Velocity Focus

I've found in the last week that my focus has shifted to Velocity.

Velocity is my main concern on the new team. Velocity is my biggest priority. I expect 2 things from our Velocity.

1) It should be accurate (truthful, real).
2) We should examine how we can increase it and still have Sustainable Pace.

We cannot do both (at least at the early stages of our adoption) without causing some problems. No point increasing something that is eschew. Therefore, my primary concern is 1) for the time being. Once 1) is reasonably close, then I feel we can give some attention to 2).

My definition of Velocity is passed Acceptance Tests. Now my focus is getting automated Acceptance Tests so that we can obtain an accurate velocity. I've read about Acceptance Test, but now I really get it. Automated Acceptance Test give the Whole Team confidence to keep moving forward.

Opps, I'm an XP Coach

A developer goes for an interview for a job. From what he knows of the people working there, he believes that the company is mostly practicing agile methodologies. They are doing unit testing and continuous integration.

During the interview, it sounds like they are somewhat agile and have a desire to move in that direction. The developer suggests that at some point in time they might be interested in bringing in an XP Consultant to help with the process. The reply is that maybe in a year or so, depending on resources available.

In the end, the developer is hired and starts working for the company. Very quickly, he realizes that what he understands agile to be and what is happening at the company are very far apart. The developer talks to the project manager about this at which point things begin to happen very quickly.

The next day, developer gives an 2 hour plus presentation about XP. The following day, various conversations are occurring in the kitchen and it is decided to have a full day discussion on what the perceived problems are with the current process. At the end of this, the decision to bring in the consultant ASAP. Sadly, said consultant is away on 2 weeks holiday. In the end, a 3 day immersion course is quickly organized and had.

On the final day of the course, the team discusses that we need a coach and the coach will come from within the team. The coach must have faith that XP will work, be enthusiastic and have knowledge of XP. Ideally, they would have some experience as well, but none of the members of the team have ever done XP before.

Developer becomes a coach.