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Software Process and Measurement Cast


The Software Process and Measurement Cast provides a forum to explore the varied world of software process improvement and measurement.  The SPaMCast covers topics that deal the challenges how work is done in information technology organizations as they grow and evolve.  The show combines commentaries, interviews and your feedback to serve up ideas, options, opinions, advice and even occasionally facts. 

 

Mar 11, 2018

SPaMCAST 485 features essay titled “A Simple Checklist for Choosing a Mentor.” Everyone needs a mentor, but they are hard to find, and even when you find someone willing they might not be the right person!  Enter: a checklist!

Blog entries (in case you would rather read the entries) in our recent coaching/mentor theme include:

A Mentor or Coach: Which Do You Need? A Checklist

A Simple Checklist for Choosing a Mentor

Attributes of a Good Mentor

Coaching versus Mentoring

In the second spot this week, Jeremy Berriault will bring his QA Corner to the cast. We will discuss trusting your team. Trust is a huge deal, and unless it goes both ways it is not really trust.  FYI - Jeremy has recently moved the QA Corner to https://qacorner.blog/

Rounding out the cast, Kim Pries, the Software Sensei will return with the second part of his essay titled “Muddling Through.” The essay is based on the article, “The Science of “Muddling Through” by Charles E. Lindblom.  The article was originally published in 1959, but it still has an important message that resonates now.  Part One was originally published in SPaMCAST 477 http://bit.ly/2IiGoCw

 

Re-Read Saturday News

Before we wrap up our re-read of Daniel S. Vacanti’s Actionable Agile Metrics for Predictability: An Introduction (buy a copy today) remember that we will begin our re-read of Turn the Ship Around by L. David Marquet next week!  Buy your copy and listen to the interview I did with Mr. Marquet (SPaMCAST 202). If you want to get ahead, the book after that will be The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande (I recently bought a copy and want to share what I have gotten out of it). Now on with the main attraction!

This week we conclude our re-read of Daniel S. Vacanti’s Actionable Agile Metrics for Predictability: An Introduction (buy a copy today). Over the past 18 weeks we have explored the power of a few metrics to help teams deliver value.  None of the books we have explored in the re-read series are simple, one-idea books. The complexity of these books are the reason they are important, but also make it difficult to boil any of them down into a few words. If pressed for a one line summary for this book, it is that every team or organization should use data to pursue continuous improvement.

Previous Installments
Introduction and Game Plan

Week 2: Flow, Flow Metrics, and Predictability

Week 3: The Basics of Flow Metrics

Week 4: An Introduction to Little’s Law

Week 5: Introduction to CFDs

Week 6: Workflow Metrics and CFDs

Week 7: Flow Metrics and CFSs

Week 8: Conservation of Flow, Part I

Week 9: Conservation of Flow, Part II

Week 10: Flow Debt

Week 11: Introduction to Cycle Time Scatterplots

Week 12: Cycle Time Histograms

Week 13: Interpreting Cycle Time Scatterplots

Week 14: Service Level Agreements

Week 15: Pull Policies

Week 16: Introduction to Forecasting

Week 17: Monte Carlo Method Introduction

Week 18: Getting Started

Week 19: Conclusion



Upcoming Webinars and Conferences

Using Size to Drive Testing in Agile
Tom Cagley & Associates and Sealights Webinar
Tue, Mar 13, 2018 11:00 AM - 11:45 AM EDT
http://bit.ly/2CdBQZX

QAI Quest 2018
The Three Amigo’s Role in Agile
May 21-25, 2018,
San Antonio, Texas

ISMA 15
May 11
Rome, Italy

I will also be at Agile West on June 7th (my birthday!)

Next SPaMCAST
SPaMCAST 486 will feature our interview with Daniel S. Vacanti.  Mr. Vacanti is the author of Actionable Agile Metrics for Predictability: An Introduction.  We discussed the concepts in the book, answered a question from Steven Adams, and talked about his new book.  It was great to talk about a book after a re-read with the author!