Well, so much for "going dark". I couldn't help myself :-)

Tonight one of my staff (Sharon) and I went to the inaugural combined Syxpac & Scrum Gathering where the Sydney agile community could get together. Andrew Hallam has already posted about it - talk about quick!

The gathering was in an open space format, which I've not personally experienced before. I've gotta say it's a really effective way to knock together an impromptu agenda and get people involved and as a result I've just added another item to my toolbox of meeting formats :-)

As a group we had 4 sessions over 2 hours covering a variety of topics (I think the final list was about 10). The Syxpac site should have a number of photos and discussions on it shortly for reference.

I sat in on the following discussions:

Value Stream Mapping

A good introduction by Jason Yip to the concepts for those who aren't so familiar with the topic. The use of a worked example from the group helped drive a few things home. Some of the things could be applicable to my current situation, but I think this'll be a file-it-in-the-back-of-my-head topic.

What's Different When Dealing With Agile Software Vendors

Lots of talk here about government in particular dealing with vendors delivering either bespoke software (ie custom developed) or customised solutions.
So what's different?
In a nutshell - Relationships.

Agile companies are more likely to engage, be open and communicate better than typical SI's

I really enjoyed this one - not because I learned anything, but because I could speak from experience and hopefully help others.

Scrum vs XP

Not so much a "which one is better" topic, but more a "what's the difference?" especially when XP has many of the same practices and Scrum. This was a good discussion, and there were a few key points that came out of it:
  1. Scrum doesn't deal with engineering practices. XP Does.
  2. XP is a little harder to manage backlogs with
  3. Scrum is more about meeting sprint commitments and keeping things shippable. XP is more about completing individual features.
  4. Scrum is probably less difficult for organisations to adopt (but still not easy)
  5. The emphasis is different in each methodology. Scrum emphasises business interactions and self management, while XP emphasises development practices.
Is one better than the other? I don't think so - and when you consider that the agile practices all borrow from each other, there's not a lot of difference. Consider your situation and use the one most suitable.

When is it OK to Cut Corners on Quality?

Answer - never. :-)
This was really a discussion on dealing with unmaintainable production code and the pragmatics of business considerations over code purity. I though this would be a quick one but it turned into a great discussion about business priorities, renegade salesmen, how to fund new development when a company is losing money, whether it's ever OK to start from scratch and so forth. A wide ranging conversation and lots of fun.


Thanks to Ben for running the night and for the Syxpac group for the invite. I can't wait for another one to happen.

Update: More information is now available (including pictures) on the Syxpac site.