Information Technology Cloud

What Website or Websites Do You Want to Monitor?

2012-03-03T00:13:00.000+08:00

While you can find all sorts of sites online, these are the five most common types of
websites today:

• Media sites (CNN, Wall Street Journal, etc.)
• Transactional sites (Amazon.com, Zappos, etc.)
• SaaS (Software as a Service) (salesforce.com, etc.)
• Collaboration sites (Facebook, etc.)
• Affiliate sites (shopping.com, Groupon, etc.)

Each site has its own unique needs and challenges. Each site also has a different way of producing revenue. Revenue is typically generated directly online in three ways:
• Advertising (the selling of advertising space, as Google does with AdWords)
• Product sales
• Signing up users to a service

Media sites and collaboration sites typically generate revenue through ad impressions. When advertising is sold by impressions instead of clicks, it is to that company’s benefit to drive as many people to their site as possible. In these cases, you can find the value of a user based on the average number of impressions you can generate. For example, every ad may be worth 5 cents an impression. If you can generate 10 impressions, then you have earned 50 cents. If that is your average value earned, then each customer is worth 50 cents.

Monetary transactions and subscriptions are typically the driving force on transaction sites and SaaS sites. That is, they generate revenue by selling or getting subscribers to opt into a product or service.

When dealing with product purchases, you will have an average order value (AOV). The average value is calculated by adding up the number of orders and the total amount of revenue, then dividing total revenue by the total number of orders.

The last way of generating revenue is through affiliates. Technically, Groupon is not a true affiliate, but it does act on behalf of other companies, selling products and receiving a commission for each sale. In a traditional sense, affiliate sites make money by marketing and creating leads or selling products through a storefront for another company. Affiliates, such as product sales sites, can track average lead value. This is typically the average amount of money each lead to the parent site is worth. This value may be based on actual transactions occurring on the parent site, or it may be good enough simply to generate the lead. Amazon offers an affiliate program rewarding leads based on purchases that happen on its site.

To add more complexity to tracking affiliate sites, if you are the parent company, you may want to get reports and data back from the affiliates. You may want to know how many impressions your products get on these sites, or how many people click on a product on an affiliate site but do not come to your site. You also will want to track which affiliate sites refer more traffic, and which refer the best-converting traffic. You should have an idea of what type of website you are responsible for. You should
also consider any competitor websites you would like to monitor. Deciding which websites you want to track may impact what is measurable. An affiliate site should
provide much more data than a competitor site, but regardless, know who you want to track, and build those lists up.

If your business is based on referrals from other sites, such as affiliate sites or affiliate marketing, reach out to your affiliates and request weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual reporting. If you have the option to install your own tracking methods, ask for your affiliates to set those up too if it will help provide a better picture of what is happening. With affiliates, there are also several pitfalls to watch out for. It is usually in their best interest to report higher volumes, as that is usually what determines if they get paid. Establish some key affiliates to work out pilot programs with, and build from there. It is also key to note that tracking beacons may create privacy issues for some websites.

The impact of privacy on metrics is another important issue you need to be aware of.
Today there is talk of “do not track” legislation, and of companies implementing do-not-track technology and opt-outs (http://donottrack.us/). Google has made its own announcement on this, which impacts personalized advertising but not all analytics directly as of yet (http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2011/01/keep-your-opt-outs
.html). Tracking people through your site needs to be done in a way that respects their privacy, providing you with insights through anonymous data, and there are legal implications that are beyond the scope of this book. Most off-the-shelf software does
not cross the privacy lines, but with constantly changing legal stances and concerns, it is a hotly discussed topic.

When dealing with tracking competitor sites, be prepared to get sampled data and estimates. Unless you have a very generous competitor, most numbers you will be able to get will be based on sampling and panels. This means that data on your competitors may be more or less accurate, but you will never get exact numbers, and the degree of variance is unknown. ComScore and Nielsen are examples of sources for this type of data.

Source of Information : MASTERING SEARCH ANALYTICS MEASURING SEO, SEM AND SITE SEARCH

An Explanation of Macro, Micro, Value, and Action Metrics

2012-02-27T00:08:00.000+08:00

One of the first things you need to do for any analytics program is define your key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs should be objectives and results, sometimes referred to as OKRs (http://blog.anthonyrthompson.com/2010/01/objectives-and-key-results/). The simple idea is to define what and where positive results happen on your site. Objectives help keep your eye on the ball and results help tell you if you got a touchdown. Measuring KPIs can typically be classified into four silos: macro, micro, value, and action metrics. These are defined as follows:

Macro metrics
Macro metrics look at a large subset of information. In the realm of SEO metrics, examples might include the total number of inbound links to a page, average keyword position for a group of keywords, or total number of visitors from search. These analytics are often useful when meeting with upper management, when responding to marketing requests, and for understanding general ROI values.

Micro metrics
These metrics examine the smaller parts of a macro metric. For example, if you were looking at the total number of links to a page, the micro metric would look at what domains are linking to that page. Often, these analytics are great for understanding where certain SEO or SEM elements need to be tweaked. Macro metrics often drive the micro metrics that are examined.

Action metrics
Action metrics capture a user’s input or response (for example, clicking deeper into your website or interacting with 3D demos). Testing out different ad copies to see which one results in the most clicks is an example of an action metric, measuring when the user takes action. Action metrics are an excellent way to measure the usability and experience of your site.

Value metrics
Value metrics are tied directly to revenue or other goals that are considered the core driving forces of your website. These metrics might include clicking on web banners that create revenue for you, purchasing from an ecommerce engine, or subscribing to your newsletter. Value metrics may be a subgroup of action metrics. Value metrics are also the touchdowns. These are your goals and conversions.

Source of Information : MASTERING SEARCH ANALYTICS MEASURING SEO, SEM AND SITE SEARCH

What Are Others Trying to Measure?

2012-02-24T00:06:00.000+08:00

A recent SEMPO and Econsultancy report (http://econsultancy.com/us/reports/sempo-state-of-search) revealed that both SEO and SEM are in conflict with what the engines tell us to do—namely, “provide good content.” Instead, what most are trying to do is “drive traffic,” without regard for the quality of that traffic. The report shows that over 40% of companies cite driving traffic as the main objective for their SEO programs. This a pretty vague goal, and we can assume websites are already getting traffic from search engines, even if they are not optimized. It’s not only volume that counts, though: it’s important that conversion rates remain the same and that the additional traffic is as engaged as the current traffic. Why not set some deeper action than simply driving traffic as your goal for SEO? That is, assuming your site does not generate revenue only through display ads—and if it does, why not set your goal to be driving more repeat traffic? Keep them coming back for more!

The rest of the goals for SEO traffic in the report read as follows: generating leads, selling products, increasing brand awareness, and, lastly, improving customer satisfaction and customer service. Only 2% of companies cited improved customer satisfaction as their main goal. At least they are defining more actionable goals, but what about the lifetime value of the customer? Where is the foresight for long-term value?

Even as a secondary objective, improved customer service still ranks as the lowest goal for SEO, cited by only 5% of companies. Agencies also fell into a similar pattern, although their primary objective was to generate leads, followed by driving traffic.

If the search engines tell us that we must create great content and provide good customer experiences to rank well organically, but our primary goals are instead driving traffic or creating leads, how do we bridge this gap? Is an improved customer experience mutually exclusive of driving traffic or generating leads? I would suggest not, but where should the priorities be placed?

Speaking from my own experience, metrics that bring together both voice-of-thecustomer data (for example, where customers are given a questionnaire and provide written feedback) and clickstream data that tracks conversion and site usage show that improved customer satisfaction measured through the customer surveys has typically led to improved site usage, improved conversions, and, more importantly, longer repeat customer relations. Avinash Kaushik echoed this point in a post on his web analytics blog (see the entry http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2007/04/the-three-greatest-surve-questions-ever.html) where he cited the advice he had given to a Fortune 100 company looking to improve its website and increase sales.

In contrast to the results for SEO and SEM, the SEMPO and Econsultancy report showed that paid search’s primary goals are generating leads and selling products, with 75% of companies citing these as their main goals. Driving traffic was the third highest ranking goal, with 19% of companies striving for this. Improved customer service was the objective of only 2% of these campaigns.

It is interesting to see that when dealing with paid search, the goal is tied to something more tangible than simply driving traffic. Perhaps because you have to pay for these ads, companies feel they must show a more palpable result. Again I have to ask, why not also look at creating a great customer experience and working at making that dollar last longer by trying to increase repeat business and focusing on retaining your customers?

Source of Information : MASTERING SEARCH ANALYTICS MEASURING SEO, SEM AND SITE SEARCH

iPad - USE A TEXT EDITOR

2012-02-20T23:55:00.000+08:00

Whereas Mac OS X includes frameworks that make it easy to develop applications that produce fully styled text, it’s more of a programming challenge on an iPad, even for something as simple as italics. Plus, the iPad’s physical design and its use of a multi-touch display in place of a mouse make it more cumbersome for a user to manipulate styles and other page elements than on a conventional computer. For these and other reasons, text editors are more common on the iPad than full word processors.

One obvious option is Notes, which is included as part of iOS and works just like the version on the iPhone and iPod touch. Notes can sync with your computer and your other Apple devices. And in iOS 4, it can finally sync wirelessly, which it does by storing notes on any IMAP server, including MobileMe. Plus, Apple has finally provided alternatives to the awful Marker Felt font; in Settings > Notes you can opt for Chalkboard (equally bad) or Helvetica (much better) instead.

Although these improvements make Notes a perfectly decent notetaking app, you still can’t change the size or style of the font that Notes uses. The legal-pad background is cute, but it doesn’t improve readability.

And syncing via IMAP works reasonably well, but you can’t edit notes directly on your IMAP server; you must use the Notes app. For these reasons and more, you may want to use a more flexible app for creating, editing, and syncing plain-text notes. Here are a few suggestions:

• Edito: A text editor designed especially for Markdown, Edito lets you preview your rendered text within the app, and includes shortcuts for entering common tags. (Cognoscens, $4.99)

• Elements: As text editors go, Elements has just about everything, including Markdown preview, word count, and support for Dropbox and TextExpander touch. (Second Gear, $4.99)

• iA Writer: One of the highest-rated text editors, iA Writer offers Dropbox sync and special virtual keyboard controls for navigation and punctuation. It also has a “focus mode” in which all the text on the screen except the current paragraph is dimmed. (Information Architects, $4.99)

• My Writing Spot for iPad: This specialized text editor offers features geared toward book authors, such as word count, dictionary, and thesaurus—and it syncs your documents with the developer’s Web app. (PT Software Solutions, $4.99)

• MarkdownNote: This Markdown editor, unlike Edito and Elements, has a two-pane display with your Markdown code in one and a live preview of the rendered text in the other. It also includes TextExpander touch support. (CodingRobots, $3.99)

• PlainText: This attractive, minimalist text editor offers word count and syncs its files with Dropbox, so you can easily access them on any platform. (Hog Bay Software, free)

• Simplenote: This brilliantly simple universal app stores your notes in the cloud (with local copies, so you can work offline). You can access your notes in a Web browser or in any of several desktop applications (I like Notational Velocity, http://notational.net/, free). And, the font is a nice, clear Helvetica—on a plain white background. Although I have several of these text editor apps on my iPad, Simplenote is the one I use most often. (Codality, free)

• Split Pea: If you need to take notes while surfing the Web, this is the app for you. It puts a browser in one pane and a Markdowncompatible plain-text editor in the other. (Martin Gordon, $3.99)

• Trunk Notes: Like many other text editors, Trunk Notes supports Markdown and syncs to Dropbox. What’s unusual is that it’s also a wiki editor—that is, your documents can include live links to each other, as well as to Web sites and documents in other supported apps. Trunk Notes also offers Wi-Fi sync, audio recording, camera support, and numerous other features. (Apps On The Move, $3.99)

• Writings: Writings is an elegant plain-text editor with a number of spiffy little touches, such as adjustable page width. It syncs to your Dropbox and includes TextExpander touch support. (ice cream studios, $4.99)

Text Editors for Programmers
People who write software or create Web sites for a living also need the services of a text editor—but not just any text editor. A programmer’s text editor should offer features such as a monospaced font, line numbering, syntax coloring for a variety of programming languages, and preferably direct support for opening and saving files on FTP or WebDAV servers. Examples of iPad apps with some or all of these features include:

• Editor for iPad: This editor includes syntax highlighting for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Perl, and Ruby, and has shortcuts for entering common tags and text patterns. (YBOOM International, $3.99)

• Objective-C Editor: As its name suggests, this is an editor for Objective-C code; it integrates with Dropbox for easy file transfer. (Tsuyoshi Hyuga, $$6.99)

• Textastic: Featuring auto-indentation, Web preview for HTML files, TextExpander touch support, and syntax styling for many languages (including HTML, Objective-C, PHP, and Python), this text editor is useful for making quick code tweaks on the go. (Alexander Blach, $9.99)

Source of Information : TidBITS-Take Control of Working with Your iPad 2011

iPad - CHOOSE A TEXT-PROCESSING APPROACH

2012-02-18T23:41:00.000+08:00

You can write a letter, article, or book using lots of different tools— pen and paper, a typewriter, a text editor, a word processor, or a page layout application. Nothing prevents you from opening, say, InDesign on a Mac to type up your grocery list. But that’s like using a blowtorch when a candle would suffice. For me—and I’m speaking as someone who spends pretty much all his work time typing—I find it much more efficient to match the tool to the task. When I’m writing something that requires little or no formatting, I use a text editor (such as BBEdit on a Mac), and I save my files in plain text (.txt) format so I know they’re 100 percent compatible with every device or app I might ever want to use to view them. I turn to a full-blown word processor (such as Word, Pages, or Nisus Writer Pro on a Mac) only when I specifically need capabilities that a text editor lacks.

The same logic applies to iPad apps. I have Pages and several other word processors on my iPad, but when I don’t need all their extra capabilities, I use something simpler that’s quicker to open, less fiddly to use, and easier to get documents into and out of. This approach works well for me, and I recommend it to you, too.

You may be thinking that “plain text” sounds dull and useless, but that’s not necessarily the case. After all, most of the world’s great books consist of nothing but words, with nary an italic character! Indeed, even on a Mac or PC, it’s extremely common for novelists, poets, and other creative writers to choose simple, distraction-free programs to help them focus on the words and nothing else. Personally, I prefer to use plain text whenever possible, even (maybe especially) for email, letters, and other personal correspondence.

Plain text is also great for writing articles, blog posts, and the like using John Gruber’s Markdown syntax for text-based formatting (http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/), which is supported by many blogging and publishing tools. For example, Macworld asks its authors to use Markdown, which includes simple tags that can be converted later to italics, clickable URLs, bulleted lists, and so on. That way, writers get the simplicity of using plain text, while readers get the benefits of styles and structural elements that make the text more robust.

To summarize: if you can write in plain text, it’s a good idea to do so— especially on an iPad, where styled-text options are more limited and controls for manipulating styles and layout are sometimes cumbersome to use. For suggestions on choosing an app to write in plain text, see Use a Text Editor (next) and if you’re looking for an app to write programming code in, skip ahead to Text Editors for Programmers.

Of course, plain text doesn’t always cut it. If you want to create an impressive résumé, an academic paper with references and diagrams, a brochure, or a poster, the capability to tweak your document’s appearance is obligatory. Although Markdown has tags that can be converted to tables, numbered lists, and various kinds of headings, sometimes (as when writing Take Control books!) an author needs much more extensive formatting control. And, since Microsoft Word (.doc) format has been, for many years, the de facto standard for exchanging word-processing documents, you may have to open and edit Word files on your iPad whether or not they truly “need” the capabilities of a full word processor.

Source of Information : TidBITS-Take Control of Working with Your iPad 2011

iPad ALTERNATIVE BROWSERS

2012-02-15T03:05:00.000+08:00

When it comes to browsing on the iPad, Safari isn’t the only game in town. Most (if not all) of the browsers in the iTunes Store are based on the same WebKit engine as Safari, which means they should render Web pages exactly the same way. However, features outside the Web page itself, such as tabs, bookmarks, download management, searching, and so on can be much different—and developers have created some interesting variations that may serve your needs better. Dozens of alternative browsers exist (go to the iTunes Store and search for “browser”), and of course not all are created equal. Of those I’ve tried, four in particular stand out as serious competitors to Safari. All four of these offer proper desktop-style tabbed browsing, including the crucial capability to open links in background tabs. Beyond that, however, their features vary tremendously.

Atomic Web Browser
The universal app Atomic Web Browser (Rich Tech, $0.99,), lets you save pages for offline viewing and features a private browsing mode, in which browsing history, cookies, and other data isn’t saved; an optional full-screen view; editable ad filters; form auto-fill; VGA output; multi-touch and shake gestures; and numerous other options.

iCab Mobile
Alexander Clauss’s iCab has been around on the Mac for eons, and now it’s available as a $1.99 universal iCab Mobile app (Figure 13). iCab Mobile is a mature, full-featured browser with a feature list that’s remarkably similar to that of Atomic Web Browser, but with an even richer set of customization options and a more polished, Safari-like look and feel. iCab can download Web pages and even PDFs for offline viewing. Like Atomic Web Browser, it offers a private browsing mode, a full-screen view, configurable filters, and form auto-fill. It also connects to your Dropbox for uploading and downloading files and bookmarks, and it supports VGA output with the option of showing the entire screen or just the page contents on an external display. In fact, it’s hard to think of a feature it doesn’t offer—and as a result, I find myself using iCab more often than any other third-party browser.

Perfect Web Browser
Unlike the other browsers in this list, which favor a monochrome interface, Perfect Web Browser has nice, colorful icons on its toolbar and tab bar. It offers full-screen browsing, a private mode, and the option to render pages as a desktop browser would (for times when you want to avoid the mobile version of a Web site). It also lets you save pages for offline viewing and supports VGA output. It doesn’t have quite the feature set that iCab Mobile does, but it’s a solid, highly rated browser. (Ingenious Creations, $2.99)

Terra
If you don’t want or need lots of bells and whistles but are simply looking for something that’s very much like Safari but with tabbed browsing, archiving, and full-screen support, you might like Terra (Readdle, free). It has a simple, uncluttered interface and a remarkably sparse Settings view, but it still manages to offer a private browsing mode, passcode protection, and the capability to masquerade as another browser.

Multi-pane Browsers
A large number of browser apps try to solve the problem of the iPad having no windows by putting two independent browser panes on the screen at once, letting you view two different Web sites side-by-side, or above and below, as the case may be. A random sampling of such apps:
• Browser Duo (McLean Mobile Solutions, $1.99)

• Multitasking Browser (innovPixels, $2.99)

• Split Pea (Martin Gordon, $3.99)

• Split Screen (Fifth Column Code, $0.99)

I should also mention a related and growing app category: those that combine a Web browser with something else, so that you can do two or more related activities at once. For example:

• IM+ Pro: This all-purpose instant messaging client (see Use Instant Messaging) also has a built-in browser, so you can chat and surf at the same time. (SHAPE Services, $9.99)

• Multitasking for iPad: This app puts a Web browser, Twitter client, and Facebook client on the screen at the same time. (Makayama.com, $0.99)

Source of Information : TidBITS-Take Control of Working with Your iPad 2011

1Password

2012-02-09T02:53:00.000+08:00

The one iPad app I couldn’t possibly live without is 1Password, by Agile Web Solutions. 1Password stores my user names and passwords for hundreds of Web sites, generates new random passwords when I need them, remembers the serial numbers for my software and the numbers of my credit cards, and saves me an untold amount of time and effort while keeping my critical information safe. It also, of course, syncs wirelessly with 1Password on my Mac and iPhone. (I’ve written much more about 1Password, and other password utilities, in Take Control of Passwords in Mac OS X.) If you already own 1Password Pro ($14.99), note that it’s a universal app that works great on the iPad as well as on the iPhone and iPod touch. If you have only an iPad and want to save a few bucks, you can instead get 1Password for iPad ($9.99).

Source of Information : TidBITS-Take Control of Working with Your iPad 2011

UNDERSTAND THE iPAD’S IM CHALLENGES

2012-02-06T02:50:00.000+08:00

So you want to carry on a chat with someone who uses AIM, iChat, Jabber, or any of several other instant messaging systems. No problem: go to the iTunes Store, download a suitable app, and you’re on your way. But first, you should be aware of a peculiarity of instant messaging on the iPad.

Even though iOS 4 supports multitasking, the multitasking capabilities are limited to a small set of specific situations—and instant messaging isn’t one of them. If you switch from an instant messaging app to another app, the IM app doesn’t keep running as usual in the background, waiting for the next message to arrive. Ordinarily it pauses, suspending its operation in such a way that when you switch back, it can instantly pick up where you were before.

This means that if you’re running an IM app, that’s normally the only thing you’re doing—you can’t have a chat going in a corner of your screen while you work on something else. (Well, you can, but only within limits—keep reading for details.) And, if that’s how you like to do things, fantastic, but for many people accustomed to having lots of applications open at once on a computer, it may feel quite limiting.

One partial solution is push notifications. If you use an IM app that supports this feature (most do) and you turn it on, then you can remain logged in even when the app isn’t running, and a pop-up alert appears whenever you have a new message. You still have to switch to your IM app to read or reply to the message, but at least you’re not completely out of the loop.

Another approach is to build other features (Web browsing, Twitter, Facebook, or whatever) into an IM app—or the other way around. Several such multitasking apps exist (as I discuss just ahead), and if you use one of them, you can do several things at once, but only within the limits of what the app offers. Still another way to have your cake and eat it too is to use a Web browser that lets you display multiple pages on the iPad’s screen at the same time (see Multi-pane Browsers, ahead), and use a Web-based IM client in one of them.

Source of Information : TidBITS-Take Control of Working with Your iPad 2011

iPad - COMBINE NOTE-TAKING ACTIVITIES

2012-02-04T02:43:00.000+08:00

A common way to take notes in a meeting or lecture is to record all the audio for reference, but also make your own textual annotations and comments. Unsurprisingly, lots of iPad apps let you do this, whether you prefer to scribble notes with your fingertip or a stylus, or type them on a virtual or physical keyboard. A few samples:

• All Notes: This iPad app lets you combine writing, drawing, typed notes, and audio recordings with shapes, lists, outlines, and diagrams. (telience.com, $4.99)

• Circus Ponies Notebook: Much like its Mac OS X counterpart, the iPad version of Notebook is an ideal all-purpose note-taking and snippet-keeping tool. You can type, write, or draw; create outlines; record audio (synced with your typed notes); annotate PDFs; and sync notebooks with the Mac version. (Circus Ponies Software, $29.99)

• Evernote: Discussed further in the context of saving information from the Web (see Supplement Safari, ahead), this universal app lets you type (but not write) notes and record audio; sync your data to the cloud; and view or listen to it on a Mac, PC, or nearly any smartphone. (Evernote, free)

• Notes Plus: Write, type, or record audio in this nicely designed app. Like Penultimate, it can filter out input from a hand resting on the iPad—and even scroll the display as your hand moves. (Viet Tran, $5.99)

• PaperDesk: Take notes by writing, drawing, typing, and/or recording audio, and organize pages into notebooks. (WebSpinner, $1.99)

• smartNote: This simple, nicely designed iPad app lets you record audio as well as write, draw, or type on screen. And it’s smart enough to ignore your wrist if it’s resting on your iPad as you write. (Christopher Thibault and Brendan Lee, $2.99)

• SoundNote: SoundNote (previously called SoundPaper) lets you type notes while recording, and unlike the other apps in this list, keeps track of the points during the recording when you typed each particular item so that you can quickly refer to the relevant audio later. (David Estes, $4.99)

• Sundry Notes: In the same vein as smartNote, this virtual notepad lets you write, draw, type, and record audio. You can also insert symbols, graphs, and special characters, annotate PDFs, and more. (inZania, free)

• WhiteNote: Write, draw, record sounds, and add graphics with this all-purpose note-taking app. You can also import and annotate PDF documents and share your notebooks in real time with other iPad users nearby via Bluetooth—or show them on an external VGA display. (Sliced-Pi, $3.99)

Source of Information : TidBITS-Take Control of Working with Your iPad 2011

TAKE HANDWRITTEN NOTES with iPad

2012-02-01T02:38:00.000+08:00

Many years ago, I had a meeting at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino. The Apple employee I’d come to talk to walked into a conference room with an armload of tech. He put his PowerBook on the table, followed by his Newton MessagePad. After a few minutes this guy realized that he needed to take notes on what I was saying, and guess which device he used—neither! He pulled out a paper notepad and started writing.

Regardless of how good a real or virtual keyboard may be, sometimes there’s no substitute for the immediacy and flexibility of pen and paper. So it should come as no surprise that quite a few iPad apps try to emulate the experience of writing in a physical notebook. And if you’re trying to remain inconspicuous in a meeting, “writing” on an iPad (perhaps concealed in a notebook) is less likely to attract attention than typing.

All these apps let you use your fingertip as the pen. However, you may find it difficult to write accurately with your finger, especially at smaller sizes, and your fingertip may block your view of what you’re writing. So you might pick up an iPad-compatible stylus, such as Ten One Design’s Pogo Sketch (http://tenonedesign.com/products.php?application=iPad, $14.99) or any of several models made by DAGi (http://www.dagi.com.tw/front/bin/rcglist.phtml?Rcg=2), which are notable in that many have transparent tips that make it easier to see what you’re doing. However, be aware that with any stylus, if you rest your hand on the iPad as you write, you can make stray marks or prevent the app from seeing your input. That means you may have to adopt an unnatural and uncomfortable writing position.

Examples of apps that let you write notes by hand include:

• Jot: Jot lets you write or sketch on a mini whiteboard, optionally adding typed notes, labels, and comments. You can also share your jots by email or show them on an external VGA display. (Tabula Rasa, $7.99)

• Penultimate: This app tries to look exactly like a plain notebook (with plain, lined, or graph paper). You can write or draw with the pen, erase, and delete—and show your work on an external VGA display. Interestingly, the app also attempts to filter out any stray marks made by resting your wrist on the iPad while you write, which is both uncommon and helpful. (Cocoa Box Design, $3.99)

• Write Now XL for iPad: Write or draw in a variety of colors and line widths, with any of several page backgrounds—and even change the offset so that your fingertip doesn’t cover what you’re writing. (JetWare, $2.99)

• WritePad for iPad: Unlike the others here, WritePad performs handwriting recognition—what you write is immediately turned into editable text. You can type in WritePad if you prefer, but you can’t draw—the lines themselves aren’t saved, only the text. In my brief testing both with and without a stylus, accuracy left something to be desired, although it’s supposed to improve with training. (Stan Miasnikov, $9.99)

Although these apps focus on handwritten input, scads of other apps support handwriting along with typing and/or audio recording.

Source of Information : TidBITS-Take Control of Working with Your iPad 2011

iPad To Don’t

2012-01-26T02:34:00.000+08:00

One of the inexplicable omissions in the original iPhone OS—and still the case in iOS 4 on the iPad—is a lack of tasks. Sure, you can view and sync your calendars, but any to-do items on those calendars will be missing, and none of the iPad’s built-in apps displays or syncs to-do items from your Mac or PC.

I don’t know why this is, or whether Apple will ever provide an official remedy, but in the meantime, oodles of third-party developers will be happy to sell you (or even give you) apps that manage to-do lists ranging from simple to elaborate. For example:

• 2Do: A beautifully designed app, 2Do has tons of features and high ratings—but note that if you want to sync over the air with MobileMe, you must make an extra in-app purchase of $2.99. (Guided Ways Technologies, $6.99)

• BusyToDo: Although this app currently runs only at iPhone size on an iPad, it’s the only one of these that syncs directly and wirelessly to your iCal (or BusyCal) to do list via MobileMe. (BusyCal, $4.99)

• GoTasks: This easy-to-use app syncs to-do items between your iPad and Google Tasks. (Evgeniy Shurakov, free)

• OmniFocus for iPad: Many regard this app (along with its Mac counterpart) as the ultimate Getting Things Done-style task manager—expensive, but worth it. (The Omni Group, $39.99)

• Sorted: If you want a simple, elegant, and inexpensive task manager without lots of bells and whistles, this iPad app from Si may do the trick. (Si, $0.99)

• Task PRO: Among other features, this universal app lets you divide a task into subtasks, and view or edit tasks on your computer using a Web browser. (AlifSoft, $1.99)

• TaskTask HD: This app syncs tasks with an Exchange server. (RyanGregg.com, $4.99)

• Things for iPad: This somewhat pricey but well-designed task manager syncs with the software’s Mac and iPhone/iPod touch versions. (Cultured Code, $19.99)

Source of Information : TidBITS-Take Control of Working with Your iPad 2011

USE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS with iPad

2012-01-23T02:30:00.000+08:00

If you’re used to using a Mac keyboard, most of the same keyboard shortcuts you’re already familiar with work the same way on your iPad with any physical keyboard (iPad Keyboard Dock or a Bluetooth keyboard). Here are some of the most useful ones:

• Undo the last action: Command-Z.

• Redo an action after undoing it: Command-Shift-Z.

• Cut selected item, putting it on the Clipboard: Command-X.

• Copy selected item, putting it on the Clipboard without removing it: Command-C.

• Paste the contents of the Clipboard: Command-V.

• Select everything on the page or screen: Command-A.

• Move the insertion point: Press any arrow key.

• Move the insertion point by word: Hold down Option while pressing an arrow key.

• Move the insertion point to the beginning or end of the current line: Hold down Command while pressing the Left or Right arrow key.

• Move the insertion point to the top or bottom of the currently displayed text: Hold down Command while pressing the Up or Down arrow key.

• Select characters to the left or right of the insertion point: Hold down Shift and press the Left or Right arrow key.

• Select by word: Hold down Option and Shift and press the Left or Right arrow key to select the previous or next word.

• Select by line: Hold down Shift and press the Up or Down arrow key to select everything from the insertion point to the corresponding location in the line above or below.

Keep it going: When selecting text with the keyboard, the selection expands or contracts as you continue pressing the keys (or hold them down).

Source of Information : TidBITS-Take Control of Working with Your iPad 2011

Adopt the Right iPad Mindset - TAKE IT WITH YOU EVERYWHERE

2012-01-20T02:18:00.000+08:00

You may be wondering, as many other people are, whether having an iPad means you can leave your laptop at home—at least some of the time. That depends, of course, on a lot of variables. But instead of trying to answer that question abstractly, you can gather experimental evidence to figure it out for real.

Try this.

For the next two weeks, take your iPad with you everywhere you possibly can. It’ll fit in any backpack or briefcase and many purses. It’s so light that if you’re already planning to carry pretty much anything else, you’ll barely notice having your iPad along as well.

If you think you might need your laptop too, no problem. Do as I do: slip your iPad into a spare pocket in your laptop case! But also make a point of carrying it when you go out without your laptop. One way or another, have it with you wherever you go. (Naturally, make exceptions when going to the pool, riding a rollercoaster, or running a marathon—common sense applies as usual!)

The point of this experiment is to make your iPad available to yourself in as many situations as possible. You can’t use it if it’s not there, but if it is there and you try to get some work done, you may find that your creativity kicks in, and novel uses or techniques occur to you. You may think to yourself, “If only there were an app that did such-and-such,” and then find that there is indeed such an app.

And, if you have your laptop too, try using the iPad first. See for yourself what’s possible, what’s awkward, and what’s out of the question. With a couple weeks’ experience, you should have a good feel for when and to what extent the iPad can be the only device you need—perhaps with the addition of some software and an accessory or two.

Best of all, you may discover that you can now get “real” work done in places you never could before—on the subway, while waiting in line, or even (you know you’re thinking it) in the bathroom.

Do be careful not to get your iPad wet, though!

Source of Information : TidBITS-Take Control of Working with Your iPad 2011

Adopt the Right iPad Mindset - EXPECT CHANGE

2012-01-17T02:15:00.000+08:00

I’ve already mentioned this a few times, but I want to be sure it sinks in: the iPad landscape is in a state of flux, and will be for some time. As I write the second edition of this book, the iPad has been shipping for over seven months, during which time the number of apps and accessories has burgeoned, iOS itself has had a significant makeover, and loads of other manufacturers have tried to copy Apple’s formula with their own tablet devices. Even so, this is just the beginning.

The iPad is still so new that the rules and expectations governing what it can and should do are in their earliest stages of evolution. Tens of thousands more apps will inevitably appear—and the ones that already exist will change dramatically. iOS will continue to evolve. And new iPad models (with, undoubtedly, additional hardware capabilities) will reshape the iPad landscape again and again.

Therefore, as I discuss or recommend certain apps—or complain about how certain things are hard to do—bear in mind that a better solution may appear at any time. The best way to do something today may not be best tomorrow. It pays to check the App Store regularly, to keep up with iPad news—on TidBITS (http://www.tidbits.com/)—and elsewhere, and in general to keep yourself apprised of the changing environment in which you now find yourself.

Whatever you do, don’t get into a rut. Be willing to change your mind about which apps you use and how you go about accomplishing various tasks. Expect that you’ll do things differently next week, and differently again next month. The iPad is a dynamic platform—and that means change is in the nature of the product.

Source of Information : TidBITS-Take Control of Working with Your iPad 2011

Adopt the Right iPad Mindset - ADOPT THE PIONEERING SPIRIT

2012-01-15T02:13:00.000+08:00

Apple would like the gadget-buying public to believe the iPad is a magical device that will forever change the way people interact with digital media, the Internet, and each other. It’s not merely a big iPod, a keyboard-less laptop, or a tablet computer that just happens to be running iOS instead of the Windows, Linux, or Android operating systems. It is, in fact, an entirely new category of device that will break old paradigms and spawn new ones.

And you know what? Apple may turn out to be right about all that. Years from now we may all look back on the introduction of the iPad as the moment the world changed. But if that happens, it won’t be because of a chunk of aluminum, glass, plastic, and silicon. It will be because of the clever apps developers came up with, the novel uses iPad owners discovered for their devices, and the ways in which those two factors influenced the development of hardware and software— including future generations of the iPad, competing products, and spin-offs from Apple and other manufacturers.

My point is this. Even though Apple has sold millions of iPads and developers have shipped tens of thousands of iPad apps, this platform is still in its infancy—and you, as an early iPad owner, are a pioneer, a trailblazer. You are among the people who will figure out what the iPad is best for, and who will create the demand for new and improved apps, accessories, and iPad models. What you do will help determine what the iPad is, and what it becomes.

As a pioneer, you should not expect that the solution to every problem will be neatly packaged and readily available. Everyone—Apple, app developers, other iPad users, and writers—is still figuring this stuff out, just like you. I’ll share with you what I’ve discovered so far, of course, but I don’t pretend to offer definitive solutions.

Instead, I encourage you to think of using the iPad, especially for work, as an adventure. It’s like going camping—you’re not entering entirely uncharted territory, but neither will you have all the conveniences of home or the familiarity of your normal surroundings.

Be prepared to improvise, and to embrace odd solutions. You’re on the cutting edge, and with all the excitement and advantages of that comes some uncertainty. Go with the flow. You may have to employ some unusual workarounds to do what you want to do right now, but in the future, almost everything about the iPad will get better. And in the meantime, you’ll still be more productive than your coworkers, and the envy of your iPad-less friends!

Source of Information : TidBITS-Take Control of Working with Your iPad 2011

Adopt the Right iPad Mindset - DON’T THINK OF IT AS A COMPUTER

2012-01-11T02:02:00.000+08:00

Let’s get this out of the way right up front: the iPad is no substitute for a conventional computer. It may be tempting to think of it as a computer—after all, it has the same kind of display, processor, and networking capabilities; uses an operating system derived from Mac OS X; and runs applications you normally see on a computer, such as Web browsers, email clients, and word processors. You can trick it out with a full-size keyboard and other accessories to make it look and act very much like a computer. And yes, of course, if you want to get picky about it, technically the iPad does meet the definition of “computer”!

But if you think of it as a computer, you’ll assume it should do everything your Mac or PC can do, in the same way, and that simply isn’t so. Sure, the iPad can do lots of things better than a computer (owing mainly to its multi-touch display), but that doesn’t mean it can replace your computer. Even if the iPad could entirely meet your work needs, you’d still need a computer for a few important tasks—setting up your iPad initially, installing firmware updates, backing up your data, and syncing large media files, for example. So, let’s be clear that the iPad won’t replace your computer—it most likely won’t become the main device with which you get most of your work done. Instead, it will be a supplemental device that you use for certain tasks, or in certain situations, instead of your computer.

Source of Information : TidBITS-Take Control of Working with Your iPad 2011

Big Data

2012-01-06T02:53:00.000+08:00

Just how much data qualifies as big data? This is a question that is bound to solicit different responses, depending on who you ask. The answers are also likely to vary depending on when the question is asked. Currently, any data set over a few terabytes is classified as big data. This is typically the size where the data set is large enough to start spanning multiple storage units. It’s also the size at which traditional RDBMS techniques start showing the fi rst signs of stress. Even a couple of years back, a terabyte of personal data may have seemed quite large. However, now local hard drives and backup drives are commonly available at this size. In the next couple of years, it wouldn’t be surprising if your default hard drive were over a few terabytes in capacity. We are living in an age of rampant data growth. Our digital camera outputs, blogs, daily social networking updates, tweets, electronic documents, scanned content, music files, and videos are growing at a rapid pace. We are consuming a lot of data and producing it too.

It’s difficult to assess the true size of digitized data or the size of the Internet but a few studies, estimates, and data points reveal that it’s immensely large and in the range of a zettabyte and more. In an ongoing study titled, “The Digital Universe Decade – Are you ready?” (http://emc.com/collateral/demos/microsites/idc-digital-universe/iview.htm), IDC, on behalf of EMC, presents a view into the current state of digital data and its growth. The report claims that the total size of digital data created and replicated will grow to 35 zettabytes by 2020. The report also claims that the amount of data produced and available now is outgrowing the amount of available storage.

A few other data points worth considering are as follows:

» A 2009 paper in ACM titled, “MapReduce: simplifi ed data processing on large clusters” — http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1327452.1327492&coll=GU
IDE&dl=&idx=J79&part=magazine&WantType=Magazines&title=Communications%
20of%20the%20ACM — revealed that Google processes 24 petabytes of data per day.

» A 2009 post from Facebook about its photo storage system, “Needle in a haystack: efficient storage of billions of photos” — http//facebook.com/note.php?note_id=76191543919 —mentioned the total size of photos in Facebook to be 1.5 pedabytes. The same post mentioned that around 60 billion images were stored on Facebook.

» The Internet archive FAQs at archive.org/about/faqs.php say that 2 petabytes of data are stored in the Internet archive. It also says that the data is growing at the rate of 20 terabytes per month.

» The movie Avatar took up 1 petabyte of storage space for the rendering of 3D CGI effects. (“Believe it or not: Avatar takes 1 petabyte of storage space, equivalent to a 32-year-long MP3” — http://thenextweb.com/2010/01/01/avatar-takes-1-petabyte-storagespace-equivalent-32-year-long-mp3/.)

As the size of data grows and sources of data creation become increasingly diverse, the following growing challenges will get further amplified:

» Efficiently storing and accessing large amounts of data is difficult. The additional demands of fault tolerance and backups makes things even more complicated.

» Manipulating large data sets involves running immensely parallel processes. Gracefully recovering from any failures during such a run and providing results in a reasonably short period of time is complex.

» Managing the continuously evolving schema and metadata for semi-structured and un-structured data, generated by diverse sources, is a convoluted problem.

Therefore, the ways and means of storing and retrieving large amounts of data need newer approaches beyond our current methods. NoSQL and related big-data solutions are a first step forward in that direction. Hand in hand with data growth is the growth of scale.

Source of Information : NoSQL

CHALLENGES OF RDBMS

2012-01-04T02:37:00.000+08:00

The challenges of RDBMS for massive Web-scale data processing aren’t specific to a product but pertain to the entire class of such databases. RDBMS assumes a well defined structure in data. It assumes that the data is dense and is largely uniform. RDBMS builds on a prerequisite that the properties of the data can be defined up front and that its interrelationships are well established and systematically referenced. It also assumes that indexes can be consistently defined on data sets and that such indexes can be uniformly leveraged for faster querying. Unfortunately, RDBMS starts to show signs of giving way as soon as these assumptions don’t hold true. RDBMS can certainly deal with some irregularities and lack of structure but in the context of massive sparse data sets with loosely defined structures, RDBMS appears a forced fi t. With massive data sets the typical storage mechanisms and access methods also get stretched. Denormalizing tables, dropping constraints, and relaxing transactional guarantee can help an RDBMS scale, but after these modifications an RDBMS starts resembling a NoSQL product.

Flexibility comes at a price. NoSQL alleviates the problems that RDBMS imposes and makes it easy to work with large sparse data, but in turn takes away the power of transactional integrity and flexible indexing and querying. Ironically, one of the features most missed in NoSQL is SQL, and product vendors in the space are making all sorts of attempts to bridge this gap.

Source of Information : NoSQL

Defining NoSQL

2012-01-02T02:33:00.000+08:00

NoSQL is literally a combination of two words: No and SQL. The implication is that NoSQL is a technology or product that counters SQL. The creators and early adopters of the buzzword NoSQL probably wanted to say No RDBMS or No relational but were infatuated by the nicer sounding NoSQL and stuck to it. In due course, some have proposed NonRel as an alternative to NoSQL. A few others have tried to salvage the original term by proposing that NoSQL is actually an acronym that expands to “Not Only SQL.” Whatever the literal meaning, NoSQL is used today as an umbrella term for all databases and data stores that don’t follow the popular and well established RDBMS principles and often relate to large data sets accessed and manipulated on a Web scale. This means NoSQL is not a single product or even a single technology. It represents a class of products and a collection of diverse, and sometimes related, concepts about data storage and manipulation.

Context and a Bit of History
Before I start with details on the NoSQL types and the concepts involved, it’s important to set the context in which NoSQL emerged. Non-relational databases are not new. In fact, the fi rst non-relational stores go back in time to when the first set of computing machines were invented. Non-relational databases thrived through the advent of mainframes and have existed in specialized and specific domains — for example, hierarchical directories for storing authentication and authorization credentials — through the years. However, the non-relational stores those have appeared in the world of NoSQL are a new incarnation, which were born in the world of massively scalable Internet applications. These non-relational NoSQL stores, for the most part, were conceived in the world of distributed and parallel computing.

Starting out with Inktomi, which could be thought of as the first true search engine, and culminating with Google, it is clear that the widely adopted relational database management system (RDBMS) has its own set of problems when applied to massive amounts of data. The problems relate to efficient processing, effective parallelization, scalability, and costs.

Google has, over the past few years, built out a massively scalable infrastructure for its search engine and other applications, including Google Maps, Google Earth, GMail, Google Finance, and Google Apps. Google’s approach was to solve the problem at every level of the application stack. The goal was to build a scalable infrastructure for parallel processing of large amounts of data. Google therefore created a full mechanism that included a distributed file system, a column-family-oriented data store, a distributed coordination system, and a MapReduce-based parallel algorithm execution environment. Graciously enough, Google published and presented a series of papers explaining some of the key pieces of its infrastructure. The most important of these publications are as follows:

» Sanjay Ghemawat, Howard Gobioff, and Shun-Tak Leung. “The Google File System”; pub. 19th ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles, Lake George, NY, October 2003. URL: http://labs.google.com/papers/gfs.html

» Jeffrey Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat. “MapReduce: Simplifi ed Data Processing on Large Clusters”; pub. OSDI’04: Sixth Symposium on Operating System Design and
Implementation, San Francisco, CA, December 2004. URL: http://labs.google.com/papers/mapreduce.html

» Fay Chang, Jeffrey Dean, Sanjay Ghemawat, Wilson C. Hsieh, Deborah A. Wallach, Mike Burrows, Tushar Chandra, Andrew Fikes, and Robert E. Gruber. “Bigtable: A Distributed Storage System for Structured Data”; pub. OSDI’06: Seventh Symposium on Operating System Design and Implementation, Seattle, WA, November 2006. URL: http://labs.google.com/papers/bigtable.html

» Mike Burrows. “The Chubby Lock Service for Loosely-Coupled Distributed Systems”; pub. OSDI’06: Seventh Symposium on Operating System Design and Implementation, Seattle, WA, November 2006. URL: http://labs.google.com/papers/chubby.html

The release of Google’s papers to the public spurred a lot of interest among open-source developers. The creators of the open-source search engine, Lucene, were the first to develop an open-source version that replicated some of the features of Google’s infrastructure. Subsequently, the core Lucene developers joined Yahoo, where with the help of a host of other contributors, they created a parallel universe that mimicked all the pieces of the Google distributed computing stack. This open-source alternative is Hadoop, its sub-projects, and its related projects. You can find more information, code, and documentation on Hadoop at http://adoop.apache.org.

Without getting into the exact timeline of Hadoop’s development, somewhere toward the first of its releases emerged the idea of NoSQL. The history of who coined the term NoSQL and when is irrelevant, but it’s important to note that the emergence of Hadoop laid the groundwork for the rapid growth of NoSQL. Also, it’s important to consider that Google’s success helped propel a healthy adoption of the new-age distributed computing concepts, the Hadoop project, and NoSQL.

A year after the Google papers had catalyzed interest in parallel scalable processing and nonrelational distributed data stores, Amazon decided to share some of its own success story. In 2007, Amazon presented its ideas of a distributed highly available and eventually consistent data store named Dynamo. You can read more about Amazon Dynamo in a research paper, the details of which are as follows: Giuseppe DeCandia, Deniz Hastorun, Madan Jampani, Gunavardhan Kakulapati, Avinash Lakshman, Alex Pilchin, Swami Sivasubramanian, Peter Vosshall, and Werner Vogels, “Dynamo: Amazon’s Highly Available Key/value Store,” in the Proceedings of the 21st ACM
Symposium on Operating Systems Principles, Stevenson, WA, October 2007. Werner Vogels, the Amazon CTO, explained the key ideas behind Amazon Dynamo in a blog post accessible online at www.allthingsdistributed.com/2007/10/amazons_dynamo.html.

With endorsement of NoSQL from two leading web giants — Google and Amazon — several new products emerged in this space. A lot of developers started toying with the idea of using these methods in their applications and many enterprises, from startups to large corporations, became amenable to learning more about the technology and possibly using these methods. In less than 5 years, NoSQL and related concepts for managing big data have become widespread and use cases have emerged from many well-known companies, including Facebook, Netfl ix, Yahoo, EBay, Hulu, IBM, and many more. Many of these companies have also contributed by open sourcing their extensions and newer products to the world.

Source of Information : NoSQL

Sprint Planning

2011-12-30T00:01:00.000+08:00

Before the start of each sprint, a planning meeting is held to determine which features will be included in the sprint. Features come from the product backlog, which is prioritized by the product owner. The first time that this meeting occurs on a project the product backlog is created. You can think of this as sprint 0. The user stories chosen by the product owner to be included in the sprint are given to the team and through a tool called Planning Poker, they are resized to show the complexity of a story related to the other stories in group (this will be further discussed in the following section). Once the user stories are sized, they are turned into a number of tasks by the team and a time estimate on how long each task will take is determined. Once all this is done, the team will look at the entire list of submitted work for the sprint and decide if they can commit to completing the work by the end of the sprint. To decide this, the team does a five-finger vote to gauge individual members’ opinions.
A team member simply raises his hand and through the number of fingers he is holding up, he displays what bests reflects his confidence level. A hand value of a “1” means that the team member is very doubtful of the proposal. A hand value of a “5” means the team member is extremely confident in the proposal. If no one holds up a value of a “1” or “2” then the team commits to that work for the sprint. If a value of “1” or “2” is shown, then the team discusses why that team member voted this way and adjusts the proposal accordingly.

Once the team commits to delivering the list of user stories and tasks within the sprint, the ScrumMaster enacts a change freeze to allow the team time to develop the user story as written before any changes can be made (to prevent scope creep). A sprint backlog is made up of all the user stories and tasks required to complete the sprint. All members of the team, including the ScrumMaster and the product owner, are involved in sprint planning meetings. Once the planning meeting is over, the team will get together without the product owner to discuss the high-level design of the system.

Planning Poker
Planning Poker is a game that encourages the team members to give their honest assessment of the complexity of a user story in relation to other stories. The tools required for the game are simple: you can use your hand or purchase a set Planning Poker cards to handle it.

To play this game, the product owner will read the user story and explain it to the team. The team is free to ask questions about the story. Once all the questions have been answered, the ScrumMaster will ask the team to privately determine a number that best represents the complexity of the story. Team members should not share their numbers with anyone in order to prevent inadvertently influencing other team members. Once the team members have each come up with a number, the ScrumMaster asks everyone to reveal their numbers. If all the team members decided the same number, that number is assigned to the user story and everyone moves on to the next one. If the numbers do not match, then the team members with the lowest number and the highest number are asked to explain why they selected the number that they did.

After the discussion, another round of poker is played with each member deciding on a number for the user story. This goes on until the team has unanimously settled on a number. On average, there will be no more than three rounds to agree on numbers. If at the end of three rounds there is still no consensus, however, we suggest that the ScrumMaster take the number in the middle and move on to the next user story.

Planning Poker accomplishes a conversation about a user story among the entire team. When this discussion occurs, “rabbit holes” and “gotchas” are usually avoided for the developer.

Daily Stand-Ups (Scrums)
During a sprint, the team, the ScrumMaster, and the product owner commit to meeting once daily in the same place and at the same time to discuss any issues that are preventing work from being done.
Meetings are held with everyone standing and time boxed to no longer than 15 minutes. Anyone interested is invited to attend these meetings; however, only the people classified as Pigs are allowed to speak at these meetings. At the meeting, each team member answers the following three questions:

• What have you done since yesterday?
• What are you planning to do today?
• Do you have any problems preventing you from accomplishing your goal? What progress has been made on existing impediments? Can the blockage be removed or must it be escalated? (The ScrumMaster looks after this area.)

To keep the meeting from becoming a long, drawn-out ordeal and to stay within the 15-minute time box, team members agree to meet after the meeting to further discuss any problems raised during the stand-up. The daily stand-up meetings are about team members committing to work and giving a platform to talk about issues early in the process.

Sprint Review
The sprint review is held at the end of the sprint. Its purpose is for the team to present the user stories it has completed during the sprint. The team, product owner, and ScrumMaster are present at the review, along with any interested parties—especially managers and customers. The review consists of an informal demo of the developed software as it stands at the end of the sprint. This product demo meeting is a chance for the customer to give feedback on the product to the team. This opportunity for the customer to see the product and provide feedback on it gives the customer the chance to see a return on investment that was not possible in the waterfall development process. The aim of the review is to show the actual working software; there should be no formal slide show presentation or masses of preparation for this review. This meeting aligns with the agile principle of satisfying the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

Sprint Retrospectives
Along with the sprint review, a sprint retrospective occurs at the end of a sprint. The sprint retrospective is an opportunity for the team to reflect on the sprint that was. This is the team’s chance to congratulate itself for the things that went well and discuss the things that went wrong. This is an open area where the team should feel free to discuss any issue that affects the team and their ability to deliver the product to the customer. During this meeting, the entire team is present, including the ScrumMaster and the product owner.

At the beginning of this meeting the ScrumMaster gives each person three stacks of Post-it notes in three colors. One color is designated to mean “things that went well during the sprint;” another color is designated to mean “things that were confusing during the sprint;” and the third color is designated to mean “things that were bad during the sprint.” The group is then given a time box (three to five minutes) to write down as many thoughts as they can about the sprint onto the Post-it notes. This is quiet time with everyone writing. Once the time is up, all the notes are gathered and put on a wall in the office room. The cards are then organized into similar categories. As time progresses on the product, you start to see some common categories that come up with every sprint.

The ScrumMaster reads the notes for each category and the team discusses them. If during the discussion an action item is presented, the ScrumMaster will write it down. Once the team has finished discussing the category, the ScrumMaster will move on to the next category. This is done until all the categories are discussed.

Toward the end of the meeting, the ScrumMaster reads all the action items that were presented and the team assigns members to be responsible for making sure the action items get addressed.

This is a good time for the team to try new ideas on how to fix problems. Do not be afraid to try something new with a sprint. If it does not work for the team, then throw it out and try something else. This meeting aligns with the agile principles of continuous improvement of practices and process, and owes much to Lean principles.

Source of Information : Pro Agile .NET Development with SCRUM

Scrum Artifacts

2011-12-28T23:56:00.000+08:00

Scrum contains three main artifacts: product backlog, sprint backlog, and the burn-down chart. These artifacts are the by-products of the Scrum activities and help give direction and transparency to the team. In addition to these main artifacts, there is also an important secondary artifact: acceptance criteria.

Product Backlog
The product backlog is a list of all work remaining on a project that the team needs to complete. This list represents the customer’s product needs and wants. At the heart of this list is the user story, a key component of Scrum. It defines the increment of value to the customer that the developer is trying to deliver.

The product backlog is managed by the product owner, who is responsible for adding and removing user stories to and from the list. The product backlog is constantly prioritized by both the product owner and the customer. This constant prioritization is the key to Scrum. It ensures that the user stories that provide the greatest value to the customer are listed at the top of the product backlog. As user stories are added, they are compared to the user stories already on the list to see where they fit in value to the customer. During a sprint, user stories can be added to the product backlog, however, they will not be presented to the team until after the current sprint is completed.

User Stories
As mentioned earlier, the product backlog is nothing more that a prioritized list of user stories. A user story is a card that describes an increment of value to the customer. The user story is written for the developer in order to express the increment of value. The key to a good user story is that it is a vertical slice through the product. A horizontal slice is a feature that just touches one level, such as the database level or the UI (user interface) level. A vertical slice, on the other hand touches all the levels of the product. This is the smallest amount of work that touches all levels of the product and still provides value to the customer. By writing the user stories in a way that allows for vertical slicing, you can create basic functionality in the first user story and then easily add functionality to this feature as the customer needs it.

A way to make sure that a user story accomplishes the goal of being a vertical slice through the system is to make sure that it fits the INVEST acronym. INVEST2 stands for:
• Independent: The user story should be self contained, so that there is no inherent dependency on another story.
• Negotiable: User stories, up until they are a part of a sprint, can always be changed and rewritten.
• Valuable: A user story must deliver value to the end user.
• Estimable: You must always be able to estimate the size of a user story.
• Sized appropriately: User stories should not be so big as to become impossible to plan/task/prioritize with a degree of certainty.
• Testable: The user story or its related description must provide the necessary information to make test development possible.

Backlog Sizing
Sizing the product backlog is a measure of the pace at which the Scrum team can deliver items. People are not good at estimating work. We all know how terrible we are at accurately estimating how long something will take us to complete. How many times have we heard or said ourselves, “I am 80 percent complete on this. The remaining 20 percent will be done in an hour.” Yet two days later, it’s still not done. People are just naturally bad at estimating.

We may not be good on our estimates, but we are great at comparing things. For example, we are able to look at two cooking recipes and tell which one is more complex without being a professional chef. We can look at two items and see that one is larger than the other. Sizing the backlog is all about making decisions based on the complexity and amount of work, not on how long it will take to do the work. Sizing is not equal to estimating.

You may ask: how do I know how long something will take? Consider, as an example, a manager who wants to know how long it will take your team to produce a widget. You can derive the time estimate of completing the widget from the complexity of the widget. After your team has gone through a sprint, you can then look at that sprint and calculate how long it took the team to complete it. The team is only concerned with how complex a task is.

To perhaps better explain the idea of estimating the amount of work over the time to complete it, let’s compare it to painting your house. Let’s say you went to your local hardware store and bought several gallons of paint to paint your house. Then you call three contractors to give you an estimate on painting the house. The first contractor comes out and walks around the house, looks at all the buckets of paint you bought, and explains that he has old rusty ladders and handheld brushes and a scrawny kid to help him, so it will take him two days to do the job.

The second contractor comes out and walks around the house, looks at the buckets of paint, and explains that he just recently purchased new ladders and brushes, and the local high school varsity football team is working for him that weekend. With all those hands and the new equipment it will only take him a day to paint your house.

The third contractor comes out, walks around the house, looks at the paint, and explains that he owns some brand new mechanical paint sprayers and top-of-the-line machinery and he can have the house painted by lunch time.

What you see in this story are three contractors with three different time estimates on how long it will take to paint the house, but there is one thing that did not change throughout all of this and that is the size of the house and the amount of paint. No matter who was doing the job, the house size never changed, even though the time estimates did. The moral of the story is to do your best not to estimate the duration of the work, but instead estimate the amount of effort it will take to complete the work. Once you have the estimation of the amount of work, you can derive the duration to complete the work.

Sprint Backlog
The sprint backlog is a list of all work remaining in a sprint that needs to be done by the team. Think of the sprint backlog as a subset of the product backlog. Whereas the product backlog lists all the user stories remaining for the product, the sprint backlog contains all the user stories and tasks remaining for the sprint. Typically when a user story is chosen for a sprint, the team will split that user story into tasks. A task is a small chunk of the user story that can be done by any member on the team. Examples would be a task to implement the database changes needed for the user story, or a task to implement the UI for the user story. These tasks are displayed on a task board—also known as a Kanban3 board—that is visible to the entire organization. Other items can appear on this board as well, including information on set-up meetings to gather requirements, review checks, research, testing, design, and stages of coding.
Team members take a card from the board and during the sprint commit to doing the task the card describes. As team members work through tasks, other tasks may emerge and original estimates are adjusted. All members of the team are responsible for updating the Kanban board based on new information gained on the feature being worked on.

The sprint backlog supplies the information needed by the burn-down chart. At the end of each sprint, the sprint backlog is emptied. Any remaining items on the backlog are pushed back to the product backlog, where they are reprioritized against user stories currently in the product backlog, in addition to any new user stories that were added during the sprint.

Burn-down chart
A burn-down chart is a visual way to track how the sprint is progressing. The chart graphically shows the amount of remaining work on any given day of the sprint. It is usually displayed in a public area where anyone can see it. This aids the communication among team members and anyone else in the organization. This chart can also act as an early indicator that there is a problem in the sprint and the team may not be able to fulfill the commitment.

Acceptance Criteria
Although product backlog, sprint backlog, and the burn-down chart are the primary parts of Scrum, acceptance criteria is a very important secondary artifact in the Scrum process. Without good acceptance criteria a project is doomed to fail.

Acceptance criteria is essentially a clarification of the story. It gives the developer a set of steps that must be completed before the story can be considered done. The acceptance criteria are created by the product owner with the help of the customer. It sets the expectation of the user story. With this in place, a developer has a great starting point in which to write automated tests or even use test-driven development (TDD). In this way, the developer is creating something that the customer needs and wants with the understanding of how the customer will use it.

Another benefit of acceptance criteria appears when a feature cannot be completed in a sprint and needs to be spread out across sprints. Then the team can use the acceptance criteria as a tool to see where the user story could be broken into smaller pieces that still provide value to the customer, but can be completed in a sprint.
Source of Information : Pro Agile .NET Development with SCRUM

Scrum Roles

2011-12-24T23:59:00.000+08:00

Scrum makes a strong distinction between the people committed to the project and those that are just interested in it. The most famous way of explaining this concept is via the fable of the pig and the chicken.
A pig and a chicken are walking down a road. The chicken looks at the pig and says, “Hey, why don’t we open a restaurant?” The pig looks back at the chicken and says, “Good idea, what do you want to call it?” The chicken thinks about it and says, “Why don’t we call it ‘Ham and Eggs’?”

“I don’t think so,” says the pig, “I’d be committed, but you’d only be involved.”

The “Pigs” are the people who are committed to the project. They are the ones that handle the creating, testing, and deploying of the project. The “Chickens,” on the other hand, are less committed. They are the stakeholders and/or interested parties who benefit from the project, but are not responsible for delivering it. Input from people classified as Chickens on the project should be taken into consideration; however it should not prevent the team from delivering the project.

Scrum promotes the support of the Pigs, but values and takes into account the views of the Chickens.

Pig Roles
The following are the three Pig roles that make up a Scrum team:
• ScrumMaster
• Product owner
• Delivery team

ScrumMaster
If the team is the engine of a Scrum project, then you can think of the ScrumMaster as the oil that keeps the engine running. The ScrumMaster is responsible for ensuring that the Scrum process is understood and followed. A ScrumMaster facilitates the team meetings and removes any blockages that the team may have in the course of the doing their work. He ensures that there are no obstacles keeping the team from achieving their goals and also isolates the team from outside distractions, all of which ensures focus is kept on the job at hand.

The ScrumMaster also liaises with different parts of the team, from product owners to testers and business stakeholders, ensuring that all members of the team are productive and share the common goal of delivering the sprint. Don’t liken the ScrumMaster position to that of a traditional project manager because the role is much more than that.

The key characteristic of a ScrumMaster is to be a “servant leader.” A ScrumMaster is not the boss of the team, but is there to help the team achieve what it needs to accomplish in the sprint. The ScrumMaster is there to help the team align the work in order to deliver value to the customer. A ScrumMaster is the team coach. He facilitates the decision-making aspects within a team. He is the point person for the team to those outside the group, and thus needs to be a top-notch communicator. When issues arise among a team, it is up to the ScrumMaster to manage that conflict and get the team back on track.

There are times, however, when the ScrumMaster stops being the servant leader and starts becoming a dictator. Since a key responsibility of the ScrumMaster is to ensure that the practices of Scrum are being followed as a team, any issue or attack against the framework should be handled by the ScrumMaster. Hopefully this is something that rarely happens.

Product Owner
A product (or project) owner represents the customer and is responsible for maximizing the value of the work that the team produces. The product owner meets with the customers to determine their wants and needs, and prioritizes those items so that the team is always working on the items of highest customer value. A product owner manages the product backlog and is the only person who can prioritize the user stories for a sprint; all features are developed for her and she is responsible for the sign-off of sprint deliverables. The product owner’s responsibilities change from being classified as a “Pig” before and after a sprint to being a “Chicken” during a sprint. The product owner role is also vital in that this person is the customer’s representative to the team. A product owner is similar to a ScrumMaster, but the main difference is the nature of the roles: the ScrumMaster is looking after the team’s best interest during a sprint while the product owner is looking after the customer’s best interest during the sprint.

In a Scrum team, the product owner is the one role that cannot be miscast. A product owner who is unable to accurately portray the customer’s wants and needs will result in failure. The product owner is key to delivering a product that brings value to the customer and success to the team.

Delivery Team
The delivery team is the group of people responsible for actually delivering the product. The team usually consists of two to ten people and includes a combination of programmers, testers, front-end designers, and members from any other required disciplines. The team works on each sprint to move the user story and related tasks through the different stages on the Kanban board until completion. The key characteristic of a Scrum delivery team is that it is a self-organizing unit. There is no one leader; everyone decides as a group what they can commit to each sprint. Team members also decide what tools they need to be successful for the project. This level of autonomy was unheard of in a waterfall method.

Delivery teams are designed to optimize flexibility and productivity. They are cross functional in that each member of the team should know all aspects of the product to varying degrees. Each individual on the team is not an expert at everything in the application, but each is a generalist in everything and an expert on a few aspects of the product.

The delivery team, along with the ScrumMaster and product owner, work together to complete the user stories and successfully accomplish each sprint. The ScrumMaster is geared to look after the team’s interests and the product owner is geared to look after the customer’s interests. With those two roles in place, the team does can concentrate on creating the application that the customer wants.

Chicken Roles
The people classified in the Chicken roles vary, ranging from business managers and directors to stakeholders such as customers, vendors, and sponsors. The Chickens are not actively involved in the development of the project; rather they are an interested party. Ultimately, the project is developed for these people, so their views are important and must be taken into account, but not at the expense of the development. This is why the ScrumMaster liaises between other people and the team and makes sure that these interested other people provide the resources that the team needs to get the job done, but don’t act as a distraction. Chicken roles are only involved in the process during sprint reviews, when feedback from stakeholders and other interested parties is of high value.

Because Chicken roles typically enjoy higher salaries in an organization they are not usually called chickens! Instead, they are told the pig and chicken story and then invited (and actively encouraged) to attend the Scrum meetings from time to time. Generally they do so and are very happy to observe and hear firsthand about what is going on.

Source of Information : Pro Agile .NET Development with SCRUM

Plan-Driven vs. Value-Driven Methods

2011-12-24T23:45:00.000+08:00

When looking at the differences between the Waterfall method and the Agile method you need to look at the core behind each method. One method is driven by the plan that was created at the beginning of the project and the other method is driven by the value that you give the customer.

Waterfall Method (Plan Driven)
The waterfall method can be thought of as a plan-driven method of software development. In the past, this method of development was used by many—not because it was the best way to develop software, but because it was the only method known.

A project that used the waterfall method involved a large amount of risk, mainly because everything was done at the beginning of the project. All the requirements gathering, and discovery and scope definition was completed before the first line of code was ever written. Customers had to know up front everything that they needed or wanted the system to do. At times customers did not know exactly what they wanted, but yet, they had to define every last detail of their needs; and once they defined the details, they could not change them—even if they later realized that their needs had changed.

This approach destined the project for failure before it even began. The entire process led to problems that were hidden until toward the end of a project, simply because the customer had not considered every little detail, and there was no way make changes as the need arose. Sometimes it was too expensive to make a change. Scope creep was rampant in these kinds of projects; developers didn’t understand the problem that the customer was trying to solve—and the customer didn’t either.

Plan-driven development could be like a hoop jumping process: you started at discovery and once you jumped through that hoop, it was on to the requirements-gathering hoop, and from there you went on to the design hoop. You could not jump through one hoop until you had jumped through the previous hoop, and once you were through a hoop it was near impossible to go back to a previous hoop if the need arose. There was no allowance to do a little bit of everything and then pause to make sure you were still on the right path. The waterfall process did not foster an environment where developers could go to a customer and say, “I would like to show you what I am working on to make sure it is what you want.”

Usually the big issues would surface toward the end of a project, which was rather late in the process. This led to many development teams being behind on their projects. When teams got behind on a project, they would just throw more bodies at the project, with the hope that the more people on the project, the faster it would get done. That rarely happened. Most of the time the project would remain behind schedule, so the team had to cut the scope, cut testing, or both.

Scrum Method (Value Driven)
Scrum is considered a value-driven method for software development. Scrum is a dramatic change over the waterfall method for a number of reasons. Instead of first gathering all the requirements needed for every feature of the project, completing all the designs based on these requirements, and then coding the application based upon these up-front designs, Scrum looks at doing iterative, incremental development.

Scrum is all about taking small passes at a problem and reassessing that problem after each pass. Scrum is all about small:
• Small time blocks called sprints
• Small features
• Small teams

Small time blocks are how the team works on a solution for the customer. Each sprint can be looked at as a mini waterfall project. This is because in every sprint you are doing everything you would normally do in a waterfall project, except you are doing it on a smaller scale. In each sprint, you take a feature and you gather requirements on that feature, you design that feature based on those requirements, and you code and test that feature based on those designs. In Scrum, unlike waterfall, you are not trying to do everything up front; you are doing everything you need to do when you need to do it. The goal of each sprint is to deliver an increment of the final product—but an increment that is potentially releasable.

So how can we do numerous waterfall projects in each sprint, when we could barely do one waterfall project before? By doing these sprints against small features. Small features are pieces of a project that try to solve a particular problem for the customer; they don’t attempt to create the whole application. The massive features of the project are broken down into smaller chunks that can still provide value to the customer and are able to be completed more quickly. As more and more of these features are completed, the customer will start seeing the entire application coming into view.

All of this is done with a small team of developers, testers, and designers that are dedicated to getting the project done. This team is cross functional in that every member knows how to do everything. Each member may not be the best at everything, but everyone knows how to do everything necessary to complete the project. Think of them as a SEAL1 team, where every member knows how to do everything needed, but there are also experts on every aspect of the operation.

By doing things on a small scale, problems are less likely to arise near the end of the project. In fact, Scrum works to expose problems as soon as possible. Issues can’t hide because the process is broken down to a manageable scale. When a problem does surface, it causes major discomfort for the team until they address and fix it. They can’t ignore the problem because it is visible to everyone.

There is one important thing to realize about Scrum, however: it works to expose problems to the team as soon as possible, but it is not designed to fix the problems. It exposes the mud, but it is still the team’s job to clean it up.

With Scrum, you are not just creating features for the sales and marketing teams to show the customers, you are creating solutions for the customer. This is done by prioritizing the features that need to be completed based on the customer’s needs and wants. If a customer deems feature A to be more important than feature B, then the developer would be wasting his time working on feature B before feature A. Give the customers what they want when you say you can deliver it.

Source of Information : Pro Agile .NET Development with SCRUM

The Flavors of Agile

2011-12-20T23:42:00.000+08:00

There are various forms of agile methodologies, but they all share similar characteristics. You can think of these various methodologies as branches of the same religion. The cornerstone of each branch is the idea of customer satisfaction. They also feature many of the key ideas listed previously, as well as the practices and principles laid out in the Agile Manifesto. The key thing to remember about all the agile flavors is that every one of them is iterative.

Scrum
The Scrum methodology consists of a series of “sprints,” typically lasting two to four weeks, each delivering some working, potentially shippable software. The workload of each of these sprints is driven from the “product backlog.” The product backlog consists of new features, bug fixes, technical debt, and anything else that will contribute to the end deliverable. A product owner, with help from the customer, prioritizes the product backlog and works closely with the team via regular stand-up meetings and sprint retrospectives. The iterative aspect of Scrum is that this cycle is repeated over and over until the project is complete.

eXtreme Programming (XP)
eXtreme Programming (XP) is strongly focused on customer interaction and involvement. It has the following five values:
• Simplicity
• Communication
• Feedback
• Courage
• Respect

It also follows these twelve practices:
1. Planning Game
2. Small Releases
3. Customer Acceptance Tests
4. Simple Design
5. Pair Programming
6. Test-Driven Development
7. Refactoring
8. Continuous Integration
9. Collective Code Ownership
10. Coding Standards
11. Metaphor
12. Sustainable Pace

In XP, user stories are created to capture requirements from customers. These stories are then estimated by the developers, prioritized by the customer, and then developed into working software on an iteration-by-iteration basis. Continuous planning and delivery underpin the disciplined XP process. It is also worth noting that many of the practices in XP are shared by other branches of agile, like Scrum.

Crystal
The Crystal group of agile methodologies focuses more on people rather than process. It has a simple set of principles that enhances teamwork by concentrating on communication and the removal of project management noise. It also concentrates teams on the priorities and critical paths of the software development. Like Scrum and XP, it also encourages frequent delivery of working software.

Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM)
The Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM) is based on the 80/20 rule, in that 80 percent of the benefit a system will be derived from only 20 percent of the systems requirements. With this in mind, only work that is deemed critical for the system to operate is prioritized; that is, the first 20 percent of requirements. DSDM is prioritized using the so-called MoSCoW method, which is as follows:

M: Must have
S: Should have, if at all possible
C: Could have, but not critical
W: Won’t have this time, but potentially later

All “must have” work is committed to being completed in the course of the project; all other work is deemed a “nice to have” and is picked up only when the core requirements have been implemented.

Feature-Driven Development (FDD)
Feature-driven development (FDD) begins by creating a model of the domain under development. Once this is completed, an iterative process of feature design and implementation begins. Features represent a useful grouping of functionality to the customer. FDD is made up of the following five simple activities:

1. Develop the Domain Object Model
2. Create a feature list
3. Plan by feature
4. Design by feature
5. Build by feature

Lean Software Development
Lean software development comes from the Lean manufacturing principles that were derived mostly from the production system created by Toyota. Lean focuses on customer value and the elimination of waste. It achieves this by following these next seven principles:

1. Eliminate waste: Selects only the most valuable features for a customer.
2. Amplify learning: Learn by doing and testing things rather than documenting.
3. Decide as late as possible: Delay decisions in order to enable more facts to be gathered and changes to take place.
4. Deliver as fast as possible: The sooner software is delivered, the sooner feedback is received and incorporated into the next release, giving fast return on investment to the business.
5. Empower the team: Make the team responsible and increase motivation by including all members in the decision-making process.
6. Build integrity in: Re-factor regularly to keep code flexible and adaptable to change.
7. See the whole: Ensure that domain knowledge is spread throughout the team in order for problems to be identified at any level of the system.

Source of Information : Pro Agile .NET Development with SCRUM

Key Features of Agile

2011-12-15T23:38:00.000+08:00

Looking through the Agile Manifesto and, in particular, the twelve principles, we can identify some key features that define the process and mindset. Let’s explore these at a deeper level.
• Embracing change by understanding the needs of the business: Being agile is a realization that change is inevitable; nobody gets it right the first time, business priorities change, and people get things wrong. Agility comes about by embracing change, and learning from and with the business. With this in mind agile defines the ability to adapt and be flexible, to embrace change rather than resist it or sit around and moan that the goalposts have moved. Agile teams embrace change and actively identify changes in applications that will increase business value.

• Focusing on the business value and return on investment (ROI): Agile development is a development mind shift and a refocusing of efforts and priorities. There are a number of techniques that will help you become a more agile developer. However, becoming truly agile is so much more than the sum of its parts. The tools, project methodologies, and programming methods can certainly go some way to help one become agile, but it is the ability to apply these techniques to an ever-changing business that will truly reap the rewards. Fundamentally you must understand the business domain you are working within and align your efforts, practices, and process to realize its value.

• Continuous delivery via incremental and iterative development: Being agile is all about delivering working software of value as often as possible. Success of software development is not measured in the amount of design work. Businesses measure success in working software; this should be your measure of progress as well.

• Continuous improvement by learning from and with the business: As part of the software development team, it’s our job to turn the language and processes of the business into software systems. In order to do this it is vital that we work closely with the domain experts themselves, that is, the people that will use the software. The users aren’t always domain experts. They have experience using the existing process, but do not necessarily understand why it is that way. That is where the domain experts come in. The more you as a developer understand about the business you are writing software for, the better the software will be.

• Eric Evans in his book Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software (Addison-Wesley Professional, 2003) picks up on this point when he mentions the “ubiquitous language.” This is a language that is shared between the developers and the business to describe the business domain being modelled.

• Keeping the process lean by continuous reflection on process and the removal of waste: Keeping process and practices lean is all about eliminating waste. Don’t bother with lots of documentation before developing systems. Create the documentation when it is needed. You should be able to cope with a few architectural diagrams that any member of the team can reproduce on a white board. Instead of masses of requirements documentation, use story or tasks cards and write features that can act as reminders for conversations when it is time to build the feature. Lots of upfront documentation is no good to the business— there is simply no value in it. The amount of documentation that is produced in an agile project is defined as a requirement. It is not true that agile equals no documentation. Agile equals the removal of useless information. The code and the user stories with their corresponding acceptance criteria become the documentation of the project. Not a 400-page, stagnant requirements document.
˖ Keeping lean is also achieved with regular retrospectives on work carried out and meetings on what’s working and not working with the current processes. Continuously refining how we work and concentrating on the work at hand will contribute towards a leaner and more effective working practice.

• Strong focus on team effort that spans more than developers in order to reduce risk and find better ways of working: Agile is about working together with a strong focus on the team in an effort to improve your working practices and ultimately deliver more value for your business. Domain experts, product managers, business analysts, security and IT infrastructure stakeholders, and testers should be first-class citizens along with developers during the project. Including nondevelopers in the team helps to increase knowledge and shared ownership and decreases the “them and us” gap between developers and everyone else in more traditional methods.
˖ Agile development can be the proverbial silver bullet. The problem that occurs has to do with changing the people around you. That being said, an agile project methodology can be very valuable to any organization with a need to be flexible when prioritizing application development.

Source of Information : Pro Agile .NET Development with SCRUM