In English, Amigo

It was sad for me when some friends from Agile-Barcelona community didn't attended to ALE2012 because it was in English. Next week we'll have Rachel Davies in our Coaching Dojo, and there wasn't the enthusiastic response it deserved, I guess because it's in English.

I am lucky to be working in a company where I need to speak English every day, and being exposed is the best way to learn and practice a language. So, organizing events in English in Agile-Barcelona will be the best way to contribute to our improvement.

And thinking about our weakness got me to wonder if contributing on books translations makes good or bad. For my friends who have not had the opportunity to start learning English, having the books translated is the only way to have access to them. For my friends who understand English, having the book translated is an opportunity to be lazy: they won't go out of their comfort zone.

I've decided to help the ones who can not get to the original source. I'm trying to contribute in the translation of two very interesting books: 

• Commitment is a graphic novel by Olav Maassen, Chris Matts and Chris Geary from which you can learn about Real Options. 
• In Who Is Agile, by Yves Hanoulle you can learn about some agilists around the world, agile communities, events, etc.

You can get in touch with me if you want to contribute to the Spahish or Catalan translations.

I've realized that I have to use English more often in this blog, that I won't blog only in English. I will write in English, Catalan or Spanish, whichever I find more appropriate or I feel like. Just because I can.  

ALE2012 energy continues in xALEc

We all agree on the energy we found in ALE2012  in Barcelona. All that crazy-wise people. We were discussing on how to continue with that spirit, waiting until ALE2013, and one of the ideas was xALEc: eXtreme ALE Club.

What's xALEc

Franck Depierre had an amazing idea after ALE2011: perform an on-line Open Space. We have all the tools out there for free, we only have to use them.

Since November 2011 we are meeting every Monday at 21:00 GMT+1. We use a shared document (The xALEc Dashboard) to suggest topics and take record of the meetings. Recently we've created a Facebook group named "xALEc" and a Facebook page. There you can find a description of xALEc written by Tonino Lucca.

I tend to pronounce xALEc as a word, making "x" sound as "sh", and pronouncing ALE similar to the french allez with the final "c". Others pronounce it like x-ALE-c (this time ALE pronounced as the beverage). You can use your own pronunciation.

Technology

We are using Google+ Hangouts, which is a video chat that works from the browser after installing a plug-in. We tend to use the camera and, despite it is not needed, is very useful. It helps also for non native English speakers. We also share documents in the same view and, sometimes, even the whole screen.

We use to publish the link to the hangout on Twitter, using the #xALEc hashtag.

We can have open hangouts (anybody can join) or we can close them to registered people. We try to adapt.

For some people, having to register to Google+ is an inconvenient. If we find better tools, we can use them. Google+ Hangout allows a maximum of 10 participants.

Rules

So far we've used a single Hangout, a single room in an Open Space, but we could use any number of rooms as needed, and we could use the Law of Two Feet (virtually).

Experience

We've had very interesting events about specific topics: DSDM Atern, with Matthew Caine;  Who is Agile, with Yves Hanoulle; Code Retreats, with Adi Bolboaca. But some unplanned hangouts were also great. Check the notes in the doc.

You can read the presentation of xALEc and the description of the first xALEc session that Franck posted in his blog.

Make it better

If there's something you think should be improved, you can reach me and make suggestions. Maybe you don't like Mondays, or the time, or maybe just the name or the technology. Make it better.

ALE2012: when it's over, it's over

The ALE 2012 event was held in my city, in Barcelona. I had the opportunity to attend an international event and I was excited and scared, but I'm completely satisfied.

I've met incredible people, full of energy, eager to share, and I've learnt a lot of things:

• You can deliver working software every hour. You may have horrible bugs, but you'll fix them. (side note: you need a very, very skilled team to achieve this).
• xALEc events every Monday had a purpose. It was like meeting old friends. Thanks Franck, Tony and Kjell.
• It was fun meeting in person Yves, Oana, Jurgen or Adi.
• You can connect Agile and music (thanks Marc).
• Kids don't care about language, but only about you.
• People can have contradicting opinions. Great discussions that make us grow.
• Some hippy and new age things fit particularly well in Agile. "People over..." opens a lot of doors. This is not intrinsically bad.
• I've learnt about responsibility.
• There's nothing more energizing than having a kid on stage.
• My English is just enough for these events. No reason to worry about it.
• I've learnt about facilitation techniques, core protocols, software excellence, retrospectives... 
• I've been able to share this experience with my boss. Lucky me.
• I'm GLAD I've started learning these things and I want to learn more.

I've learnt a lot of things but I wan't to keep the emotions more than the thoughts.

Thanks to all the agilists who brought their families. I didn't dare bringing my children, but was amazing having kids in the event.

I feel a little bit guilty having enjoyed the show, while my friends organizing the event were holding it on their shoulders. Thank you Saket, Jaume, Catia and Michael. And the volunteers. You are ALEsome.

I want another ALE now!

Learning with LEGO

Last week we gathered together in Barcelona members of the team that use to work from Brazil, Ukraine, so we thought it would be a good idea to do some team building activity, and it would be even better if we used the opportunity to show the values of Agile and Scrum to the members who never had used them before.

So, I prepared a game. Two teams of 4 and 5 people each, working collaboratively to build a city using LEGO, with a backlog containing the buildings the be built and a Product Owner available to refine requirements.

I used Alexey Krivitsky's paper, Scrum Simulation with LEGO bricks enhanced with ingredients from Agile42 and my friend Saket.

They organized in two teams, having at least one non Spanish speaking person in each group, and I explained the backlog, the parts of the city to be built or drawn.
Then they estimated the work to be done using swimlane sizing and story points, and did a release planning, planning three sprints ahead.

From then on, the worked against the clock. We did three sprints each of them with 3 minutes plan, 7 minutes work and 3 minutes review.

In the first review the team have not realized they were expected to show "a city", and were arguing the requirements until they understood they were working to build what the Product Owner needed, and they had him available to ask questions if needed. After some User Stories not accepted, finally they succeeded and did a great job.


We included an extra retrospective in the end, and all the process was about 2 hours.

I used the happiness door technique to get feedback from the experience and I cannot be more satisfied :-)

What I learned:

• In this game it's important to have a tight schedule and a visible timer.
• It's a good tool to explore the behavior of the team under stress.
• It's a very effective way to learn Scrum values and build a team.
• They decided to nominate an Scrum Master within one team, but in the retrospective they pointed out that it's role was not used at all.
• The language (almost all were non-native English speakers) was not an issue.
• We run to build, instead to plan and talk, and it's hard to correct this behavior.
• It's easier to build what you think, working on assumptions, than to ask. But far as effective.