Agile Vancouver Notes

Notes from Agile Vancouver: Much Ado About Agile III (2008)

User Stories (née Use Cases) Template

As a ROLE
I want FEATURE
So that BENEFIT

Abuse Stories

As a hacker
I want to steal credit card numbers
So that I can make fraudulent purchases

Acceptance Test Templates

Test: business rule
Given: initial condition
When: event
Then: outcome

See What’s in a Story?

David Hussman

I was impressed by David Hussman, unfortunately his website is barren. There are some links to presentations if you hunt for them.

Firefox 3 Settings

Plugins

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• iMacros
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• Live HTTP headers
• PDF Download
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• Torbutton
• Tree Style Tab
• User Agent Switcher
• Web Developer
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  • Gmail: folders for gmail

Themes

• Qute

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How to Drive Your Competition Crazy

This was a great little marketing book for entrepreneurs. It detailed how to choose and position your product for maximal effect.

The major points of the book (70%) of the content were:

1. Know your market
   "If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles."
   "If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril."
2. Do what is best for your customers
   "The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy."
3. Choose your battles (and enemies) to ensure you are always winning
   "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win."
   "He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot, will be victorious."

There were marginal points (15%) about:

• Motivating employees and customers to become evangelists (These were really side-effect of #2 and #3)
  "Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death."
• Starting small (with focus)
  "Opportunities multiply as they are seized."
  "Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance."

There was some other minor points, but the above points account for ~85% of the book.

They seem obvious, but most companies don't follow point #2 and get bogged down in something. I see it mostly when customers are treated as post-sale liability, instead of as a relationship asset. Others get stuck in creeping feature-ism, spending time and effort making sure that they have some check-boxes filled in for their product, even though it doesn't matter to the end user.

I found point #3 to be interesting. By being an upstart, you can define your success on your own terms, and you can use your victories as motivation to improve.