Actionable Agile Metrics for Predictability by Daniel S. Vacanti, Re-read Saturday Week 1: Introduction and Game Plan

A New Copy!

Today we begin the re-read of Daniel S. Vacanti’s Actionable Agile Metrics for Predictability. Actionable Agile Metrics (Leanpub, 2015) is 17 chapters with a preface and bibliography across 307 pages. Buy your copy today and read along!

Re-read Game Plan:

Vacanti indicates that he wrote the book to be read in a serial fashion, chapter by chapter, even though each chapter can be read and used alone. My re-read plan is to read and review the material a chapter a week. If the pacing is too slow I will combine chapters. This has been the standard re-read approach. A new twist that we will add to this re-read is that after every three chapters I will host a group discussion that will be posted on the Software Process and Measurement feed. If this new twist doesn’t work I will come back and delete these sentences! Our current plan is to complete the re-read in 19 weeks (tentatively completed on February 17th).

Preface:

The first couple of lines in the preface lays down the gauntlet for the rest of the book. Vacanti states, “ Your process is unpredictable. What you may not realize, though, is that you are the one responsible for making it that way.” Most teams begin work faster than they complete work. I call this the “Say Yes syndrome. As a homebrewer, this is a disaster that I have experienced. As part of the brewing process, hot water is passed through the grain to wash out fermentable sugars. The water passes through the grain slowly so that it is converted into the wort. When too much water is poured into the grain bed, a mess ensues. The same outcome occurs when teams continually accept more than they complete. Vacanti uses the metaphor of a denial of service attack: a self-inflicted denial of service attack. The metrics in the book focus on teams become more predictable.

The majority of the Preface tells the reader how to use the book. The book is designed to be read in chapter order, as noted earlier; however, after my first read, I have used the book as a reference going back and reading specific chapters. In the “how to read” section the Preface includes highlights from each chapter.

The Preface concludes with links to the ActionableAgile Analytics tool Vacanti used to generate the charts.

Next week we dive into the deep end. If you don’t own a copy of the book, now is the time to buy a copy and prepare to read along!

All Installments
Introduction and Game Plan

Week 2: Flow, Flow Metrics, and Predictability

Week 3: The Basics of Flow Metrics

Week 4: An Introduction to Little’s Law

Week 5: Introduction to CFDs

Week 6: Workflow Metrics and CFDs

Week 7: Flow Metrics and CFSs

Week 8: Conservation of Flow, Part I

Week 9: Conservation of Flow, Part II

Week 10: Flow Debt