Christmas came early this year!

December 23, 2008 by Leave a Comment

I had my hip surgery done on December 9.  It turned out not to be possible to do a Birmingham Hip Resurfacing, so a total hip replacement was done instead.  Today, two weeks after the surgery I was able to get into a vehicle and drive myself somewhere.  Freedom!  I love my house and my family, but when you are forced to stay inside for so long it drives you crazy.  So Christmas came a couple of days early when I was able to drive a whole 5 miles roundtrip to do a couple of errands.

For those of you that care, I am able to go up stairs better than I could before surgery.  The left leg feels much more stable going up steps now.  I am able to get around without any soft of assistive device (walker, crutches, cane), but I am generally using a cane so I don’t overdo things too much.

I still have 4 weeks of recovery during which muscle strength and conditioning is the main focus.  After 6 total weeks the hip capsule will be healed and I can do anything I want to do.  At that point I think physical therapy will be concentrating on helping me regain flexibility.  I’m sure they will also be helping me learn to walk correctly again.  I’ve been walking with a limp for so many years it will take quite a bit of effort to get rid of it!

If any of you know people that are contemplating having a hip replacement feel free to have them contact me.  I have nothing but good things to say so far.  Being able to be independent again after two weeks is WAY beyond what I thought was possible.

Till next time I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Filed Under: Miscellaneous

Agile hip surgery?

December 7, 2008 by 1 Comment

I’m always looking for uses of agile in areas outside of software development.  This one is from my personal life.  I have struggled for the past 8+ years with chronic osteoarthritis of my left hip.  For a while it could be controlled with medication and the occasional corticosteroid inject (yes, I was ineligible for the Olympics!).  However, last your the condition degraded noticeably, and this year it became intolerable.  When the orthopedic surgeon first saw the x-rays he asked me how I was even able to walk!  Obviously it was time to finally discuss having a total hip replacement.

After doing a lot of research I found something called a Birmingham Hip Resurfacing as an alternative to a total hip replacement.  It is the same procedure Floyd Landis had done to his hip after winning the Tour de France a couple of years ago.  In my case it is the left hip.  As I sit and write this on Saturday, December 6, I can only count the days and hours until Tuesday, December 9, when I’ll have the procedure done!  I can’t wait to have a hip that will be pain free.  I know there is a lot of rehab involved, but at the end of the tunnel there is a pain free hip.  It will be so worth it.

But, that’s not very agile, right?  What is agile is the way the procedure is done.  Agile is about doing something, seeing if it was the right thing, and adjusting.  In my case, the surgeon intends to do a Birmingham Hip Resurfacing, but the head of my femur may be too diseased for that to be effective.  If that is the case, he will adjust (he’ll be agile!) and change to doing a total hip replacement.  I thought it was very interesting that there is an automatic backup plan based on what they find out.  Of course during the surgery they have to be even more agile to deal with potential issues like blood loss, size of the femoral head, size of the acetabulum, etc.  For those of you that want more details, Google it ;-)

Anyway, it is now just a few days before I’ll have a couple of chunks of metal in my left hip.  I’ll obviously be taking significant time off after that occurs, but feel free to keep in touch.  I think my computer will be helping me keep my sanity while I recover!

Filed Under: Agile, Miscellaneous

Agile Architecture and Agile Testing – New Courses on the horizon

November 25, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Exciting news!  Some associates of mine are currently completing work on some new courses Agile For All will be able to offer.  The two courses are Agile Architecture and Agile Testing.  In fact, it is really three courses because Agile Testing has a version that is all about using FIT (Framework for Integrated Testing) and the other is how to do acceptance testing using VSTS (Visual Studio Team System) with FIT.

To me all of these courses are vitally important.  One constant question in the Agile community is “How do we create an architecture that doesn’t break when we change things?”  Another is “How do we do coding and testing in the same iteration?”  These courses are designed to answer those specific questions.  I am very excited by these courses because I know the backgrounds and abilities of the course creators.  I respect their abilities and after many conversations with them I am certain they will hit the mark with the courses.

I already have outlines for the courses, we just haven’t had time to post them on our website yet.  Be looking for more information on each of these (and more!) soon.  Agile For All is devoted to making sure each role within an organization has agile training available.  With these two new courses we can address specific needs of architects, designers and testers.  While there are some courses available in the agile testing arena (mostly for unit-testing rather than acceptance-testing), I have not yet found any that will have the same in-depth approach taken by our new course.  I have only found one agile architecture course and it is a single day course which will simply not be enough time to give students the ability to understand and TRY various techniques.

If you are interested in any of these courses, or anything else that we may not have listed yet, please email info@agileforall.com and I’ll be sure to send you more information.  For me this is Christmas coming a month early because I’ve felt for 2+ years that these courses are needed in the industry!

Filed Under: Agile, Testing, Tools

Agile for Business Analysts

November 16, 2008 by Leave a Comment

This past week I was fortunate enough to be a speaker at the Agile Development Practices show in Orlando, Florida.  I had a great time while I was there.  I was even asked to be part of a 3-member panel sponsored by Borland to speak about agile transitions.  I was honored by the invitation to the panel, and had a great time interacting with the others that were there.

But my primary reason for being in Orlando was to give a talk titled “Agile for Business Analyts.” [Read more...]

Filed Under: Agile, Business Analysis

Testing to find defects is waste

November 8, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Have you ever heard someone say that testing to find defects is waste?  I’ve heard it and I’ve said it when teaching courses. But people aren’t hearing the whole message! [Read more...]

Filed Under: Agile, Practices, Testing

Agile teams and Microsoft Outlook – churn, baby, churn!

October 31, 2008 by 1 Comment

Many agile organizations use Microsoft Outlook as their email client of choice.  I have to admit that I do as well (full disclosure – I actually use Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate Edition which contains pretty much all the MS Office programs).  So what’s the problem? [Read more...]

Filed Under: Agile, Principles

Agile Project Leadership Network in Denver

October 25, 2008 by Leave a Comment

I’m getting ready to leave for Boston and the SD Best Practices conference so this blog entry is short and not really about agile in general.  On Tuesday, October 21 a meeting was held to see if it made sense to start an APLN chapter in the Denver area.  The answer was a resounding YES!  I’m pretty excited about this.  For a while I have felt teams starting to fail with agile due to leadership issues, not technical process issues.  I’m hoping that an APLN chapter in the area will provide a learning/sharing environment that will help all organizations that use agile.  It would be great if the APLN chapter could help those organizations reach the next level in their agile maturity.

We’re currently targeting a next meeting on November 18.  We don’t know where, and we don’t even know if that will be the right date, but it is what we are shooting for right now.  The meeting will be an open discussion on the topic of convincing executives and managers that agile is the right thing to do.  It should be an interesting discussion.  I know I’m looking forward to it!

Filed Under: Miscellaneous

Agile and various bodies of knowledge (PMBOK and BABOK)

October 17, 2008 by Leave a Comment

In case you aren’t aware, there are at least two international organizations which have created impressive bodies of knowledge.  The International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA – www.iiba.org) and the Project Management Institute (PMI – www.pmi.org) have created the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK) and Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) respectively.  Both of these works are impressive in their scope and level of detail, but I believe they both have a fundamental flaw. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Agile, Bob-isms, Business Analysis, Miscellaneous, Project Management

Why Unit Test-Driven Development is Important

October 11, 2008 by Leave a Comment

People have written a ridiculous amount about the advantages of test-driven development.  I won’t even bother linking to articles about it, just Google it and you’ll see about a million hits.  What almost none of those articles talk about is how unit-test driven development can help in an agile environment where acceptance testing is difficult. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Agile, Testing

Are Agile Lifecycle Management tools worth it?

October 3, 2008 by Leave a Comment

There are many well known agile pundits, practitioners and trainers that very specifically believe teams do not need to use any sort of tool to help with the agile process.  I no longer fall into that camp for a variety of reasons. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Tools
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