! So let us do that today. Here is a conversation, which I am sure many of us have witnessed (or been part of): A: “I have assigned a ticket to you, what is the status of it?” B: “”Ticket, what ticket?” A: “It’s in JIRA,…
So here’s a true story. I work with a normal sized team as per Agile/Scrum guidelines, about 8 people. We have our usual stand-ups every day, at about 10:30 in the morning. As a general rule, people have to join this meeting. Everyone speaks following the Scrum rules, just what is required: What I did, what I am going to do today and if I am blocked. And that’s it. Yet, our discussions diverge, others jump in to help whenever…