XP2008 – Day 5

The final morning of the conference was faily quiet again. I did go to “The Agile Technique Hour” which was fun and interesting. David Parsons has posted the materials online, but in brief, we were split into teams in order to deliver features, which were drawings on functionality on overhead acetate. The features were integrated by overlaying the acetate sheats. Neat idea. Initially we had policies in place to inhibit productivity, and gradaully the policies were relaxed to allow us to collaborate better, refactor, regression test, continuously integrate etc.

What I found interesting was that our teams approach was to have a clear vision (a basic bicycle) and to focus on delivering the simplest ‘minimal’ solution for each ‘marketable feature’ and to focus on delivering the ‘minimal viable product’ e.g. the smallest set of features which gave a valuable useable product. In effect, we limited work in progress. We ended up completing nearly all the features without too much trouble (unlike the other team 😉 )

Here’s the final product: