jonathan Babcock's Public Library

The reason we want stories to be a particular size is so that they can be developed and tested within a single iteration. We also need them to be manageable; if a story is too big it can be difficult to ensure that everyone in the team has a full understanding of it, and chaos ensues (trust me I’ve been there). Plus, large stories are difficult to estimate to any degree of accuracy.

www.leighstringer.com/...reaking-down-epic-user-stories - Preview

usecase userstory

Some of my agile coaches in the past argued that use cases should not be used at all. I disagree respectfully. As use cases and user stories are in essence a verbalization of the requirements from the point of view of the actor or user, I argued and proved that they can be used to populate an agile product backlog.

www.plannowtech.com/blog - Preview

agile usecase userstory

Gmail is by far the best mail client available, online or off, and it’s level of customization just makes it that much better. In this guide, I’ll be showing you how to do some things that will allow you to turn Gmail into the ultimate productivity tool.

geekgirlsblog.com/ail-into-a-productivity-center - Preview

tools productivity

Over the past few years, the rise in popularity of SCRUM has raised many questions as to how agile works in practice. One of the recurring questions has been: is there a place for the business analyst within the ADM environment?

In my view, the answer is unreservedly and unquestionably ‘yes’.

www.fronde.com/blog - Preview

scrum agile businessanalyst

www.valuebasedmanagement.net - Preview

management reference strategy education

Prior to agile, many enterprises have followed a sequential, stage-gated, waterfall development model. In these cases, it’s likely that the Product Manager’s mindset has moved through a series of increasingly foreboding attitudes, as the figure below shows.

scalingsoftwareagility.wordpress.com/...re-agile-waterfall-development - Preview

agile waterfall methodology

Anyone who has struggled to follow a complex argument in a book or article knows from experience that reasoning in written form can be hard to understand. Perhaps this is why many people prefer to learn by attending a class or viewing a lecture rather than by reading. The cliché about a picture being worth more than a large number of words has a good deal of truth to it: visual representations can be helpful in clarifying complex arguments. In a recent post, I presented a quick introduction to a visual issue mapping technique called IBIS (Issue Based Information System), discussing how it could be used on complex projects. Now I follow up by demonstrating its utility in visualising complex arguments such as those presented in research papers.

eight2late.wordpress.com/...ing-arguments-using-issue-maps - Preview

visualization argumentmapping

One of the unavoidable things about college, and increasingly work life, is PowerPoint. Most of us have, at one point or another, had to slap some slides together and give a presentation to our friends, family, class, co-workers, or boss.

PowerPoint itself is all well and good, and is actually a great application. But here’s the problem: most people just truly suck at giving PowerPoint presentations. Otherwise interesting and intelligent people, when using PowerPoint, become bumbling fools who look as if they don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.

Good PowerPoint presentations are more fun, more impactful, and more impressive to listen to. And all they do differently is follow a few simple guidelines.

www.the20life.com/...-10-commandments-of-powerpoint - Preview

presentation powerpoint

Created for the Internet Librarian 2008 conference, this is a walk through recent exciting audio and video tools that help build community.

www.slideshare.net/...the-digital-world-presentation - Preview

networking community

To identify and document the interfaces to other systems and external entities within the project scope. These types of interfaces are classed as subsystem interfaces.

it.toolbox.com/...al-interface-requirements-6352 - Preview

data modeling requirements

Nice reference on the basics of data modeling.

www.learndatamodeling.com/index.php - Preview

data modeling

Data modeling is a technique that is widely used in the world of business and information technology to show how information is, or should be, stored and used within a business system.

The success of any organization relies on the efficient flow and processing of information.

In this example information flows around the various departments within the organization. This information can take many forms, for example it could be written, oral or electronic.

www.getahead-direct.com/gwbadat.htm - Preview

modeling

Nice list of Google calendar enhancements/integrations

www.searchenginejournal.com/...10069 - Preview

google calendar

Tool for synching Google and Outlook calendars.

www.google.com/...answer.py - Preview

gmail calendar tools

Great article and comments on creating "beautiful teams".

www.thehackerchickblog.com/...beautiful-teams.html - Preview

team

Easy but powerful tricks that can dramatically improve the quality of your presentations and also bring that extra oomph that is needed for any presentation to stand out.

tickledbylife.com/...powerpoint-is-my-slave - Preview

presentation powerpoint

Downloadable and very printable, I find these PDFs extremely useful.

incompetech.com/graphpaper - Preview

tools graphpaper prototyping wireframe

In a previous life at a big ‘old style’ new media agency, there often seemed to be a one tool fits all approach to projects. This applied to information architecture too - there was a set way of creating and delivering wireframes, regardless of the individual needs of the client.

In contrast, we’re now lucky to have a wide range of tools and techniques that allow us to approach a problem from the best angle. A sketch, a grey wireframe or a full on keynote prototype. These tools allow us to develop a solution in iterations, slowly adding on more detail as the solution becomes closer to a design that can be built.

Whilst there’s a natural progression from sketch to a detailed wireframe, it’s important to never feel constrained by the life cycle of a project. A sketch can be done at any time (and by anyone), regardless of where you are in the process.

www.madebymany.co.uk/the-future-of-wireframes-00991 - Preview

wireframes prototyping

For those of you who didn't attend Scott Ambler and Terry Quatrani's keynote "Software Development Strategies, Philosophies, and Techniques: Traditional vs. Agile" at this week's SD West conference, let me give you the gist of the first half:
Advocates of traditional software development approaches, such as waterfall and V-Model, are myopic bureaucrats who worship detailed specifications and denigrate the code necessary to build those specs.
Agile development practitioners, on the other hand, are logical pragmatists whose only goal is to build what the customer wants.
I sat in on Ambler and Quatrani's keynote to get a sense of whether cooler, more pragmatic heads had prevailed. I ended up more entertained than informed, and left with the impression that the debate remains as religious as ever.

blog.devx.com/...e-over-traditional-vs-agi.html - Preview

agile methodology

Agile Project Leadership Network Atlanta chapter

www.aplnatlanta.org - Preview

Agile Networking Atlanta