teamwork in toronto

2005-10-05T12:21:00.000-04:00

Agile Software Development
Training, Coaching, Consulting

Team Training
Project Startup
Process Improvement
Facilitation
Open Space Conferences
learn more

I am passionate about making work valuable and rewarding, and I thrive on helping teams and their customers discover the best ways to do this.

With over twenty years' experience in the IT industry, I know that process can help or hurt a team. I've mentored colleagues and improved the processes of numerous software development teams during my career, and have helped both adhoc teams and those with heavy PMO processes find balance and a renewed ability to produce quality, quickly.

From helping small teams to get started with Agile, to assisting with the enterprise-wide rollout of an Agile software development methodology, helping teams "make sense" of their work is what I do. My Agile2006 conference paper, emphasises that metrics must be appropriate to each team's context in order not to distract or mislead.

I am an active contributor to the international Agile community, notably as editor of the InfoQ.com Agile queue, and as co-organizer of InfoQ's international Qcon conference, where I collaborate with key Agile and Lean authors worldwide. I am a Certified ScrumMaster, an Agile Process Improvement Coach, and I facilitate OpenSpace un-conferences for the XPday North America team in Canada and the US.

For issues around on-time delivery, software quality or team morale, contact me to discuss how I can help your business achieve its software development goals.

Deborah Hartmann,
Toronto

Writing sensible email messages

2005-10-05T01:22:00.000-04:00

Just plain useful information. Thanks to Reg B. for the pointer to this item.

Please join me on my new blog VitalBrew

2005-06-10T08:00:00.000-04:00

www.vitalbrew.com

The Agile Business Analyst

2005-04-28T08:01:00.000-04:00

I've been reading and thinking on the changing role of the Business Analyst (BA), in relation to the structure of Agile teams. I've come across a number of teams reflecting on this very thing. This article reflects my own experience and also the recent discussions with and blogs by various Agile colleages.

When the customer and the team are in sync, the BA could only play a supporting role, I believe. For example, with XP, this is the situation where the Customer is happily on site and contributing. Within this model, the BA is least necessary. If all projects were like this, a BA would have to be flexible enough to play various supporting roles on the team, and let the team lead (or the team as a whole, depending on team structure) organize their interactions with the client.

However, where this ideal arrangement doesn't/can't happen, it seems there are two poles, and shades of grey in between, those two poles being:

A) the customer is very interested in the Agile approach, but not sure how to work with the team. Agile can mean big changes in their approach to requirements, design, testing. In this case, the BA acts as a coach to the customer, helping them make the transition and pitching in as a part of the customer team. This may include helping them transition existing processes into more Agile forms. The BA is essentially outside the development team, is part of the customer team as an assistant. When the BA acts as a customer (writing stories, testing, etc), they are simply providing manpower to the customer team.

Z) the customer has heard good things about Agile, believes we can bring them better value/quality for their money, but they are not interested (or allowed) to play by Agile rules. In this case, the BA probably has a dual role - as a translator, and potentially as a change agent. The translator role (called "the blocker" by Scott Ambler) runs interference between the style of the customer and the style of the team. This may mean re-creating deliverables (ex: rewriting Stories to meet some external requirements format), or proxying the client on-site. The change agent role is a more subtle one, and is simply a matter of making the virtues of Agile visible to the client, slowly over time - the objective being to reduce alienation and improve flow between the teams, not to convert the client! However, we know that the Agile approaches are seductive to those jaded by waterfall, bad RUP implementations, etc. ... so the BA, while proxying the client, should not be hiding the team's process but explaining it, showing the sense of it, in areas appropriate to the interests of the client. This is where we sometimes play the "don't tell them it's XP" game - using familiar terms to explain what we do, why we do it. The BA might need to be more prominent in communications between the team and customer - could even be the "face" of the development team, if that's what the customer requires. Whether you call the BA part of the development team or the customer team probably is a matter of semantics, and will vary depending on the customer. Scenarion Z seems the least Agile (most costly) approach, and more costly.

I'd assume that the majority of Agile projects fall somewhere between these two extremes right now. I do hear stories from across this spectrum within the Agile communities I frequent.

These variations in the customer-developer relationship seem to explain why an Agile BA needs so many hats! As a result, I've been reading on Org Patterns this year, particularly "Fearless Change" by Linda Rising. Across this spectrum, from A to Z, customer and developer teams will need to adapt, one way or the other, to work together. I figure we all benefit from learning to make change as painless as possible!

It's interesting that currently a number of shops are thinking about this subject. It comes up in discussions about testing, requirements, metrics, or politics. I've been invited to a two-day workshop in Toronto looking at "the role of testing on the Agile team" - once again, addressing these very questions. This year, I look forward to deepening my understanding of Agile requirements/testing on my path toward becoming an Agile process coach.

I would be interested to see what shape your BA solution has taken... we all need to learn from one another, in the Agile community! Please leave me a comment, so we can swap ideas!

Collaborative writing on the web

2004-07-25T11:24:00.000-04:00

I find a Wiki problematic for certain kinds of tasks. But I thought, surely I'm not the first to encounter this, so I googled "co-write wiki" and discovered Blokis!

"A Bloki is a hybrid of a Blog and a Wikki which combines the ease of publishing a Blog and the collaboration of a Wiki. A Bloki allows you to "collaborate on shared documents, write a document and have others mark it up with their comments, or collaborate with others on the same document. You control who sees what and who gets to change your pages."

However, I created a Bloki and tried to play with it for a while, but found its ui inelegant and hard to figure out. I gave up in frustration when some of the popup windows didn't work with my FireFox browser.

Still, I think it's a good idea - are there other things out there like this?

Simplicity and Complexity

2004-07-15T15:16:00.000-04:00

"Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex, intelligent behaviour. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple, stupid behaviour."

- Dee Hock, former CEO of Visa International

Coaching on Agile Teams

2004-07-14T22:22:00.000-04:00

Blogged under "The Psychology of Computer Programming", cites a post by Pam Rostal on Coaching. Includes useful article links. Thanks Pam! Enjoy.

duh ! ?

2004-05-11T13:50:00.000-04:00

"Good designers don't put handles on unlatched doors that can only
be pushed. Instead, they put a flat plate where the handle would otherwise be.
Just about the only thing you can do with a plate is to push on it, so the
physical structure of the plate helps you operate the door correctly."

--Object Oriented Perl, Damien Conway

BlogThis!

2004-05-06T21:02:00.000-04:00

Wow, create Blog entries from your toolbar! Cool!

where bugs come from

2004-05-05T22:17:00.000-04:00

Software complexity, bugs, and metrics: Charles Miller writes an excellent piece on complexity. He suggests to use testers on projects, dedicated to testing the software at the functional level. Useful: Includes "failure conditions" for automated unit testing.

engineering and management are different...

2004-05-04T09:34:00.001-04:00

"When will we learn?"
Hal Macomber blogs on this basic misunderstanding in project management. "Fewer than one in five of all IT projects in the UK can be considered truly successful, and failed projects lead to billions of pounds being wasted..."
Unfortunately, the British report concludes that chartered PMs or chartered Engineers would help this situation. As if they were interchangable! [ full news article] includes a link to the original report.

The following seems related, in Agile terms, also on Hal's site: [Tightly Couple Learning with Action]

Link to Hal's blog:

The Right Thing To Do

2004-05-02T18:46:00.000-04:00

I recently received notice that my AgileAlliance membership will soon be up for renewal. Darn, and my hot water heater just exploded - it's one bill after another!

But I'm going to renew, because I'd hate to go back to the way we used to work. I find the Agile paradigm so much more sensible, rewarding and effective.

Clients and developers are given roles appropriate to their expertise and are encouraged to collaborate to accomplish the best solution possible within reasonable timeframes. This emphasis on responsibility and respect has returned a measure of dignity to my chosen career, and I really appreciate it. And it's made it once again possible to *deliver* software, which is the best part of my job!

Membership is totally optional, and many receive benefits from AgileAlliance programs without joining. However, I'd encourage you to consider how much it is worth to you: to increase the chance that your next job is an Agile one? Promotion is a key to making this new paradigm a pervasive one.

To know more about membership, follow the:

Incremental Development

2004-05-01T10:48:00.000-04:00

"No plan survives contact with life"
-- Captain Dylan Hunt, Andromeda Ascendant

These days our paradigms are shifting away from man-made models (engineering, manufacturing) and toward the natural world. The book Biomimicry talks about how the products of the natural world far outstrip our engineered marvels, and how science is trying to learn from nature.

There are many examples in nature of "Incremental Development". Here is one model I can think of:
no "Family Depot"
children are borne and grow
results enjoyed daily

Non curo. Si metrum non habet, non est poema.

2004-04-29T18:19:00.000-04:00

"I don't care. If it doesn't rhyme, it isn't a poem."

You are a type A personality. You like bright things, you don't call in sick to work, and you have devastating opinions about art.
brought to you by Quizilla

Claims Scrum, a year later...

2004-04-28T10:38:00.000-04:00

I wonder what my former colleagues from C**** think about Scrum, now that many of them have been back in the "traditional methodology" world for a year? Has working in (our version of) the Scrum paradigm changed how they see their work? I'll post on our Yahoo group and ask...

Virtual Conferencing

2004-04-26T11:46:00.000-04:00

Article in today's Globe and Mail on conferencing from the comfort of your own sofa/office.

Object Oriented Analyst and Agile Coach seeks Dynamic Team in Toronto!

2004-03-28T15:19:00.000-05:00

Resume of Deborah Hartmann
software development coach for agile teams and their customers

[ PDF version of this Resume with Contact Information ]

OBJECTIVES

I enjoy the challenge of building resilient software teams, capable of fast delivery and quick change of direction. As the pace of development picks up, I also work with customers, improving their ability to rapidly identify and communicate high-priority needs to their development teams. Customers and teams will be better equipped to handle the rapid pace of change prevalent in business.

Over time, I will encourage the realignment of responsibility with accountability, an Agile best practice which builds trust between project participants and promotes inter-departmental effectiveness. Another important change I advocate is to make project status more visible to team members and stakeholders, removing the mystery from software planning and tracking.

I believe that the best process emerges when teams intelligently apply agile practices according to their own situation’s needs. These practices can appear deceptively simple, but I coach teams in the complementary values and practices that make process change ‘stick’. One way in which I encourage this shift to new practices is through active participation – as an assistant to the customer team, or on the development team as a business analyst, designer or tester. With active management and team participation, it is possible to take team performance to a whole new level!

CAREER SUMMARY

For over twenty years I have energetically helped teams produce better software by improving their work habits. While filling the role of programmer, o-o analyst, business analyst and team lead, I have actively addressed each team’s most pervasive problems, collaborating with team members to introduce practices such as Feature Driven Development, design patterns, Scrum and Extreme Programming. Working as a consultant and in permanent positions, experience has revealed to me that software’s toughest problems are often “people issues”, and so my focus has increasingly shifted toward team-building and facilitation, including training in the Scrum Agile project management methodology, and the Open Space meeting methodology.

BUSINESS DOMAINS

Publishing – Sales, Customer Service, Magazine Production, Pricing, Distribution
Sales – Mobile invoicing with hand-held device, Mail-order invoicing
Finance – General Ledger, Accounts Payable
Insurance - Property and Casualty Claims, Wealth Management
Web Portal product – Online Chemical Properties Database
Judicial Procedures and Documentation

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY

Senior Business Specialist (Business Analysis Team)
Solcorp Inc., Toronto.
September 2004 to present

Co-ordinated a small User Acceptance Testing team, including development of manual and automated processes and tools:

Co-ordinated acceptance testing of deliverables from multiple teams;
Supported testing team: daily meeting, troubleshooting, liaison with other teams, including extended-hours support;
Participated in test planning;
Executed detailed XML-level testing of insurance services;
Clarified insurance product requirements with Business Analysts and technical developers;
Tracked defects using HEAT problem-ticket software and a daily meeting of team leads.

Business Systems Analyst/Methodology Lead,
Trader Media Inc., Toronto.
2003 to 2004

Built a new development team and their processes, to handle the creation and maintenance of internal business software;

analysed customer problems with automated and manual business processes;
assisted department manager with daily administration of the team (ScrumMaster role).
Coached the development team as they adapted this Agile methodology over time to their specific situation;
collaboratively designed software solutions with customers, developers;
implemented an iterative, Agile software development methodology in the Enterprise Development department (Scrum)
support of live o-o application systems for Finance, Publishing, Customer Service;
developed software tools for planning and tracking of teamwork;
organised cross-training of team members to become more responsive.

Systems Analyst/Designer/Component Modeler,
Castek Inc., Toronto.

December 2001 to April 2003

designed Policy objects for use within the Claims system architecture, in conjunction with Application Architect;
contributed to Use Case sessions to drive out user requirements;
led Interfaces design effort for messaging strategy between Claims and external Policy and Party components;
co-ordinated requirements of various teams on interface architecture and technology;
specified large-grained web-service interfaces between Policy and Claims components for multiple Lines of Business;
wrote and tested XSL transformations between (customised) ACORD XML and Claims XML format (using XMLSpy);
tested, assisted in debugging web service interface to Policy system, supported developers using these services;
promoted implementation of Scrum (XP) lightweight methodology, including Continuous Integration test strategy.

October 2000 to December 2001

produced architecture-level UML models for a component-based, multi-tier Insurance Claims application;
transformed requirements into object-oriented specifications using using UML with Together/Java CASE tool;
led Joint Application Design (JAD) sessions with users and IT personnel;
supported Java J2EE developers in an XP, Continuous Integration environment (adaptation of Scrum methodology).
used RUP methodolgy with Rational Rose, Rational RequisitePro, prior to adoption of Scrum.

Business Analyst / Systems Analyst / Designer,
Groupe Progestic Consultants, Montreal.
1989 to 2000

As a permanent employee, participated in various projects in Quebec and abroad, alone and on teams.

architected and designed an o-o Business-to-Consumer E-Commerce application for Java on BEA WebLogic server;
analysed client requirements, documenting them in various formats: Use Case, Feature Driven Development, DMR;
designed automated systems for Java/VB/Natural/Cobol, using object-oriented and structured analysis methods;
developed system test plan and supported developers in writing / executing tests and debugging in Java and Oracle;
wrote, tested, implemented software using COBOL, IDMS/R, VSAM, Total DBMS, RPG, IBM Assembler;
designed and delivered system documentation and end-user manuals and training;
improved and maintained existing accounting systems, including software package upgrade and customisations;
studied manual and automated processes (BPR with and without CASE tool).
evaluated and recommended middleware tools for multi-tier, enterprise application development;
researched hardware options for industrial mobile computing (handheld radio-frequency computers);

Public Sector Clients: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, U.N. High Commission for Refugees, Regie regionale de la sante et des services sociaux des Laurentides, Montreal Municipal Courthouse, Federal Business Development Bank, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Quebec Ministry of Justice;
Private Sector Clients: Standard Life Corporate Systems, Natrel Foods, Gaz Metropolitain, McGill Conservatory of Music, Messageries Dynamiques ( a division of Groupe Quebecor, publisher ), Equifax Canada, McGill University.

Several Analyst / Programmer positions,
Montreal, Quebec.
1982 to 1989
Detailed information available upon request.

EDUCATION

Professional Training: 1987 - present

UDS Forte O-O Framework Language (Sun Education);
Certified ScrumMaster Training / level 2 (Ken Schwaber);
Thinking in Patterns (Bruce Eckel & Bill Venners);
XML with ACORD;
MS FrontPage;
Object-Oriented Analysis;
Visual Basic with MS Visual Design Studio;
FirstStep Enterprise Modelling (BPR Case tool);
MS SQL SERVER for WINDOWS-NT - Installation & administration, Database Administration;
Numerous IDMS/R Courses, including: Database Concepts and Facilities, Database Analysis and Design.

1986-1990 Concordia University / Faculty of Fine Arts:
Bachelor in Art History and Studio Art. 1 year remaining.

1984-1985 McGill University / Certificate in M.I.S.
First year of a three-year certificate.

1977-1981 Champlain College (CEGEP):
Diploma of Collegiate Studies (DEC) in Data Processing,
awarded First in Class.

OTHER INTERESTS

For two years I have provided leadership within the ScrumAlliance, and to the XP/Agile Toronto and Scrum Toronto interest groups. In addition, I enjoy gardening, painting, good science fiction, and exploring old cities.

SKILLS SUMMARY

	Level	Experience	Last Used
- SOFT SKILLS -
UML Unified Modeling Language	Expert	5 years	Current
Architecture/Design for n-Tier Apps	Intermediate	5 years	Current
Object Modeling (Analysis Level)	Intermediate	4 years	Current
Scrum Agile Methodology Project Management Methodology	Intermediate	3 years	Current
ACORD XML for P&C Insurance XML B-to-B Standard	Intermediate	1 years	1 year ago
Feature Driven Development (FDD) Requirements methodology	Intermediate	2 years	1 year ago
Continuous Integration XP regression test strategy	Intermediate	2 years	1 year ago
Design for Java J2EE components	Intermediate	3 years	1 year ago
Design for JSP	Beginner	2 years	1 year ago
RUP Rational Unified Process Development Methodology	Intermediate	1 year	3 years ago
Design for Oracle RDBMS	Intermediate	2 years	3 years ago
Yourdon / DeMarco Structured Analysis Methodolgy (DFDs)	Intermediate	4 years	3 years ago
Design for COBOL	Expert	8 years	3 years ago
Business Process Re-engineering	Beginner	1 year	5+ years ago
DMR Development Methodology	Intermediate	2 years	5+ years ago
MiniAsyst Development Methodology	Intermediate	2 years	5+ years ago
- TOOLS & LANGUAGES -
Sun UDS / Forte enterprise O-O framework	Beginner	1 year	Current
HTML Programming	Intermediate	2 years	Current
Rational Rose Case Tool	Intermediate	1 years	3 years ago
Rational Requisite Pro Requirements tool	Beginner	1 years	2 years ago
Microsoft Visio Drawing tool	Intermediate	3 years	Current
Microsoft VSS Version control	Intermediate	1 year	Current
Microsoft PowerPoint	Intermediate	3 years	Current
CVS and WinCVS Version control	Intermediate	3 years	1 year ago
Together/Java IDE and Case Tool	Expert	3 years	1 year ago
XML Spy XML Editor and IDE	Expert	1 year	1 year ago
Design for HTML	Intermediate	2 years	1 year ago
Microsoft FrontPage HTML Editor	Intermediate	2 years	3 years ago
ABC FlowCharter Drawing tool	Intermediate	3 years	3 years ago
IBM COBOL / COBOL II	Expert	13 years	5 years ago
IBM Mainframe (mainly MVS)	Expert	13 years	5 years ago
IBM JCL	Expert	15 years	5 years ago
VSAM	Intermediate	5 years	5 years ago
IBM CICS/VS Interactive UI language	Intermediate	2 years	5 years ago
IDMS DBMS/RDBMS, ADS & ADS/O 4GL IDD Database Administration	Intermediate	5 years	5+ years ago
MEPROCAD BPR tool	Intermediate	1 year	5+ years ago
FirstStep BPR Case Tool	Intermediate	1 year	5+ years ago
TSO / ISPF IBM MVS environment tools	Intermediate	10 years	5+ years ago
SILVERRUN Case Tool	Intermediate	1 year	5+ years ago
OLM / OLQ for IDMS/R Query language	Intermediate	3 years	5+ years ago
Design for IDMS/ADS	Intermediate	3 years	5+ years ago
IBM Assembler	Intermediate	2 years	5+ years ago

[ Contact Info and PDF version of this Resume ]