My presentations at Scrum Gathering

I am doing two presentations today at the Scrum Gathering. The first is Sneaky Scrum, a way to sneak Scrum into your organization. DOWNLOAD THE SLIDES HERE. If your browser supports it, view the slides inline here:



The second presentation is From AnyCo to AwesomeCo: A Case Study in Scrum Transformation. DOWNLOAD THE SLIDES HERE. If your browser supports it, view the slides inline here:

Certified Scrum Practitioner

I am now officially a Certified Scrum Practitioner.

So what?

So it signifies that my peers recognize that I understand Scrum pretty well. The certification shows I have actually applied Scrum for real, on a real project, in a real organization, for real stakeholders. It's not a big deal, really. It's just a token from an independent group of people--not me, not my friends, not my coworkers or business partners--that I probably know what I'm doing. But there are only about 1,000 CSPs in the world, so it helps distinguish me from people who haven't been similarly recognized by their peers.

Click through for more information on Scrum, the Scrum Alliance, and the Scrum Alliance certifications.

Richard Kasperowski's résumé

Here is my latest résumé. PLEASE DOWNLOAD IT HERE. If your browser supports embedded PDF, you can also view it right here:

See Richard at Scrum Gathering 2010

I will be presenting at this year's Scrum Gathering in Orlando, March 8-10. My first presentation is Sneaky Scrum, a Pecha-Kucha, on March 9 at 8:00 in Sanibel 1 & 2:

Does your organization resist Scrum? Is your boss afraid of Scrum because of the strange jargon and lack of big up front planning? Do your developers say it's a good idea, but they can't deliver done stories?

Try Sneaky Scrum. Trick your teams into adopting Scrum, one practice at a time. Use my subversive system to stealthily sneak Scrum into your organization. I did, and I'll show you how I did it.

My second presentation is From AnyCo to AwesomeCo: A Case Study in Scrum Transformation, a full length presentation, on March 9 at 3:30 in Osceola 2:

We started as AnyCo, and we became AwesomeCo.

We spent two years applying various agile practices, trying to improve our project success rate.

Then we met Scrum, and 12 months later, we were a great team.

This is a case study of an actual mobile software company, whose name has been changed to protect the innocent.

I joined AnyCo to help transform it to AwesomeCo by applying agile practices. AnyCo's initial software process was waterfall.

We eventually found and rigorously applied Scrum, with great results.

AwesomeCo now delivers truly great software products, with very high quality, predictable time lines, predictable costs, and satisfied customers.

I'll share how we made the transformation, what prompted it, how I got the courage to do it, and our successes and failures.

The presentation includes:

• Scrum and agile history
• Why generic agile failed at AnyCo
• How AnyCo used Scrum to transform itself into AwesomeCo
• AwesomeCo's new awesome powers
• Pitfalls during the transition

If you'll be at the Gathering, let me know--I'd love to hang out with you.

What are you putting in your mouth?

16Have you ever picked up a piece of fruit and not known exactly what it is? Maybe you were at the grocery store, or maybe you were unloading your Boston Organics produce delivery. Is that an apricot, a plum, or a pluot? Exactly what kind of apple is that?

Did you notice the sticker with the numeric code on your fruit? That's a PLU code (Product Look-Up or Price Look-Up code). PLU codes are maintained by the International Federation for Produce Standards, and you can look up codes in their searchable database. SupermarketPage has a good list of PLU codes.

Fight the power! Lookup your PLU codes, and know what goes in your mouth!


Image from Organic Food Coupons

MBTA WiFi

WiFi! On an MBTA Commuter Rail train! Yeah, it's old news, but it's still pretty cool. I am posting this from my comfortable seat on the train from Ashland to Boston.

In my speed test on an old ThinkPad running Windows XP, I saw downloads at 199 kbit/s with 138 ms latency. On my iPhone, I saw 157 kbit/s with 0.317 seconds latency. This sample is about half as fast as the download speed I measured in my Peter Pan WiFi speed test.

Cygwin rxvt redux

You're in for a treat when you upgrade to Cygwin 1.7: instead of bash running inside a plain old DOS-style window, you get a built-in Start menu shortcut for rxvt. Forget about creating your own rxvt shortcut--this one does everything you need. Thanks, Cygwin team!