Agile on the Art of Software

7 essential Q & A on tech start-up and entrepreneurial foundation

2011-11-14T18:11:00.001+02:00

In a interesting Skype conversation , a dear friend and I had the following Q&A which focused on essential points about founders relations, pre and early days for a technology start-up.

Host: How to divide equity among software start-up founders to achieve fair distribution and sustainability for the start-up?
Mouneer: equity is relative to risk, the first risk is the seed funding so this can give you initial assessment on how to divide things; based on share of the initial funding, then comes the time at which a founder started with the start-up. If there are 3 persons who started the whole thing, they get bigger shares, since they took on more risk, in other words at which stage a dude joined the group of founder.
Then comes the hires, the emloyees that founders hire; are they willing to take equity to compesnate part of their package OR they are totally risk-averse and they are only interested in "safe" salary.
This is the quick answer in a nutshell.

Host: right

Host: if it's software startup and doesn't need much capital investment in the beginning. The investment is in effort .. how can you quantify dividing shares ?
Mouneer: interesting; this brings us to a very important factor which is the type of contribution.
Let's say there are 3 of you, one of is the contributor of the patent of the breakthrough idea on which the company will be based, and the 2 are great in execution and business; in this case the valuation is arbitrary
and is based on TRUST amongst you. Yet for me it would seem that the techy dude gets a bit bigger share than the other two.

A great book on reflection

Host: I see. How can you guarantee the start-up sustainability after everyone has got his defined share in the company .. how to protect the company from its owners possible fuzzy attitudes :) ?
Mouneer::) well, to begin with, it is essential to elect a leader.
The group need to have a leader and always reflect; periodical retrospectives are essential to see how you are doing on Business, on Execution Process. on Technology Challenges , AND on people dynamics and relations at your start-up.

Just as important, you have to agree on principles and values that your start-up will operate accordingly, and also agree on ROLES of each founder dudes. Remember that simple rules that will guide the relationship are extremely important.
Work iteratively on "what if scenarios", what if we disagreed on the choice of technology stack, architecture model, buy vs. built a component? what if we have different opinion on details of the business model and/or timing of potential business model growth?

[I do recommend Business Model Generation book here]

Host: great .. in these what ifs .. what if someone decided to leave and join another venture or work for a multinational company .. how can this be handled .. the company is mainly built on efforts and shares will reflect those efforts and commitments ?

Mouneer: I see your point, your fear is valid BUT , it is part of the risk you are willing to take; this takes us back to the choice of "los amigoz", the founders. The very initial choice of the partners. Remember such risk comes with the package :)
Read point number 4 in my previous blog post here 7 rules towards successful entrepreneurial business

Mouneer: do you know about the bus-syndrome?
Host: no,what is it ?
Mouneer: it is when a developer or a founder is hit by a bus on his way to the office :)
this is part of everyday life risks, we only try our best to select our partners, a wife when selecting a husband and vice-versa a partner when selecting a co-founder and then it is fate, serendipity or lack of it.

Host: yeah , sure .. nice example, but I meant the exact situation which is choosing to leave .. that's to protect the company not me or my partners .. even if I left .. I don't want the company to get destroyed because I left .. but in case of any bus syndrome events .. it's something you didn't decide about .. it happened to you and was not chosen by you so you don't carry its responsibility

Mouneer: My belief is that a risk-taker cannot catch ALL exceptions, you cannot handle all exceptions.
A start-up is in inevitable risk in its early days/months; and value is based on the collective values that its members/founders create. Once it takes off, the start-up is past its infancy and it can cruise control on its own if wisely, intensely and passionately run.
Mouneer: I believe one cannot build a company that's bus-syndrome-proof since day one ESPECIALLY a tech start-up.
Host: Great, this is very helpful.

Host: How can we document our agreements and make a contract that guides them?
Mouneer: You can improvise. But bear in mind that trust is more important than any written agreements, especially in Egypt where such legal documents are not really binding.
A very simple agreement written and signed is not legally binding , it is more of a moral reminder that we have an agreement; in other words, if a dude wants to quit, it is not the piece of paper that will prevent him; you know what I mean?
Host: yeah, sure, he will quit anyway :D

Host: but such a document can be important to protect the company sustainability and other partners from any decision taken by one of the partners to quit
Mouneer: Sure; that's why it is advisable to have legal papers agreed upon and signed
Just BUT don't over do it; make it simple.
Host: thank you very much Mouneer.
Mouneer: most welcome, certainly my pleasure.
Best of luck!

How do you prevent scope creep in agile projects when usability testing?

2011-08-12T04:02:00.002+02:00

The question "How do you prevent scope creep in agile projects when usability testing?" was posted on Quora.com and since sign-up to this site is invitation only, I thought I'd try to answer this question here:

In a fixed time and/or fixed "scope" projects the struggle is to attempt to fit as many features as possible within the pre-set time span, and to guess the best possible set of features that will satisfy both users' and stakeholders' needs and goals. in our team we came to learn that editing, prioritizing and re-prioritizing the always growing backlog to fit into a certain timebox is best done thru collaboration of product owners and UX folks (and the rest of team) using models like "Kano Model" or the model where you can slice and distribute features/MMF/MVF (or whatever you call it) into essential, safety, convenience and luxury categories; then continuously expose your daily, weekly etc.. decisions to both project goals and actual users and stakeholders feedback (after each iteration, release, cycle). Jeff Patton has some great insights on this very topic that have been of great help www.agileproductdesign.com

More to come on this topic soon.

How NOT to get promoted to your level of incompetence

2011-04-27T23:03:00.001+02:00

Many of the software companies in Egypt are following management ideas that are not only harming their business but also harming the career path of the "mind workers" AKA employees.

Whatever your role is in a software team or company, it is inevitable that you think the promotion usually means taking a managerial position. Sounds good, right? more money, a better office, a big fat title.

Think again, especially if you into software because this is what you love to do. Think again before you are promoted to a level of incompetence which happens when you are mechanically assigned to do something that you really don't enjoy; you are doing it, because you believe that "this is how it is done, junior, senior, lead, leader, project manager, department manager, director".

This is a cliché or pattern trap; we are trapped into the patterns and terminologies of traditional management:

hierarchy
subordinates
management executives
project management
subordinates
directly report to
etc.

We are blindly following without even considering that there might be other ways; just like a fish that discovers the existence of water, when she is out of the sea.

Before getting excited about a promotion to be a project manager; think first:

is this really what I want to do?
what my real passion is about?
is there other ways to get promoted into the path of my passion?

If you are a programmer with a passion to write code , solve problems and build great software; you don't necessarily have to become a PM (project manager) at a point in time if you don't want to. Here's one possible alternative path for you:

programmer
experienced agonistic programmer in several technologies
experienced programmers in technical excellence programming and design techniques
specialized senior programmer in a broad technology stack
technical team mentor and a senior programmer
technology architect
senior architect
R & D unit chief engineer OR programmers mentor and trainer
technical director OR technology and technical excellence mentor and trainer (yet still a programmer)
have your own technology start-up with partners where you complement one another.

Here's an iconic example for programmers: Robert C Martin aka "Uncle Bob":

"Robert C. Martin has been a software professional since 1970. In the last 35 years, he has worked in various capacities on literally hundreds of software projects. He has authored "landmark" books on Agile Programming, Extreme Programming, UML, Object-Oriented Programming, and C++ Programming. He has published dozens of articles in various trade journals. Today, He is one of the software industry's leading authorities on Agile software development and is a regular speaker at international conferences and trade shows. He is a former editor of the C++ Report and currently writes a monthly Craftsman column forSoftware Development magazine.

Mr. Martin is the founder, CEO, and president of Object Mentor Incorporated. Object Mentor is a sister company to Object Mentor International. Like OMI, Object Mentor is comprised of highly experienced software professionals who provide process improvement consulting, object-oriented software design consulting , training, and development services to major corporations around the world."

Start now to consider your options and be one of a kind in your area before blindly becoming yet-anther-PM!

I will keep adding more options for the various functions found in the software community. Please share your suggestions.

metaphor for the creation of software

2011-04-14T09:12:00.000+02:00

People, People, People steering their own process with agility while incrementally discovering about the software and delivering it with skills and excellence.

Click here for a bigger version of the sketch

Are You in A Winning Team?

2011-01-07T18:34:00.003+02:00

People in the making of software; when you discover your winning team, work your a** out to stick to that team; it does not matter then whether you do agile, lean, waterfall, fountain, CMMI level X, ad-hoc or whatever, why?

Because you are success will be augmented
Because you will keep learning
Because you will be in the state of doing what you love without the disturbing noise of an often-storming teams
Because the team will help you grow exponentially
I hate to say this word, but I will -synergy- :)

How do I know I'm in the right team?

you are able as a team to produce results NOT status reports and justification and blame emails and meetings
you are looking forward to go back to work everyday
you are learning something new everyday
you trust that everyone in the team and trusting their intentions to produce positive results, outcome (in our case working software and a happy user)
you and your team when facing problems, you focus on root causes and how to solve the problem at hand rather than on circumstantial events and blaming

WARNING: if you notice that a team member is focusing on maximizing his/her own wins and securing their position regardless of the collective outcome nor the well-being of the team, then DO something about it or RUN! because "any team will perform to the level of the person who cares the least about what the team is doing" quoting Christopher Avery. This means if you really care about what the team is doing and you do nothing about the least performer, you and your team will only achieve just as little as that least person who cares.

I worked with quite a few great teams and I'm so lucky to continue to work with one of the most effective trustworthy high performing team now that I'm going to work my a** out to stick to and grow.

For a great source on teams in software and other domains, I highly recommend Christopher Avery's blog and sessions here http://www.christopheravery.com/agile-teams. And here's an interesting video and presentation by Mr. Avery http://www.infoq.com/presentations/teamwork-an-individual-skill.

Matrix "I know Kung Fu!" method of learning; is it here yet?

2010-12-27T14:15:00.003+02:00

More Arabic audio books available here. Click Here

Yes, it is the same topic again, Audio Books and Podcasts. Until the time learning becomes as easy as they used to do it on Matrix the movie like when Neo learnt Jujitsu in a jiffy :

I so believe that one (if not the only) accelerated learning tools available is audio books.

But isn't video more superior than audio version of any knowledge? Yes it is, and No it is not! here's why:

You can augment the value of your time vertically by listening to an audio book while doing something else; stuff like but not limited to the following: driving, running, walking, cooking etc.. In case of a video version, you cannot do that.
While video version might be superior since it engages the visual sense as well, the audio version of knowledge is an imagination igniter; it keeps your mind in a continuous active state of visualizing and linking what you are hearing with your experiences and previous knowledge.
You can harvest a lot of knowledge in so little time; have you ever thought that you can read 2 books or more in a week!

The benefits of exposing one's mind to various knowledge areas are countless; this is beneficial to one's professional, social and spiritual life. If you think reading and learning is a lengthy process and you hardly have the time to finish your work and have some fun, then you definitely need to consider Audio Books now.

The pace of discoveries, inventions, knowledge is accelerating exponentially; listening to Audio Books is just one way to help us keep up with this pace. Whether you have an iphone, ipod, zune, a mobile phone that plays music, an MP3 player, a flash that goes into your car audio system that has a USB interface, then all you need now are the books. You can buy , borrow, or download them.

Many Arabic literature audio books are available for free download. Click Here!

More Arabic audio books available here. Click Here

Hundreds of audiobooks , and you may also volunteer to contribute to the recording of the books . Click Here:

LibriVox Fundamental Principles

Librivox is a non-commercial, non-profit and ad-free project
Librivox donates its recordings to the public domain
Librivox is powered by volunteers
Librivox maintains a loose and open structure
Librivox welcomes all volunteers from across the globe, in all languages

Start listening now!

Portable White board: Effective discussions using the A3 method.

2010-11-09T00:52:00.002+02:00

The A3 effective meetings

The easiest way for effective out-of-the-office discussions/meetings.

http://www.agileproductdesign.com/ Jeff Patton

Recently I have started a new way to conduct productive meetings or discussions; I call this simple setting "The A3". Anyone who enjoys conducting discussions to solve problems, explain ideas, or explore solutions through simple sketching on a whiteboard or a flipchart, will certainly find The A3 very useful.

The source of inspiration to do that are:

The back of the napkin book. http://www.amazon.com/Back-Napkin-Solving-Problems-Pictures/dp/1591841992
The RSA Animate amazing videos. http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/videos/
and recently how Edward De Bono , the lateral thinking guru conducts his seminars. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_de_Bono
Alistair Cockburn communication effectiveness diagram

Using pictures, graphs and drawings is very effective in getting every discussion participant on the same page; as humans we ignore the important visual aspect of conveying our thoughts and only rely on spoken or written words. The communication fidelity is at maximum when a group of people is doing their discussion on a white board or a big white paper with sharpies.

The book that I have been recommending is "The back of a napkin" that explains with beautiful simplicity why, and how to use sketching for conveying thoughts between people.

Now here’s what you can do to get started with the A3:

1. Get a dozen or more of A3 white papers and always carry them in you.

2. Get fine Sharpie (permanent ink pen) in 4 different colors; red, blue, black, green. You may have yellow and other colors as well.

3. Next time you meet with someone or a group of maximum 4 people in a café , during lunch or anywhere where there are no whiteboards or flipcharts, spread an A3 paper sheet or A3 transparent sheet (for reuse) and use it as your discussion board.

Alright, I have the A3 , the color sharpies and my friend sitting at Starbucks and ready to discuss a new business idea, to decide topics for our next community gathering, to come out with the first version of your school project presentation, or to explain a difficult physics topic , what do we do next?

The answer is : start utilizing the power or drawing and put your hands, eyes and mind’s eyes into action; draw mind maps, charts , graphs, objects, people, timelines, formulas etc... to communicate. Start practicing and maybe read more about mind mapping , simple sketching, and how our mind works. You will be amazed of how much we are missing for not using the visual factor in conveying thoughts.

Reasons to use for the A3 method:

1. It is the portal/mobile flipchart.

2. It helps having a focused meeting/discussion.

3. It gets your discussion to have a time rhythm rather than having an open ended discussion. Once the A3 is full, this signals the end of a cycle. You can then stop and review what you have reached at that point and decide if you need another cycle.

4. It is very engaging.

5. It is an archive with mental images to your discussions.

Try it and post your feedback.

See the following videos for how useful sketching is and how effective it is a a method of communication:

7 rules for successful entrepreneurial business

2010-11-03T18:54:00.001+02:00

There's clearly an entrepreneurial/start-up spirit in the air in Egypt; there's also a great deal of support activities from the community and the government entities.

Here are my 7 rules towards successful entrepreneurial business; consider them my 2 cents advice on what an entrepreneur needs:

You must have a dream. Visualize the dream behind what you want to accomplish; a hint: something other than making money ;). Watch this video How great leaders inspire action.
Find yourself mentor(s). A mentor is a consultant guides and coaches you without asking for money :). They can provide you guidance when they feel your passion for the dream.
Learn the basic skills of running a business. Things like essential accounting and how to manage money. You may want to read The One Minute Entrepreneur, a very useful quick guide for starting your own business and growing it successfully.
Find the right partner(s) and the right team who share the same dream and make sure you guys complement each others. Agree on the roles each will play. And remember, an all-drummers group does not make a musical band.
Learn and understand 3 things in the domain of your work: Business, Technical and People aspects.
READ, READ, READ like crazy in all topics. (You may want to consider audio books and podcasts as well! Read this on the advantages of audio books "3 Reasons why everyone must start listening to audio books"
Learn the difference between bootstrapping, venture capital , and angel investment funding to wisely decide how you are going to fund your start-up (more on that in the next blog post).

Think of why you want to have your own business, then consider what you want to do, then how you will do; work so darn hard and wise, then the money will come.

If you are just looking to get rich, then just ignore all that and do whatever you want to do.

Please share your advice.

Women in Software

2010-08-13T09:34:00.000+02:00

Women in IT or Software:

The Observation is that the number of women in Software or IT who attended QCon 2010 London was very small, around 2 or 3 % of the attendants were women. This is nothing compared to the number of women attending agile 2010. The percentage of women attending Agile 2010 maybe somewhere around 40%. (these numbers are based on my observations and they don't reflect actual statistics).

QCon focus more on technical aspects of software development while Agile 200X harnesses more diverse topics related to enhancing the software development life cycle in general with somehow equally distributed sessions and workshops for technical and non-technical subjects.

My interpretation is that women in software are more into business, quality, team facilitation, and management rather than programming and operation. And this could explain the huge difference in numbers of women attending two events like QCon 2010 London and Agile 2010.

Please post your explanations to this observation.

3 Reasons Why Everyone Must Start Listening to Audiobooks & Podcasts

2010-06-07T11:07:00.000+03:00

Picture yourself happy and smiling amidst all the frustrated drivers stuck in rush hours traffic? Yes, this is possible; here's one way to become the happy driver :)

Audiobooks and Podcasts are 2 great ways to learn, they are just as important as reading books and articles in any domain of interest. Here are the 3 reasons why everyone must start listening to audiobooks and podcasts:

Double your positive time utilization: Audiobooks and podcasts are extremely efficient ways of learning; one can learn just about any topics while doing something else like listening to a book or podcast while running, walking, driving, cooking or even cleaning the house!
It is like Reading on Steroids!: Listening to a topic gets your mind engaged in a fascinating way, your brain is always engaged, visualizing and imagining what you are listening to, relating what you hear to your work, and life if you ever listened to radio, you will definitely know what I'm talking about; if not, then you must start listening to your first podcast or audiobook NOW!
You will not fall asleep while listening (usually :)): In our activities-packed lifestyle, listening rather than reading gives us a new way for getting focused knowledge fast, and better yet, since you are usually listening to a book or a podcast while doing something else, you will hardly fall asleep.

Start NOW:

Podcasts are free, make use of that if you have an iPhone or an iPod, check it out at Apple's podcast site http://www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/
Many audiobooks are free at Gutenberg project http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/scores/top
You can always invest in buying audiobooks at Amazon as well.

Learn and Enjoy

Introduction to Agile and Lean Software Development for University Staff and Students

2010-05-02T00:01:00.000+03:00

During the month of April, 2010, I had the chance to present an introduction to agile and lean concepts and methods in software development for university staff and students in several places in Cairo:

Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, at "Code Camp Reloaded" event for a group of students.
Faculty of Computer Science, Ain Shams University, at Student Group COMPASS event for a group of students.
Faculty of Computer Science, MIU Misr International University, for a group of staff and students.

A short description of the session will be available soon. meanwhile, you can view and download the presentation from the following link; Agile Introduction in Academia Presentation

Technologies in Egypt e-government services

2010-03-16T08:13:00.000+02:00

Here are the answers in response to the question:
How do you feel when all Egypt e-gov services are based on Microsoft, Oracle & IBM proprietary technologies?

Yasser Makram: This is the difference between employees and visionary leaders, an employee will go for the safe option and the big name not to get fired. A visionary leader will take risk and value the independence from proprietary companies and invest in the growth of local talents.

M Tantawy: this makes one feel "e7na mad7ook 3alena gamed" :S

Heba Ammar: Thrilled when the website loads then extremely frustrated when I discover that the services i want r not working ! irrelevant answer but this is what pops up in my mind whenever anyone mentions egov services

Mohamed Elnady: 3ady , mezabateen

Ahmed Abdelhameed: I feel that we rock :P

Amr Aboelel: popular commercial technologies ya mouneer! there is no trust in Egyptian S/W (if any) :))

and more to come on this topic ...

chronicles of a UX and agile project: from early failure to "disputed" success

2010-03-08T11:36:00.000+02:00

This is the synopsis for the experience report I submitted to agile2010 conference. Please review and send me your feedack
The report will show an interesting experience for an agile project with “disputed” success; with the biggest winner being UX user experience. The chronicles will tell the story from RFP all the way through the second successful release; the challenges, failures, and successes of an agile method. What will be highlighted the most is how agile and basic UX practices were utilized to discover the users real needs and their barriers to accept a new enterprise system. This report touches the importance of team unity, team members qualifications, and the concept of agile generalized specialist.

Learning outcomes:

How UX can succeed with agile
Qualified general specialist UX designers/developers are pivotal for project success
How to be prepared for agile to expose problems early
How root cause analysis is needed in dealing with challenges in agile teams
How to facilitate effective discussion on the what and how of features between customer, UX designer and team

"Developers" for Human-Centric Applications

2010-03-02T01:45:00.000+02:00

A great software community event just took place in Cairo, CairoCodeCamp where Yasser Makram and I got the chance to introduce the concepts of experience (UX) applications and how to think of their development as craft-based practices to achieve the right balance and satisfy user needs.

We tried to avoid the use of terms agile or lean till the end of the session in order to have attention focused on UX and the definition of developers. We referred to a developer as any member in a software development team where everyone is sharing in the development of a successful solution that achieve the balanced richness and reach to its intended users.

We also built on Alan Cooper's ideas about how the UX designer/developer needs to be committed to the creation of the software just as any other member in the team particularly the programmer; and what they need to do to achieve that. We emphasized that Rich User Experience is not always about beauty, not always about having a lot of features, not always about fancy animation , and certainly not always about absolute ease of use. We put together a definition for the term that it is the complete human experience that is enriched through the interaction of human senses and sufficient use of SW, HW, and effects.

We added that in anything we do or make there are 3 aspects:
• Mechanical aspect
• Mental aspect
• Emotional aspect
And we craft a software solution for success we need to think of the three aspects.

There are many technologies, platforms and tools for creating rich UX applications and products, we must not get stuck on certain path but we need to make the choice that helps:
• Achieve the right experience
• Multiple levels of experience
• Pay attention to the difference between the 1st experience and the continuous one
• And always be directed towards serving the user needs.

Finally we showed a high level description of a process for creating great UX applications based on Jeff Patton's recommendations and our recent successful experience.

Thanks for everyone who attended the session and we are really thrilled for the overwhelmingly positive feedback from Adel, Walaa, Ahmed Shreef, and MemoZiner .

The presentation is available for download as PDF here.

Agile Capability, Maturity, Integration for People

2010-01-24T18:17:00.002+02:00

Inspired by Alistaire Cockburn's Aikido learning Shu-Ha-Ri model and the CMMI framework, I came to think of personal and professional growth in a model that I refer to with CMI Capability, Maturity , Integration.
Everday in our life we get to learn a new "Capability" or a new way of acheiving a certain goal; we get to nurture this capability and perfect it through learning from others, reading, trying and failing, practicing till we reach a certain level of "Maturity". While doing that we learn other "Capabilities", and the cycle starts again and again. At a point in time, we start to have a mash-up of of "Capabilities" in varying levels of "Maturity" and without realizing it, we grow an interconnected mesh of "Integrated" "Mature" "Capabilities".
In software development paradigm, only those who became aware of and work relentlessly, iteratively, and incrementally towards "Integration", are the ones who make change and lead the pack.
Start now, always seek "Integration", for it is only then you shall realize true value of your actions and postively influence others.
Read and watch Christopher Avery's blog "Will Smith on Living and Success" http://www.christopheravery.com/blog/will-smith-on-living-and-success/ writings and speeches!

An attempt to answer "wondering about project managers"

2009-10-22T07:03:00.000+02:00

A blog post by Shady "Wondering About Project Managers" triggered me to participate in answering his posted questions.

The first question was: Should PMs know the ask much about technical decisions?
let's first try to see what the PM role involves. there's the perceived and unfortunately deeply rooted notion that a PM is the "bad guy" who:

doesn't trust the team
uses command and control
is usually a dictator
has to report a "status" every now and then
wants to have to final word on all decisions (technical or anything else!)
is "ultimately responsible" for success
and is NOT the one to blame when the project is failing
what else?

If this is how we think of PMs or if the PMs we are working with are like that, then I would say it does not matter what the best mode of operation is between a PM and the rest of the team. It would not matter whether the PM asks much about technical decision or even impose certain technical decisions. Why it does not matter? because this would be a troubled team in a non-ending stage of "storming"; the ongoing outcome is demotivated team members and eventually a challenged or a failing project or a dissatisfied customer. If I cannot help the team move from "storming" to "norming" and into "performing" then "adjourning (see Software Project Manager's Bridge to Agility , by by Michele Sliger; Stacia Broderick) , then I would run :)

Maybe this did not answer the question; I will give it another shot: if the PM is truly a servant leader, then there will be trust and hence there will be collaboration where everyone can contribute with knowledge and experience towards the vision and goals of the project/product, towards "success". So yes, within a good team, anyone can ask questions technical or not provided that the discussions are properly facilitated and "waste" is eliminated; a performing team.

The second question was: In an agile process, where should PMs stand? What exactly is their Role? Should there be PMs in agile in the first place? Or Should they be replaced by a PO (Product Owner), or -may be- a Scrum Masters?

Now this is an excellent question to shift direction from the old terminology "PM" to the evolving terms of agile "PO", "Scrum Master"or "Agile Team Coach". Here's my attempt to answer that:
We can identify the following roles in an agile team:

hats, and caps

Product Owner
Scrum Master/Agile Team Coach
Developer
UX designer/developer
QA/Tester
Business Analyst
Architect
PO and Scrum Master/Agile Coach
PO and CM roles
Product Manager
DBA?
Technical Writer
Support Engineer
Project Manager (maybe?)

In Agile teams it is not about who can replace who, but I believe it is about who can assume which role(s), and whether the same person can assume more than role or wear multiple hats.
I suggest that the role of PM can be split into 2 different roles PO and Scrum Master/Coach. It would ideal to have a person focusing on role of PO (especially for medium and bigger products) and another playing the SM/Coach role (although this role can be taken by any person who "can" do it plus performing his/her role as developer, tester etc..).

Role of PO is concentrated with Why and What, while that of SM/Coach is about How and When. Yet collaboration, reflection (on process, tools, features) , and trust are ESSENTIAL.

Currently at Santeon , I'm a member of a wonderful team where I carry 2 hats, that of a PO and another of SM. It is not easy though, and I'm learning a lot every day.

More to come ......

Jeff Patton & David Hussman explaining User Stories Mapping at Agile 2009 in Chicago.

Agile Methodologies, trend or what?

2008-09-28T06:08:00.000+02:00

Alright, there's so much nowadays on agile software development methodologies; is it just hype? is it just a new trend in the profession "software"?

No it certainly is not; I'm relatively new to this "agile way" and from what I have been experiencing so far, this"agile way" is definitely "the" way, the holy grail of this art of software development. Agile methodologies are not policies and procedures, they are not a set of rigid ways to create software; they are so "cool"! so cool? Yes, ask anyone these days how they like "facebook", they'd go "facebook! it is so cool!".
We usually dub things as cool when they are so much in line with what we want and what we need; when they give us ways of doing things better, faster, or in brief, when they click with what we have in mind, yet we did not know about it.

That's why agility in software development is so darn cool! it is the as cool and neat as object-oriented design and development has been to software. We so wanted things to be agile on software yet we did not know it till it evolved and matured.

There's a lot to talk about when the word "agile" is heard; you'd hear praises, "not bad" comments, resistance comments; you'd hear experiences, advice, unique experiences stories and more.