After following Dan's tutorial on installing munin on your servers, you already get the benefits of munin's default plugins. You have graphs showing your CPU, RAM, I/O, as well as MySQL, Exim, and quite some other stats. But most of the time you run some additional software which you also want to montior. Install Some … Continue reading Tailoring Your Munin Installation
Author: Matthias Marschall
The opinions stated here are my own, not those of my company.
Sub-optimization Kills Customer Value
When we start optimizing our processes, it happens quite often that we only optimize our area of influence instead of addressing the whole process of creating customer value. When we're responsible for a software development or an operations team, we tend to optimize the process of our team. We adapt agile practices and our teams … Continue reading Sub-optimization Kills Customer Value
Agile Is About Feedback, Not About Fancy Practices
Too often people complain that to become agile they need to start using iterations, fancy story points and time boxes even though it simply does not fit the way they work. But, that's not true. Agile is much simpler than that. And much harder. In essence, agile is about fast feedback. But the feedback needs … Continue reading Agile Is About Feedback, Not About Fancy Practices
Sprinkle – Automated Infrastructure for the Rest of us
Automatically setting up and maintaining my servers is a must for me. Only if everything I install and configure on a server is scripted I'm sure I know what's there and that it stays that way. Having automated infrastructure enables me to schedule a critical setup change at 3 am and be on the safe … Continue reading Sprinkle – Automated Infrastructure for the Rest of us
Kanban WIP Limits – The Fine Art of Focus
If you want to get things done, focus is the key. Single piece flow (focusing on only one task at a time) might be too extreme, but limiting your work to your capacity is mandatory. No matter whether we're talking about a team, an organization or about your personal productivity. Kanban For Personal Productivity If … Continue reading Kanban WIP Limits – The Fine Art of Focus
Simulating a Scrum And a Lean Project In The Classroom
I will continue my course about agile methodologies at the University of Augsburg with both a Scrum and a Lean project simulation. The Scrum simulation will introduce the students to concepts like User Stories, Backlog, Iteration, etc. After doing lots of Gantt Charts, Use Case Diagrams etc. in the waterfall simulation, it's time now to … Continue reading Simulating a Scrum And a Lean Project In The Classroom
Simulating a Waterfall Project In The Classroom
The first simulation in my course about agile methodologies will be waterfall style. Here's how I plan to do it. Before we go into the details of the waterfall simulation, I want the whole group (around 20-30 people) to come up with requirements for the product to build: an online office suite (maybe the most … Continue reading Simulating a Waterfall Project In The Classroom
Kanban vs. Iterative Development
Agile methodology builds on the concept of iterations - time boxes - in which you create a piece of working software. Each iteration starts with a planning meeting where the team takes stories from the backlog and commits to the sprint goal. If you use a tool like Pivotal Tracker, you even get emergent iterations … Continue reading Kanban vs. Iterative Development
Waterfall, SCRUM and Lean Software Development simulation as teaching platform
Currently, I'm preparing for teaching my next course on Agile Methodology. Again and again, I wonder what is the single most important thing my students should be able to take with them after four full days. One of my core messages is definitely that agile is more about principles than about practices. If you absorb … Continue reading Waterfall, SCRUM and Lean Software Development simulation as teaching platform
Giving up – or not?
"Never give up" is an advice we hear far too often. We're taught that giving up is a failure. But nothing could be further from the truth if we're caught in a dead end. If there is nothing left to reach, why should we bother to go on? It's a waste of time and energy … Continue reading Giving up – or not?
