what is Certified ScrumMaster

Don’t be mislead by the title, I am not (yet) a certified ScrumMaster. And in no way authorized or capable to judge the trainers who conduct these ScrumMaster workshops. My colleagues at work ask me all the time about what is the course content for becoming a certified ScrumMaster and who gives this certificate, so here is an insight for them (and everybody else too):

1. Who is a Certified ScrumMaster: Any person who has attended a 2 day workshop provided by a certified scrum trainer.

2. Who is this certification for: Anybody who wants to get started on Agile project and has no idea of what this journey means.

3. What are the prerequisites: No formal requirements, however it is suggested to read a book on Scrum before attending the workshop.

4. What is the course content: Possible content will include introduction to scrum, roles and responsibilities of a ScrumMaster on the project, etc

5. Does everybody become a Certified ScrumMaster after the workshop: Yes (unless your trainer wants to punish you for sleeping during the workshop).

6. Who gives this certificate: Scrum Alliance

7. Any suggestions (from me): Must take this workshop.

Unfortunately, most people attend this workshop to fool others (read current and perspective employers) that they are Agile in big way. You please don’t fool others and yourself into this, the workshop is very useful to give you a jump start into the Agile journey.

It is a pleasure to announce that I am now PMI certified PMP

How I did it:

1. My planning started about 8 months back.

2. First of all, I started with PMBOK and two other books (Rita and Kim) a few months back and did a quick run-through of each book (cover-to-cover) .

3. I have been listening to the audio CD of Rita everyday for past 3 months while traveling to office and back. This is about 2hrs a day.

4. My determination, I waited for PMFasTrac class by Upendra Giri for 2 months before enrolling. You all would agree that he is good, however I am sure that he is the best trainer in Delhi NCR region.

5. I spent about 150 hours sincerely preparing for this exam after our workshop ended in July.

6. In my opinion, PMBOK is sufficient to pass the exam. However, understanding of each topic is a must.

7. I did not spend time on memorizing the inputs, tools techniques and outputs of each process, rather I tried to understand them. This approach I think helped me in handling the tricky and indirect questions.

My inspiration: I have been and still am actively implementing agile methodology in various project. PMP is a industry recognized certification for traditional managers, I am a technical manager (traditional as I started) who wants to understand and practice good things of both the worlds.

I am more than willing to help those who wish to take the exam. I am willing to spend time to teach the concepts, discuss questions/processes and

guide on how best to utilize the little time in hand we get after official and personal commitments. You may call me at 9891777781 or email me at mail2smehra@gmail.com.

Agile requires full-team collaboration, so where do the project managers go...

I started off with writing the “Bad ScrumMaster’s guide to good practices”, it turned into the “Why agile fail” and it then turned into this blog about what happened (or should happen) to traditional project managers.

Agile adoption is on the rise and we all appreciate it. Clients love it cause they get better value for their money. Teams like it cause they do not have to work long hours or on weekend, also they get real satisfaction for the efforts they put into the project. But nobody cared what happened to the plan-execute-control type managers, they became “Bad ScrumMaster” who contribute to the reason of why agile project fail. Most ScrumMaster have a history of being 'plan alone, command to execute and control' project managers or a "decision taking" technical lead

Lets face it, there is no role for project managers in agile teams. It’s the need of the hour to train our traditional project managers (and leads) to turn them into ScrumMasters who can positively contribute to the project and the project team. A few points for traditional project managers to start with:

1. Bring the team into the planning room. Yes, the team can contribute to iteration plan, task estimation, deliverables and task assignments.

2. Be patient with the team. They need your time and support for agile success.

3. Team learns something new everyday, let them take decisions and change them as necessary, this is what makes them agile.

4. Be open to accepting bad news. Embrace truth, it will motivate team to provide “real” status to project’s stakeholders.

5. Good news, now you don’t have any backlog to follow-up the team for. Let go of that scope statement, it is product owner’s task to prioritize features they need in the product.

6. When you don’t have work, identify and remove obstacles for the team (with teams inputs and discussion on solution).

7. Last but not the least, constantly inspect and adapt to the environment to support the teams.

Note: The above points will help project managers even on non-agile projects.

Test Java Blogging by Email

All I did was to configure my blogger account for emails. Now, I can blog by sending email to my email ID created by them. This is awesome!

 

Comparison of Open Source Load Testing Tools

	Open Source Load Testing Tools
#	Feature	Description	JMeter	WebLOAD Open Source	TestMaker
	Authoring environment
1	Recording	Create test script by recording of the web application	Y	Y	Y
2	Language/Technology	Develop test script using standard code	Java	JavaScript	Java, Jython
3	Extensions	Use any COM/Java object in your test script	Y	Y	N
	Execution environment
4	Sophisticated load scenario	Execute your load test use different load options for load generations	Y	Y	Y
5	Monitor performance measurements	Use different performance measurements for monitoring.	Y	Y	Y
	Scalability
6	Distributed Load	Support for many load generator servers	Y	N	N
	Performance Test Execution
7	Notification	Send mail when session completes	N	N	N
	Supported Platforms, Protocols & Technologies
8	HTTP/S		Y	Y	N
9	SOAP / Web Services		Y	Y	Y
10	AJAX		Y	Y	N

Performance vs. Scalability

People keep getting confused while using terms “Performance” and “Scalability”. Here’s the difference:

Performance measures the speed with which a single request can be executed. Example: My website’s home page loads completely in 2 seconds, this is performance.

Scalability measures the ability of a request to maintain its performance under increasing load. Example: My website’s home page should load completely in 2 seconds even with more users requesting for it. Means same performance with more users using the resource.

Management lessons from the movie "Armageddon" (1998)

 

I watched Armageddon and liked it a lot for various reasons. To start with, it is a Sci-Fi Thriller with my perceived management lessons.

 

The story follows a group of oil drillers sent by NASA to stop an asteroid that will strike the world in eighteen days. The drillers are taught and trained to become astronauts (in a very comedic scene) and then sent to the asteroid to drop the nukes and blow it up. After that, a whole lot goes wrong.

 

Trust and team work: Bruce Willis is an oil driller named Harry Stamper. NASA knows that he is the only man to save the world. When approached by NASA, he tells them that "you may have heard good things about me, but I am nothing without my team" (or something like that). He has his group of drillers and geologists who he leads and he gives them their share of name and fame. This relationship of trust and team work is what every manager needs to get the best out of his team. Involving them in planning and decision taking increases the chances of success of the undertaken project.

 

You gotta have some kind of backup plan: NASA sends out the team in two different space ships loaded with tools and resources. There was a spcific mention about having a contingency plan for taking care of the unknown (risk). This is something that every manager needs to learn and practice.

 

Hiring plan: Best works with the best. One of the craziest team member tells about his brain power and says "I won the Westinghouse prize when I was 12, big deal. Published at 19, so what. I got a double doctorate from MIT at 22, Chemistry and Geology. I taught at Princeton for two and a half years.". Personally, I feel that the manager is supposed to groom his team well, so that he can take higher responsibilities.

 

Never lose your sense of humor - "You know we're sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon and a thing that has 270,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder.". Humor promotes the confidence and probability of success.

 

MS Project - Saving a Project Baseline

One of the PM at my organization asked me about the project baseline in MPP. It seems most of the project managers who use MPP use it as an excel workbook, one copy per project to maintain all the task and their status. If something changes, the plan changes and we save it as a copy of original (something like versioning). What is funnier is that people try to “diff” using CVS tools to find the changes in schedules.

One thing is sure, people use very limited features of MS MPP. I’ll try to educate them by “how to” on MPP. Here is one on saving a project baseline:

What is project baseline: Baseline is the term used for original (or approved updates) of the project plan. Baseline values are used to track progress against the plan.

How to save baseline in MS MPP:

1. On the project guide toolbar, click the “Track” button.

2. On the Track pane, click the save a baseline plan to compare with later versions link.

3. Click the save baseline button. MPP will save the baseline.

How to use the saved baseline in MS MPP:

On the view menu, click Table: Summary, and choose Variance to see the comparison with baseline. There is limit to number of baselines in one project file, however you may not require to compare more than 2-3 baselines at given point of time.