More Agile Certification Talk

I wrote some on this topic, but it is still very popular on the various lists. A blog post I liked was Derick's on the Los Techies Blog. I thought he was very thoughtful and like his comparison with the Master's and PhD thesis defense. That is one thing I was curious about when I submitted my Certified Scrum Practitioner application- would there be follow up and some justification or defense of my answers? Or, would it be rubber stamped? I'm not sure how extensive the review process actually was, but I do know I was never contacted for follow up, just notified of approval.

So, should I feel bad about having my CSP? And mentioning it on my resume? According to Scott Ambler, I should. In his mind, I am ethically liable for the sins committed under the umbrella of a certification program that I don't completely agree with (as I stated in the earlier post). Note- Scott is not against certifications, as this Dr. Dobbs article makes clear, he just has severe issues with certifying "Master's" after a couple of days. While I noted the same concern, I haven't taken the moral position he has. The requirements for each level of certification are publicly available - the Scrum Alliance wasn't perpetrating a hoax on the public or potential employers. HR departments or hiring managers that require a particular certification without understanding the rigor of the certification process are the ones liable for the candidates they hire. Just like I wouldn't blame Microsoft if someone hired an MCAD without validating that they could actually develop applications and hadn't just memorized test answers. Maybe I can gain absolution since I cite the more stringent CSP designation and not just CSM? In Scott's eyes, I doubt it since I'm guessing the self-reported actions on the application are not validated by anyone for quality or effectiveness.

Writing this post, I had multiple tabs open in Firefox that I'd opened over the last couple of days as I saw links in Twitter on the topic. I frequently do this until I have time to go back and actually read the posts. The last tab on this subject was Uncle Bob's reply to Scott's post. I didn't read it yet since I wanted to write out my own thoughts in this post before reading his. I'm happy to see him cite some of the same points I did- the process is transparent and understanding it is the hiring companies responsibility. It is nice when you agree with someone you respect and think highly of!

Finally, here is the Google group where folks are discussing the Agile Developer certification.

What *IS* software anyway?

Goofy question? Not really. Have you ever thought about what software is? Is it just 1's and 0's? Is it just the field where you are paid to toil away in? Is it a product to bring your company wealth and fame? Is it tool there to help others do their jobs, whatever they may be? Understanding that can really have an impact on what we create, how we go about creating it and how usable it is after we deliver it.

One of the valuable resources I've found out on the vastness of the web is the Software Process and Measurement Cast. Despite the unfortunate acronym chosen (SPaMCast? Really? How many people are going to click on a link that says "SPaM"? How many email filters will even let it through?), it is my favorite software related podcasts. Thomas Cagley has really solid guests from across the spectrum, asks good questions and related blog essays on each topic. My favorite episode of all time is Episode 36, which is actually the 2nd part of an interview with Phil Armour. Phil's answer to the question, "Software is not a product. It is a medium, it is a place where we store knowledge."

He explains that there are five such knowledge storing media in the world. They are:

1. DNA - where species store their knowledge
   
2. Brains - a transient knowledge read/write store
   
3. Hardware - he gives an example of a ruler storing the knowledge of length or a WW II bazooka that has the knowledge of how to aim it built into the sighting mechanism.
4. Books - especially the movable typeset books
5. Software - where the knowledge is not just stored, but it is executable. For example, software doesn't teach me to do the computations needed to compute the standard deviation of a set of numbers- it does it.
   

He has a lot more discussion about this but just the concept really made a lot of things click for me. When we think about software being a way to encode (and later execute) knowledge, it makes complete sense why long drawn out projects are doomed to fail. Even IF we could completely capture the requirements correctly at the beginning of a project, what we delivered at the end would still miss the mark. Why? In the intervening time the user would have learned some new things. New knowledge that we didn't encode.

And why do we have such a hard time getting the requirements correct? Because, most of the time, we aren't the ones with the knowledge we're trying encode. And the people with the knowledge don't know how to encode it. It is as if the only way a book could be published is if only publishers knew how to write. You know bass fishing and want to share that knowledge? Fine. Call a publisher, describe what you do and see what they come up with. Maybe, if you're lucky, the publisher will come out to actually see you in action and not just go off your description...or let you read an early draft. Oh, and when the book does come out, you now have to fish exactly the way the book describes it and only that way.

We also, all too often, misunderstand "the way we do it now" with absolute knowledge and encode it with no eye towards allowing it to change in the future once we, or the user learn something more. That doesn't mean coding so that everything is an option. But coding in a test driven style so that we have the confidence to go back and change something later and know we didn't break everything else? Try shifting from Scrum with fixed iteration length to Kanban where you have no time constraint but want buckets for the different areas the work item flows through- can your tracking software handle that?

It also tied in to some of the Real Options thinking. Why do options have value? They are giving you some freedom before you've encoded something, which is then costly to change. Time to get more of the knowledge.

Phil also has a good point about things really taking off when the medium is applied to itself. Like when steam was used to power manufacturing lines to make steam engines. How well do we encode (and execute) the knowledge of how to build good quality software into the building of software? Automated testing and continuous integration tools are a good start, but where else can we apply it?

Thoughts on Certifying Scrum Developers

Responding to Ron Jefferies request (via Twitter) for thoughts on a Scrum Alliance Certified Developer, I put together these ideas. I'm sure many of these thoughts have already been covered in Alliance conversations and the exhausting threads covering this on various lists, but it helps me organize my thoughts. First, allow me to start with a bit of my background, in case that helps set the context I'm coming from, with regards to certifications. I was a charter member of Microsoft's Certified Application Developer (.Net) certification, a Certified Scrum Master and a Certified Scrum Practitioner.

The interested parties in certifications are the people wanting to be certified, the people hiring them and the Alliance as the certifying authority. Are the interests of all three equally weighted? I thought of another interested group the training/testing delivery people.

Looking at my experiences for why I pursued certifications, one primary reason, especially for my MCAD and CSP ones, was to differentiate myself in the eyes of potential future employers. A secondary interest for the MCAD cert and a primary one for CSM was to learn more in those areas. Differentiation and education are pretty common for others I know that have pursued certification, usually pretty heavily weighted to the former. As such the pursuer of certification wants the certification to be difficult enough to provide real differentiation but still achievable in a reasonable amount of time and at a reasonable cost.

Looking at what I have liked and disliked about each, I feel that the CSM certification is too easy to obtain, an opinion I expressed to Mike Cohn after he delivered my course. Some of that is an unfortunate side effect of the title Certified Scrum Master. I'm being certified as a Master of something after a couple of days of training? Really? And then that is the most recognizable title in the field? I wish the toothpaste could be put back in and the initial certification was as a Practitioner (or Apprentice), the later one as Master. I liked the extensive application process for CSP. That felt more substantive. Unfortunately, I have not discerned much talk int he community of the importance of being a CSP or any difference in interest from potential employers. This is a current interest since Borland was acquired by Micro Focus a month ago. :) For the MCAD, I liked the Core + Elective set up so that you could focus on areas of interest or relevance. I did not like that it was a developer certification based on multiple choice tests.

Turning a bit to the hiring company side, I wrote here about some things I look for when interviewing candidates and I've been thinking about this conversation on the Software Craftmanship list about selecting for the wrong things in the interview process and this post on weeding out gross incompetence. I'd like to see the certification be tiered, just not with 'Master' at the first tier. When meeting someone with the first tier of certification, I'd know that they had a base level of understanding of the Scrum methods having been in a course for a couple of days. When meeting someone with the higher tier, I'd know that they had been on Scrum projects for some amount of time and had to go through an application and review process to be approved. An unanswered question in my mind is related to the Craftmanship discussion - how do I know they were effective as part of a team delivering software? It is probably too subjective to be answered in the certification process. The quality control aspects of both the course (material and delivery) and the approval/review process being under the purview of the Scrum Alliance are also important to the certification retaining value for the certified developer and the companies.

Going from the starting point Ron specified- that there will be a Scrum Certified Developer what would like to see it entail?

Staffing Agile Teams - What to Look for in a Team Member

Another of my posts from Borland's Agile Transformation blog. I know a lot of people looking for jobs right now and I'm hoping that this helps shed some light on the perspective of what the people on the other side of the interview are looking for in an Agile environment. Or, at least what I look for:

I read an interesting post about Scrum related job opportunities increasing and the author (Robin Pillay) posed three good questions to his readers:

1. Where do you see Scrum in 5 years time in organisations?
2. Every day I come across many candidates with no Scrum background that very keen to work for organisations that use scrum. The issues that I’m facing is many organisations always seem to want candidates from a Scrum background what would you recommend to candidates with no previous Scrum experience?
3. What changes have you seen working in organisations that use Scrum compared to organizations that don’t ?"

I want to look at question #2, since I think there is a parallel question: If I'm staffing a Scrum (or Agile) team, what do I look for in candidates who don't necessarily have Scrum experience?

In my role as a ScrumMaster I've been involved in the interviewing process for many Scrum team members. Often these folks don't have prior history with Scrum, so I first give them a quick overview (this picture is really useful). A candidate without experience in Scrum should at least know how it works. Mountain Goat and others have lots of good (and free!) introductory material. For me, it's important to see that they've done that homework. Having some questions for the Scrum team on how well different Scrum practices work would be a plus for a candidate.
After the overview, I like to see is how the candidate contrasts this description of Scrum with the way they currently work. Do they seem leery of the change? Are they reluctant to work in such a highly visible and accountable way? Do they see benefits to Scrum from their current job? Are they eager for the high amount of interaction with their team? Will they pitch in to accomplish the goal or want to stay in a specialty?

It is also important to have lots of time in sessions with other team members. Not only are the other members in the best position to assess if the candidate is technically excellent, but they also have a great read on how the person will fit in with the team. Good teams are very vested in the hiring process since they know they'll be relying on this person to help them achieve the team goals. The best advice I can give to the candidate going through this process is the tried and true "honesty is the best policy". Don't try to bluff your way through since you'll be working really closely with these folks if you are brought onto the team. Sometimes flexibility and eagerness are more important anyway.

Finally, some thoughts for those candidates who do have Scrum experience. I'd expect to hear questions from them about adaptations the team has made to "by the book" Scrum, and for the candidate to be able to describe modifications their current team made over time. This shows the interest in learning from retrospectives and a dedication to continuous improvement.
I'd be interested in hearing from others. How do you assess candidates that aren't experienced with your methods?

Originally posted by Michael Maham on February 05, 2009 at 12:30 PM at http://borland.typepad.com/agile_transformation/2009/02/staffing-agile-teams.html

Update: There is a good conversation related to this on the Software Craftmanship group.

Update II: I like Richard Banks' approach to understanding technical competence

Do you design your work?

Happily, I was finally able to attend the Lean Software Austin group's meeting this past Monday. Scott Bellware was leading the discussion on Kanban and applying it to software development. Unlike some groups where the meeting is like a lecture, this was very participatory with lots of dialog from different folks. Maybe this is because the group is still comparatively small, or since the area is still new so everyone is willing to share and try to learn from each other...no one is worried about feeling like they don't do it "right" (yet).

One of the facets of Kanban that caused interesting discussion was the idea that work units should be the same size as they pass through the work flow. This is the ideal since it promotes smoother flow and is necessary in order for the Work In Progress (WIP) limits to be effective. Can it always happen? Of course not, but could it happen more often if we tried. I believe it was Scott who said, "Design the work and design the implementation".

After the initial revulsion to Big Design Up Front (BDUF), we've come to the understanding that you don't ditch design (of the implementation) altogether but you design appropriately. That the further away something is from being implemented, the lower the fidelity of the design. In a similar way, in the Scrum world, there's also the understanding that estimates of size get more accurate for a user story as you get closer to implementation. And there is some other "design of the work", but I think a lot of it is accidental and could be improved if it was done explicitly. For example, after sitting through a few interminably long poker planning meetings, Scrum teams, or part of the team-usually the more senior members, start to sit down with the Product Owner before the planning session to "groom" or "prep" the top part of the backlog. These sessions take a look at those stories that will likely be included in the next sprint and make sure there is at least enough detail or understanding for the team to be able to have the conversation during planning. Often, the result of these sessions is the Product Owner needs to further refine his thoughts or gather more information before planning.

One benefit to being more intentional about designing our work would be gaining more learning about how we did in retrospect. Teams spend so much time in planning doing story point estimation, but rarely have I seen them spend much effort at the end of an iteration looking at how they did on those estimates so they can be more consistent and more accurate in the future. In a Lean environment, inaccuracies in sizing the work would be apparent sooner since work that is larger than the standard will slow down the flow- starving the downstream parts and backing up the upstream ones. Just like designing the implementation, we want to achieve a balance to have "good enough" design of the work. For estimates of size, that might mean t-shirt sizes (Small, Medium, Large) for work that is some ways off and more detailed estimates as the work comes closer to being taken on.

Another benefit to designing the work, beyond the area of sizing, is it gives us a chance to recognize gaps in our skill set by looking ahead, or special circumstances that might apply. The larger the gap, the earlier we should look out how we're going to fill it, maybe by bringing in a specialist on a contract basis so we can learn from her, getting some training, doing early experiments or some other option. Special circumstances might be recognizing that a piece of work might be better done before someone on the team leaves for vacation. So, the work could be moved up in the order to take advantage of his special knowledge or skills.

How much time does your team spend designing your work? How does this compare with the effort in designing the implementation?

For those of you in Austin- hope you make it to the September Lean Software Austin meeting!