#vacanti

Actionable Agile Metrics Volume II, Advanced Topics in Predictability (AA Advanced Topics) introduces and reinforces several ideas for using metrics in software-centric programs. If you are working in the software world, the ideas and concepts are still useful in any scenario where the flow of work is important. The bottom line is that I highly recommend this book.  Continue reading Re-read…

This week we finish our re-read of Actionable Agile Metrics Volume II, Advanced Topics in Predictability with two chapters. Chapter 13 is titled Scaling Monte Carlo. In a perfect world, one team could do all of the work needed for a product or feature a manageable piece at a time. Unfortunately, this is the real world. In Chapter 14, titled A Parting Thought, Vacanti states, “We take action…

In this installment of our re-read of Actionable Agile Metrics Volume II, Advanced Topics in Predictability we again tackle two chapters. Chapter 11, “Different Sampling Methods”, points out that random sampling techniques are just the tip of the iceberg in approaches. Chapter 12, ”What Percentile Do I Choose?”, discusses whether you always need to quote the 85th percentile range. The short…

Mastering Work Intake: From Chaos to Predictable Delivery Chapter 8 shatters myths!  Once upon a time in a land far, far away, I believed a few of these myths. Ok, it was just about five years ago that I was dissuaded from the last of my misbeliefs. I believe that many of my misconceptions are founded in the collision of words between classical statistics and words Shewhart used for Process…

Chapter Six, of  Actionable Agile Metrics Volume II, Advanced Topics in Predictability, is titled Detecting Signals on PBCs. Finding a signal in the noise is like separating the wheat from the chaff. Adding to the pile of quotes, one of the most enduring is “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” A more appropriate version in the…

We continue with Chapter Four of Actionable Agile Metrics Volume II, Advanced Topics in Predictability, titled Process Behaviour Charts, this week. Today we construct an XmR chart.   We begin with the X Chart which provides a visual representation of the data over time.  I constructed this chart below in MS Excel using the X-Y Scatterplot option. The dashed line is the arithmetic average.…

Chapter Four of Actionable Agile Metrics Volume II, Advanced Topics in Predictability, titled Process Behaviour Charts is a trojan horse. This chapter is substantially more than a rehash of Process Behaviour Charts. The chapter corrected a misconception I have had for at least twenty years which we will get to in Part 2 of our re-read of chapter 4 (we are taking two weeks on this chapter to set…