Agile Development - A Product Owner's Story

Unless you've been asleep all weekend you will have seen the news about the latest cyber-attack - possibly one of the biggest and high profile attacks yet. Well here's the bad news (if that wasn't bad enough)... We need to get used to them as they're going to happen more frequently.   With so much data being stored in the cloud and practically everyone using the Internet, cyber-crime is only going to get more prevalent. So how do you protect yourself and your business? There are some high tech solutions out there, some of them using lots of expensive kit and software.  By all means ensure you get up to speed on what potential risks you face and what's out there to protect you, but don't forget the basic premise of keeping safe online. Check your passwords and ensure they're as water tight as you can make them. The easiest way for you to become a victim of cyber-crime is for your password to be captured and used to access your systems and data.  There...

"What's an Epic?" I hear you ask. It's certainly something I asked when I first began using the excellent Yodiz Agile Management tool where all of a sudden "Assign to an Epic" was an option in a drop down list in the Add User Story in the Backlog screen. Epics certainly didn't make any appearance when I did my certified Scrum product owner course, and I lasted almost eighteen months as a product owner on Scrum based Agile software development projects before the word even came into my consciousness.  Some of them were even successful projects! Like everyone who doesn't know what something is these days, I Googled it.  Strangely the usually trusty search engine didn't return an overwhelming volume of results and clicking on a few of the top links seemed to suggest an Epic was a User Story gleaned from a client's idea.  That didn't sound right to me.   Don't most user stories emanate from a client's idea at some point (unless...

For over seven years I've been working as a Product Owner in software development companies that use offshore development teams.   For the last three years we've adopted Agile methodologies, in particular Scrum. As you can imagine, using a highly collaborative approach such as Scrum has its challenges when your development teams don't share a country never mind an office, have different time zones, languages, customs and so on.  When I first started looking into Scrum I found the internet strangely sparse of advice and experiences of using Scrum in the offshore scenario so I decided to jot down a few learning points. 1. Use the Right Collaboration Tools Collaboration is key.  Geographically dispersed teams working in different timezones will need to get together virtually on a regular basis, and also have the ability to start ad hoc meetings or conversations. We have found that Yodiz (www.yodiz.com) to be a good tool for managing the various Scrum artefacts inc...

Yesterday I was asked to sit on a panel of 'experts' (a grouping of which I'm loathe to include myself) at the Mobile Messaging & Value Added Services conference in London.  The topic of discussion was around the issues of mobile data network capacity and the potential friction between apps developers and content providers and the networks.   It was a really interesting discussion, and the research I had to do led to some interesting revelations which I want to share with you.  So here are my thoughts on what might happen to the mobile data networks as usage increases, who will see the benefit in terms of revenues and who will really drive the issues. Exposing the Myth of Network Saturation Firstly it is, currently, a myth that the network is struggling because of the rich, high volumes of data being streamed over them.  In fact it's the signalling for handling data calls that is currently causing most concerns for operators.  Over 80% of traffic on t...

You’d be forgiven for thinking that in this day and age of iPhone, iPads, Blackberrys and Galaxys, if you’re business doesn’t have a Smartphone app it’s somehow behind the curve.  And you’d probably be correct as Smartphone apps become a necessary tool in your marketing armoury as web sites became several years ago. Before plunging in and getting an app for your business though, it’s worth considering the pros and cons, pitfalls and challenges for producing “an app for that”.    It’s also worthwhile speaking to experts  who can help ensure your foray into the world of iOS and Android is a successful one.   First of all you need to think about what your app will do and what value it will add to your customers.  With over 100,000 apps available for download on the Apple iTunes App Store alone, you need to be sure your app will stand out from the crowd and that your customers and prospective customers will actually bother to download it.  Seco...

As often mentioned in my previous posts, SMS provides an excellent, low cost communications method where one or both parties are on the move or away from the office.  It can be used in a number of business scenarios and one area I was recently asked to look at for BT was field force automation. Many businesses, large or small, have employees who need to work, at least some of the time,, out in the field.  Social workers, nurses, GPs, builders, plumbers, insurance claims inspectors, security guards, electricians and so on all spend large amounts of their working day away from headquarters.  Communicating with these key workers when they're away from the desk or workshop can be crucial to the effective running of the business.  Also, increasingly, keeping in touch is crucial for their safety, especially those who make site or home visits alone. So why is SMS so perfect for communicating with these people.  Simple.  It's cheap, easy to set up and reliable....