All Staff Meeting Notes - March 12, 2011 - Explaining Scrum for Development

[TAfirehawk]

All Staff Meeting Notes
March 12, 2011

The SWGEmu Staff

All Staff Meeting Notes - March 12, 2011

Please find the link for the IRC Meeting Log for the All Staff Meeting on March 12, 2011.

The focus is a Question and Answer session on Scrum by Lorrianna so EVERYBODY on Staff is on the same page as Development moves forward.

The "Scrum Presentation for SWG" and other reference material are listed below, so that everyone can review what Scrum is about and how we can use it.

Agenda:

• Scrum subforum and useful reference material
• Clarify terms used in Scrum presentations (translate "business speak" and Scrum words to plain English")
• Details on how we'll implement Scrum practices, customized to better fit a volunteer team spread across many time zones
• Practical benefits for Community, Leadership and Development Teams
• How all Staff/Teams can influence direction and prioritization of Sprint Planning
• Moderated Q&A

We all play a part in the development of this project, even those of us in the "Community Division", so it will be very beneficial for each of you to attend if at all possible.

Below are links to references, sites and materials to help everyone understand what Scrum is, where it comes from, and how we'll be using it for the SWGEMU project.

An Introduction to Scrum for the SWGEMU Project

The Official Scrum Guide

Scrum Quick Reference Card

Wiki article on Scrum and Agile Software Development.

Here are two great presentations, Scrum in a Nutshell for a basic overview like my own above, and Agile Thru Scrum. These are for a general technology audience and you'd see much that isn't applicable to SWGEMU.

Scrum is a set of practices and techniques for Agile software development created by 2 of the 12 co-Signers of the Agile Manifesto for software development proposed at a conference in 2001 and adheres to the 12 Principles Behind the Agile Manifesto.

You can watch Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland discuss Scrum with the staff of Google at their Mountain View, CA offices in 2006.

Examples of other Agile practices are Kanban, eXtreme Programming, Feature Driven Development and Dynamic Systems Development Method.

Of all Agile methods, Scrum is the most widely used in the technology industry, most heavily in the gaming and software business (Google, Adobe, Microsoft, Ariba, Sun, HP, Yahoo) but also by Global/Multinationals for internal software development including...

Siemens, CNA, State Farm, State Street Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, Philips, BBC, IBM, SAIC, Federal Reserve Bank, Motorola, Nokia, TransUnion, IDX, Siemens Medical, Gestalt, Conchango, BMC, Lexis-Nexis, Bently Systems, Bose, CapitalOne, ClearChannel, Xerox, Patient Keeper, British Telecom, PayPal, H&R Block and Infinitas.

Do a search on LinkedIn and you'll see the list goes on and on.

~ The SWGEmu Team

[Yhor]

Very interesting. It looks like it will help manage the development very well, from what I gathered in the meeting notes.

It should also give the Communications people a more proactive tool for communicating project status and objectives for testing. This is one area that might aid in settling down heated discussions, in regards to how implementations are handled and what focus needs most testing at any given time. Hopefully the spawn and loot system can be managed *soon*, so there can be a single server focus, instead of what there is now.

Good read. Thanks for sharing.

[TAfirehawk]

We certainly see part of the advantage to Scrum as providing an easy summary of progress/status tools that will certainly be given to the public.

We also plan on ingame "showing off" of new code for all to see from the Scrum system

It may seem at times that we are not listening to the player concerns, but that isn't true. The painful past has told us that we need to temper our responses until a good course of action is ready and firmly decided.

[Marlyssea]

We certainly see part of the advantage to Scrum as providing an easy summary of progress/status tools that will certainly be given to the public.

We also plan on ingame "showing off" of new code for all to see from the Scrum system

It may seem at times that we are not listening to the player concerns, but that isn't true. The painful past has told us that we need to temper our responses until a good course of action is ready and firmly decided.

Good call, that sounds like a good, workable plan. Good luck guys.