Laurens Bonnema

Agile Project Planning In Twelve Easy Steps

2011-03-04T15:40:00.001+01:00

Create a list of all your requirements in Epic format (think Product Breakdown).
Break down each Epic into work items in User Story format (think Work Breakdown).
Determine which Epics and/or User Stories have dependencies.
Visualize dependencies in a network diagram.
Create an estimate for each User Story using Planning Poker Points, NESMA Function Points, Gummy Bears, anything but time and/or money.
Assign business value to all Epics and divide this value between the User Stories based on their point-estimate.
Sort the list of User Stories based on priority, dependencies and business value per point-estimate (triage). Having trouble sorting the list using triage? Pick another prioritization technique.
Take an educated guess (assumption) about the number of hours per point you're likely to spend, based on a representative sample of User Stories taken at random.
Calculate duration based on your assumption.
Use the calculated duration as input for a Monte Carlo analysis to create your first rolling wave planning.
Correct the assumption every sprint based on the progressive average of the actual hours per point ánd a new Monte Carlo simulation for the remaining duration.
Report regularly, preferably in a reporting format currently in use by the organization.

How to get a T-Mobile Web'n'Walk stick to work on Mac OS X Snow Leopard

2010-01-12T16:32:00.001+01:00

Yesterday, I had a momentary lapse of reason and bought a T-Mobile Web'n'Walk stick to be able to connect to the internet whenever and wherever I want.

The girl in the T-Mobile store in Groningen was very helpful and sold me the last Web'n'Walk they had, sending me on my merry way to the hotel where I discovered the stick didn't work. At least, not out of the box it didn't.

Figuring this had to be an issue with the Mac software T-Mobile ship with the stick, I decided to be sensible and call customer service. Their first response was "I'm sorry sir, we don't support Mac." At which point I curtly stated this was unacceptable as I had asked this in the store (and gotten a yes), and checked it on the package (which states they do support Mac). The inevitable cop-out was a callback appointment that they failed to live up to.

Which left me to solve the problem myself. As it turns out, it's very, very easy. Here's what I did to get the app to install.

Command-click the app and select "Show package contents" from the contextmenu.
Enter the "Contents" folder, then the "Resources" folder.
Doubleclick the MobilePartner.mpkg file and follow installation instructions.
Done!

Everything installed without a hitch. And after installation the software even updated itself to the latest version.

So it would seem T-Mobile ships a faulty installer with otherwise working software. Very easy to fix that. But they haven't yet.

The Sudden Death Of My iPhone

2009-12-24T01:35:00.001+01:00

Today, my iPhone suddenly got hotter than usual and drained its battery within four hours after being fully recharged overnight. I thought nothing of it, but when I got home and tried to recharge it, a message was displayed stating I should restore the phone using iTunes.

A bit annoyed at the inevitable loss of all my data, but otherwise not worried, I went about restoring my three month old iPhone 3GS 32GB. And failed. Three times.

Every time I ran the restore it ran, slowly but surely, all the way up until the end of the progress bar on my iPhone. Only to return the message in iTunes "The iPhone 'iPhone' could not be restored. An unknown error occurred (1002)."

At first, I thought it might have something to do with the firewall. So I turned it off. But turning it off had no effect.

Then, I created a new Administrator account with a fresh copy of iTunes and unplugged all peripherals except the iPhone cable. Still no effect.

So now my iPhone is dead and I'm effectively phone-less, sad, and sorry I bought a phone that lasts for three months with a two year contract. I'll take it to the T-Mobile store tomorrow where I fully expect to be charged €50 for them to tell me they can't help me either.

Up until now, I was such an Apple fan-boy my cognitive dissonance took care of issues like flaky connectivity and short battery life. But now the phone has stopped working altogether it finally dawns on me: the iPhone is a beautiful wanna-have piece of technology that sucks. Big time.

And I still have to pay for it for another 21 months... Yay!

FiRe Field Recorder

2009-10-30T13:50:00.001+01:00

After reading lots of reviews, I decided to buy FiRe Field Recorder from AudioFile Engineering today. It won out over the also excellent iProRecorder from Bias, the creators of Peak, because of its integration with SoundCloud. I'm amazed with the sound quality and the ease of use. My very first recording came out good enough to post here. I didn't even have to put it through Levelator!

20091030 FiRe Field Recorder Review by laurensbonnema

My Favorite iPhone and Mac Photo Apps

2009-10-13T16:46:00.001+02:00

I had lunch today with a friend who's a bit of a photography-nut (which is a Good Thing mind you) so naturally we ended up discussing iPhone photo apps. He recommended CameraBag to me to do some sweet image post-processing on the iPhone. Trusting his judgement, I downloaded it as soon as I had a chance to, i.e. ten minutes after lunch. And it rocks! With CameraBag, you can add filters to you photos before you upload them or send them. It's a simple and fast way to improve you plain vanilla iPhone pics.

Of course, using CameraBag got me thinking what else I'd been missing out on so far. After some googling and review reading, I've come up with the following must-have iPhone photo apps in addition to CameraBag:

Photogene, for on-phone editing and filtering beyond CameraBag.
ColorSplash, which lets you quickly and easily give photos a dramatic look by converting them to black and white, while keeping your chosen details in color.
AutoStitch, a fully automatic image stitcher for the iPhone.

Of course, I do most of my post-processing and editing on my Mac. For that, I use Photoshop Elements for post-processing of RAW files and correcting stuff like lighting and red eyes, Pixelmator for all edits I can't do with Photoshop Elements such as advanced filtering, and Photomatix for creating HDR images.

And now, let's go take some photo's...

UPDATE 2009-10-16: In addition to the aforementioned iPhone photo apps, I've completed my collection with the following apps:

Darkroom, for taking steady shots.
Photo fx, to complete my set of filters by adding everything but the kitchen sink. I don't need all of this, but boy do I want it!
TiltShift, simulates a tilt-shift lens that tricks your mind into viewing a photo as a miniature scene like a model railroad for example.

Agile Open Holland 2009

2009-09-13T14:15:00.001+02:00

Last week, I attended the Agile Open Holland 2009 Conference. It was my first conference following an Open Space format and I loved it. At first, first-timers like me were a little uneasy with the whole co-create the conference dynamic, but the presence of experienced Open Spacers like Marc Evers and Willem van den Ende ensured a quick run up the learning curve.

Open Space is the simplest meeting format that could possibly work. And man does it work! I think I learned more in this €80 two-day conference than at some other more expensive ones. Also, I found myself actively contributing to some of the discussions where normally I'm content to sit back and observe. If you've never attended an Agile Open Conference before, do yourself a favor and attend the next one.

Saving up for a Flevobike Versatile

2009-08-17T17:04:00.001+02:00

After a rather heroic commute last Friday on my Fietsfabriek transportbike from Dordrecht to The Hague, I'm seriously considering doing that more often. Intrigued by reclining bikes, I googled some this weekend and have selected what I think is an excellent commuter bike: the Flevobike Versatile.

Looking for resellers of this bike brought a smile to my face. As luck would have it, there's a reclining bike specialist right around the corner from where I live. So this weekend, I think I'll pay Maia Ligfietsen a visit.

NLScrum with Jeff Sutherland

2009-06-25T06:47:00.002+02:00

nlscrum_20090624_012, originally uploaded by laurensbonnema.

Yesterday, I was at the NLScrum in Hilversum, The Netherlands, together with approximately 65 other Scrum enthusiasts. Jeff Sutherland, inventor of Scrum and Agile Manifesto original signatory, worked his magic on the audience explaining what Scrum is, why and how one should implement it, and then went on to answer all (yes ALL) questions from the audience.

It was an absolutely great gathering of Scrum enthusiasts. If you're doing Scrum, or if you're interested in doing so, and you live/work in The Netherlands, you should attend NLScrum's meetings.

Interdependency Injection, Turnaround Strategies For Troubled Waterfall Projects

2009-06-19T23:37:00.002+02:00

On Thursday, June 18, 2009, I presented at the Integrating Agile Conference from The Agile Consortium Benelux in Hoofddorp, The Netherlands.

IT projects are infamous for delivering late and way over budget if at all. Studies show this is due to a fundamentally flawed development process. For IT projects to deliver on time and on target, a radically different development process is required. Over the past two decades an impressive array of improvement strategies have been suggested, hyped and eventually integrated into the ever expanding body of knowledge available to us. To date, the most succesful strategies appear to belong to a distinct group of development processes known as Agile. A full-blown agile approach will reduce your time to market by 40%.

In the first part of my talk, I explained why and how to implement agile methods in an organization.

So you've heard about agile, and are intrigued by it. You hope that someday soon you'll get the chance to participate in one of those supposedly hyperproductive projects. But you're stuck in a "normal" project with defined process control, gantt charts, decision gates, and project boards. How do you break free from that? Well, you actually don't have to.

In the second part of my talk, I explained how one can inject agility into your existing waterfall project. That will not make your project textbook agile, but it will cure it from an acute lack of common sense. Better yet, it will set you free to try some easy turnaround strategies in your current project that will work in any project, be it agile or waterfall, enabling you to reduce your time to market by at least 20% within six months.

Check out the video of my presentation on YouTube:

Dead Simple Guide to Beating Procrastination

2009-03-25T07:57:00.001+01:00

I am a daily reader of by Leo Babauta's excellent zenhabits blog. He's just posted a "Dead Simple Guide to Beating Procrastination" that's worth reading if, like me, you're prone to checking email, twittering, and other stuff to avoid actually doing something.

After his 10-point plan to get you out of your rut, Leo Babauta notes that if all else fails, just take a nap or go outside and enjoy the outdoors or do nothing. Life isn’t all about productivity. Do less. Which is to say, if you are procrastinating, enjoy it!

Follow Leo Babauta on Twitter.

Hanlin V3 eReader rocks!

2009-03-13T23:46:00.002+01:00

Today, I treated myself to a Hanlin V3 eReader from PDAShop.nl, and man does it not suck! It totally rocks, displaying my entire library of ebooks, including some old copies of Crosstalk and Soundview summaries. It even displays the content of the Powerpoint presentations I accidentally copied over to the SD card.

The only thing I don't like is the crappy way the SD card slot is manufactured. It works allright, but when you want to remove the card you have to really pick it out with your finger. It doesn't do a satisfactory click-and-slide thing like most SD card slots.

Update Saturday, March 21, 2009: The SD card slot issue somehow miraculously disappeared today. I wanted to take out the SD card to put it into an external card reader, forgot all about the aforementioned card issue, and low and behold: it did a satisfactory click-and-slide-thing!

Must-read Agile Journal Column by Esther Derby

2009-03-11T08:37:00.001+01:00

I've just read Esther Derby's excellent column on "The Three Pillars of Executive Support for Agile Adoption" in the Agile Journal. It describes the executive support required to successfully implement agile methods in your organization. In the process of doing just that? Read Esther's column!

My new job?

2009-03-09T17:37:00.001+01:00

A friend pointed out to me recently that, as jobs go, the newly created position of Caretaker of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef might quite possibly be the very best job in the world. Reading the site, I have to agree. Check it out at http://www.islandreefjob.com.

My Favorite Mac Apps

2009-03-09T10:44:00.001+01:00

Last December I switched to Mac and have since entered a very, very happy period in my personal computing experience. I'm running a clone of my corporate laptop in VMWare Fusion for my remaining Windows needs, and must admit to using a Palm Treo Pro running Windows Mobile 6.1 to stay connected to HQ whilst on the move. For everything else, I use my 15" unibody Macbook Pro. Which means I had to find alternatives to my favorite Windows programs. And you know what: some of the alternatives are actually better!

Functionality: WinApp » MacApp:

Application launcher: Launchy » QuickSilver
Virtual desktop manager: VirtuaWin » Spaces (built in!)
Archiver: 7Zip » iArchiver
Subversion client: TortoiseSVN » Versions
RSS reader: Feeddemon » NetNewsWire
Mindmapping: MindManager 8 » MindManager 7 for Mac
Texteditor: UltraEdit » TextWrangler
Diagramming: MS Visio » OmniGraffle
Project Management: MS Project » Merlin
Screencasting: uTipu » ScreenFlow
Video conversion: Videora » Handbrake
FTP client: FileZilla » Cyberduck (you don't have to switch, because FileZilla is also available for Mac, but I did, because I like Cyberduck)
RSI monitor: WorkPace » MacBreakZ
Favorite screensaver: Despair Inc » Matrixsaver

In addition to the items above, I use the following Mac Apps:

Getting Things Done: OmniFocus
Writing: Scrivener
Blogging: MarsEdit
Tweeting: TweetDeck
Instant messaging: Skype and MSN
Audio recording: Audio Hijack Pro and Fission for recording and editing with The Levelator for postprocessing of aiff files.
WMV plugin for Quicktime: Flip4Mac
Desktop notification system: Growl
Timer: FlexTime
Prevent your Mac from automatically going to sleep, dimming the screen or starting screen savers: Caffeine
Switch your audio input and output sources with a single click, and even adjust their volume settings: SoundSource

Agile Beerfest

2008-06-15T13:56:00.003+02:00

20080615118, originally uploaded by laurensbonnema.

Last night, Guido and Romina came over to catch up and taste some good Belgian beers in our favorite hangout, Café de Tijd in Dordrecht. As always, putting Guido and me together resulted in a buzz of ideas, lots of laughter, and a cavalier disregard of moderation. We kind of maxed out every aspect of the evening. So now, I'm a bit of a zombie.

Get Things Done with Nozbe

2007-09-22T09:42:00.000+02:00

Today I discovered Nozbe, quite possibly the best GTD app around. It's simple, minimalistic even, but exactly what you need if you're looking for an online GTD system. When you're not at your computer, you can connect to Nozbe through your phone with the nozbe.mobi app. And if you forgot your phone, the option to print your next actions in a sleek Hipster PDA cut-out version will save the day. If you add DIY Planner templates and a calendar, be it GCal or Time/system, or both, you're set to become highly productive and get things done.

New Bike

2007-06-08T19:31:00.000+02:00

Monday, I bought myself a new bike. Seeing as I'm a rather heavy dude, a transport bike seemed like a good idea. Google told me that the best Dutch transport bikes are made in Amsterdam in a shop called de Fietsfabriek (Dutch for the bicycle factory). So I went there and ordered myself the exact same bike depicted here. It's called the Aty, and it can take 20 kg on the front rack and 80 (!) on the back and carry my weight without buckling. And yes, it will actually have my name in the your name here spot! I can hardly wait till it's ready. So far, service at de Fietsfabriek has been impeccable. I was treated as if I came in to order a new German car. I was encouraged to test-drive at least two different versions of the bike before buying, and even though NBC and AT5 were lined up to shoot some footage at the store, I was attended to as if I was the only customer in the store. Update: Tuesday, July 10, 2007: Whoa! I went to Amsterdam yesterday to pick up my bike, and man what a bike! It's solid, massive even. Yet it handles like a lightweight bike. Not even the rain pouring down on me could wipe the grin off my face as I drove back to Amsterdam Central Station. My wife immediately dubbed it "The Hummer of Bikes."

Alke & Jurgen's wedding anniversary

2007-05-29T15:44:00.001+02:00

20070527049.jpg, originally uploaded by laurensbonnema.

This weekend, we went to Alke & Jurgen's wedding anniversary at their house in France. What a party! We laughed and drank till we dropped for three days straight, made new friends, and took some pictures.

Trip to Barcelona on Flickr

2007-05-14T22:34:00.001+02:00

Nienke, originally uploaded by laurensbonnema.

A few weeks ago, Nienke and I went to Barcelona for a short break. I've uploaded some photos to Flickr, and found an interesting option to post images found on Flickr to a weblog. Let's see if it works!

iPod Video on Ubuntu

2007-05-07T13:51:00.000+02:00

One of the things I found most annoying about switching from Windows to Ubuntu, was the lack of decent iPod connectivity. I use the excellent gtkpod to sync music on Ubuntu, but getting it to work with video involves compiling a special version of the software, thus ruining the automatic updates via synaptic packet manager. Of course, compiling your own software isn't that hard, but I want things to work (almost) out of the box as much as possible. Especially things like adding video to an iPod. Enter Floola: a cross platform iPod connectivity app. It's still in beta, so it might have some quirks, but for adding video to your iPod when you don't have iTunes, it's the best app I've come across so far.

Another try at blogging

2007-05-06T21:19:00.000+02:00

I have had a lot of blogs over the years, but always enjoyed tinkering with the technology behind them more than actually writing something. This then, is another try at blogging: a simple to set-up Blogger template hosted at blogspot. No technology to tinker with, just content to write. Let's see what happens next.