Make the Right Moves Each Step of the Way

The premise that software projects cannot follow a fixed plan and expect to succeed due to its complexity, is the basis of agile software development. We have to make course corrections each step of the way. However in agile projects, we can get lost in a set of practices, and miss the element of course correction. This is an attempt to emphasize the importance of investing time and effort into making the right decisions for course correction throughout an agile software project.

This article is not only about projects that follow an agile methodology like Extreme Programming or Scrum religiously, but this is applicable to any software project that has an agile nature, where the project team believes in making incremental changes and frequent course corrections.

A project team should have a weekly planning session with the participation of project leader, customer or customer representative, developers, and QA representatives. The weekly planning meeting should be an investment in time and effort, that would help the team make the best possible moves for the week. Although hours spent in meetings may sound like loss of productivity, the benefits that a project can get from properly conducted planning sessions is immense. Such sessions would help iron out ambiguous or vague requirements, help come up with proper design solutions that would avoid the need of rework, help breakdown stories into detailed tasks and more accurate estimates. Insight gained during such sessions of analysis and assessment is invaluable when deciding on the best possible course for the week.

The team should pick stories based on priority for the week, and for each selected story perform the following tasks:

1. Analyze requirements in detail.
2. Come up with a solution
3. Come up with a detailed task breakdown
   
4. Estimate effort for each task in the story
   

The outcomes for each selected story should be tracked on a mind map (this can be a single sheet of paper). This mind map can be used by developers as a reference. This will also be a valuable tool to organize thoughts, and will be useful for reference in future.

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Do you use your laptop as a desktop? Then be aware!

How convenient is it to use a laptop instead of a desktop computer? The amount of space it saves is amazing, and when you use the same computer both at home and at work, there is no need to synchronize data. I stopped using a desktop when I bought my first laptop about four years ago. Since then I have been using my laptop as a desktop, working on it many hours a day.

Recently I started feeling tingling sensations in my fingers and occasional sharp pains in my hands while working on the computer. When I searched the web, I realized that I had the symptoms of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Further look up revealed that I have been having a poor posture while working on the laptop all these years.

The correct way to use a laptop as a desktop

The website: http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/culaptoptips.html gives the following advice about using your laptop as a desktop:

if you use your laptop at work as your main computer you should:

• position this on your desk/worksurface in front of you so that you can see the screen without bending your neck. This may require that you elevate the laptop off the desk surface using a stable support surface, such as a computer monitor pedestal.
• use a separate keyboard and mouse. You should be able to connect a keyboard and mouse directly to the back of the laptop or to a docking station”

The correct way to use a mouse

After switching to the recommended set-up, I could feel a slight improvement in my condition. However, the issue did not disappear, especially on the right hand which I use to hold the mouse. It seemed that mouse use contributed a lot to my condition. Further search brought me to the an article that described how to use the mouse properly:

I started practicing the advice, especially when using mouse buttons, and although it took some time to get used to, it further improved my condition.

However, the discomfort returned with many hours of mouse use, that prompted me to look for ways to use the comptuer with minimum use of the mouse.

How to use computer with minium use of the mouse

Gmail shortcuts

I spend one to two hours everyday on my email using Gmail as the mail client. I learnt that it’s in fact possible to configure Gmail to use keyboard short cuts. This is a very convenient way to use Gmail. Even when you have the option of using the mouse, using Gmail shortcuts can be faster.

Mouseless Browsing

I use the web a lot as well as use a lot of hosted services with Firefox as my browser. The Firefox plugin: Mouselss Browsing allows one to perform almost all operations on the browser without using the mouse. Although it takes a while to get used it I found it quite effective.

Exercises

Although all these changes helped, they did not completely cure me. So, I bought the book: Conquering Carpal Tunnel Syndrome from amazon.

I am glad I bought the book as following the simple exercises mentioned in the book gave me instant relief.

I continue to follow the exercises and use correct posture when I work at the computer. Even though I still have a little bit of pain, it is gradually reducing, and it has not prevented me from spending many hours at the computer.

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