Estimating on an Agile project

 Methodologies, Process Methodology, Programming, Projects  No Responses »
May 092013
 

If you’ve ever had any involvement with an Agile project (whether it was “pure” Agile or not), you’ll likely have encountered the beast which is effort forecasting and analysis.  This drives the initial estimate of the amount of work which your team thinks it can deliver within a given period.

Agile sprint
Example of a scrum style sprint
[source]

It doesn’t really matter how big your project is, sizing up the amount of work which can be produced is a time honoured tradition, but how do you know if you’re even in the ballpark of getting your estimates right?

Over at ThoughtWorks Studios, Martin Fowler (and others) have spent significant time and effort in trying to document some conclusions about this very topic and a PDF white paper can be found on the ThoughtWords Studios website.

It’s hardly a light read – at 32 pages – but can you really afford to take estimation lightly?  In a world of commercial agreements, balancing customer or client expectations and attempting to meet tight delivery timelines, getting your estimations accurate is a key step in delivery.

However, in my mind going into this document, it really helps to have a decent view of what it is you are trying to build.  The more uncertainty going into any kind of sizing or storyboarding exercise, the rougher the estimation or analysis is going to be. 

There’s no silver bullet, one-size-fits-all methodology at play here, however this document is a really good read if you are looking to canvass different views and opinions about how to set expectations around Agile delivery.  Be prepared to have your designs challenged, and to field changes as they can (and do) present themselves!

If you aren’t quite ready to dip into the minefield which is Agile planning and forecasting, perhaps you’d find value in another e-book from ThoughtWorks – “How do you develop a shared understanding on an Agile project?”.  Remember, for an Agile project to succeed, everyone needs to play their part – the methodology isn’t just for programmers!

For those who haven’t already gone to visit the ThoughtWorks website, here’s a direct link to the PDF.

Further reading:

Windows Azure Media Services

 Cloud Computing, Infrastructure, Technology, Web Development, Windows Azure  No Responses »
May 052013
 

File this one away for further analysis.  Live or delayed (on demand) content delivered via Windows Azure Media Services. 

Takes advantage of local CDNs and provides a platform for targeted advertising as well as taking advantage of the Azure cloud capabilities (e.g. caching, high availability, etc.).

Azure Media

There’s also a high resolution copy available from the Microsoft downloads site if you’d like to “zoom in” on the salient details. 

What I found to be eye catching?

  • Codecs (H.264, MPEG)
  • Device support (HTML5, Flash, Set Top/Smart TV)
  • Platform support (Windows, iOS, Android)

Sounds interesting?  There are ways to find out more.

Check back here soon as I’ll likely to a more comprehensive write-up in a few weeks.

Enabling the Windows Store

 Technology, Tips and Tricks, Windows  No Responses »
May 032013
 

If you are a user of the new “Windows to Go” feature of Windows 8 Enterprise edition, which enables you to boot and run the Windows 8 operating system off an external USB device, you may have noticed something odd when trying to use the Windows App Store:

no-go

In a nutshell: “Windows Store isn’t available on Windows To Go workspaces”.

How to fix?

This seemed odd to me, I can’t think of any technical reason why this might be the case, especially given Windows to Go still has the full formerly-known-as-Metro user interface.  Then I stumbled across this blog article on the MSDN blogs site which pondered the same question.

It appears that the Windows Store is locked down by Group Policy for unknown reasons, I suspect due to paranoia (key term here is ‘Enterprise’, after all).

I don’t want to steal the thunder of the original article, but for brevity – the steps to unlocking require a change to the system’s group policy.  Here’s a paraphrasing of the steps outlined in the original MSDN blog article:

  1. Open the Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc) – for local policy
  2. Go to Computer Configuration/Administrative templates\Windows Components\Store. Go to the “Allow Store to install apps on Windows To Go workspaces” policy.
  3. Enable & Apply

Sometimes you might want to make this apply right away, to do so open a Command Prompt and gpupdate /force

This worked for me Smile

Note that this applies to the local Group Policy and may be superseded by a domain-level Group Policy.

Still no joy?

If you still have issues, perhaps you may need to make a registry change, first noted here.  This may have unintended consequences but I can’t think of any off the top of my head, so why not give it a try (worst case, you can restore the registry value to the default):

  1. Open the Registry Editor (regedit), you should be prompted for permission elevation (under UAC)
  2. Navigate/expand to the following path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control
  3. Find the following DWORD value: PortableOperatingSystem
  4. Change the value from 1 to 0 and reboot the system

 

If you’ve made these changes, of course you will be able to download the Sanders Technology Digest application – here’s a handy link..  Or why not try the Windows Store directly?

/R

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