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At Agile2007's Google reception, the audience voted to make the (very sad) clip "Developer Abuse" the number 1 video, thereby making "Matthew" (name changed to protect the innocent) this year's AgileAdvert famous Agilist. Five more videos were also recognized, sporting singing, dancing, a beating, "outside the box" thinking, expletives (deleted), and charming children (not all in one video!)
In this InfoQ interview, author and coach Linda Rising reflected on scientific research suggesting that we may be hardwired to work in small, collaborative teams. She also explained what led up to her popular Agile2006 talk "Are Agilists the Bonobos of the Software World?" which focused on their "make love not war" social rituals. The apes' rituals, that is.
In a moment of relaxation, Alistair Cockburn had the insight that we may be quibbling over inconsequentialities: "test before" or "test after," what's important to professional programmers is Good Unit Tests. Eureka!
Many of us in this field have had our work habits affect our family life - many times for the better. Some of us use index cards in their daily life for scheduling, prioritizing, and discussing daily tasks with their families. Peter Abilla blogged about how he uses a Job Chart (a type of information radiator) to teach his children.
In this amusing presentation from Agile2006, Jean Tabaka compares impediments and obstacles encountered by an Agile mentor with those detailed in Homer's classic. In this 73 minutes presentation, discover who plays which classical roles in Agile adoption: Cyclops, the Sirens, Poseidon, Circe, Cicones, the Lotus-Eaters, and even the good-and-faithful dog Argus.
IBM has been working on Innov8, a 3D video game SOA/BPM simulator. At the moment only a demo and screen shots are available, and the game is set to be available in September. The game aims to teach an introductory level understanding of BPM enabled by SOA, including the typical steps of a BPM project and real world experiences of IBM's expert BPM practitioners.
Agile Advert is running a micro movie contest - all you have to do is create an advertisement for Agile, upload it, and get your friends to vote for you. The top 5 videos will be selected via the public's online votes and will be announced at Google's Agile 2007 party.
Alberto Savoia has uncovered an ancient treasure: "The Way of Testivus - Unit Testing Wisdom From An Ancient Software Start-up," which turned out to be some good advice on developer and unit testing, packaged as twelve fake, pretentious, and somewhat cryptic bits of ancient Eastern wisdom - but good for a laugh.
We've all heard the apocryphal stories: "I planned my reno, move, wedding..." using Scrum. Mike Mason of Thoughtworks admitted on his blog: "this whole Agile thing has messed me right up", and shared a picture of his own personal taskboard.
