Thursday, April 28, 2011

Quiet blog - Business Patterns for Software Developers in progress

Just a brief note to explain why this blog has been a bit quiet lately.

Two reasons.

Anyone who has seen me in the last 5-6 weeks will know we had a big family event four 4 weeks ago. So a lot of my time is going in that directions.

And second, about the time, I finally signed the contract to write “Business Patterns for Software Developers.” The business strategy patterns I have been writing and bringing to conferences for the last six or seven years are finally going to be made into a book.

So, most of my spare time is absorbed by getting the book project rolling. Fortunately most of the text is written but there are still gaps. Plus there is a lot of editing and reviewing to do.

The text of the book is due to be finished in September and the book in the shops in January. Expect to see if on Amazon long before then, once the ISBN number is issued it is in the catalogues and will be picked up by online retailers.

Exciting times.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Slides from ACCU 2011 - 10 Step Model for Agile Requirements

The slides from my presentation at ACCU 2011 conference today are available online, the Agile Requirements 10 Step Model.

Retrospective Dialogue Sheets

I’m at ACCU 2011 this week, in my lightening talk I publicly unveiled, for the first time, Retrospective Dialogue Sheets.

I have been experimenting with dialogue sheets at conferences for a few years now. For a long time my aim has been to use them for team retrospectives. I’ve now produced a few variations and tested them with some teams. Still I need to do more tests, so I’m looking for volunteers.

I’m making these dialogue sheets available as a community resource, without charge. However, there is a catch: you need a large printer (A1 size) to print them. So I’ve set-up a print-on-demand service where you can buy printed versions.

Right now you can:
If you do try one of these sheets please e-mail me and let me know about your experiences.

Finally, I’m still looking for volunteers who will let me watch teams using these sheets. I’m happy to give teams printed dialogue sheets for free if you will let me observe the team doing the exercise. If you can help, please e-mail me.