Daily Scrum 12 – 28.4.2009

Work done

• Generated the GD process diagrams for the article
• made first version of the GD description text

Issues

• Have not been able to work as many hours a week on this than before

Will work next on

• Take a look at the ACM LaTeX article template and set it up for the article
• Describe the GD and LD processes in the article text
• publish the GD and LD process model diagrams for use in the article

Estimated Sprint work left: 8.75

Daily Scrum 11 – 24.4.2009

Work done

• Sprint Review
• Sprint Goal set
• Revised the Sprint backlog with lower level tickets
• Made plans on working on the first tickets

Issues

• Was not able to put a day’s work during the week

Will work next on

• Describe the GD and LD processes in the article text
• publish the GD and LD process model diagrams for use in the article
• describe the first case project in the article text

Estimated Sprint work left: 8.75

Eclipse Process Framework Composer Rocks (well, kind of)

When I was looking for a tool to do the process modeling work with I ended up with Eclipse Process Framework Composer (EPFC). While the UI seemed a bit unintuitive, I was positive it would suffice. After all, the OpenUp people among others had used it to describe their software processes.

After that I’ve alternated between cursing and praising EPFC. The UI is still the biggest hurdle, but when you figure out what to do and what not to, it gets a little bit easier. (I mean, how much better would it be with consistent keyboard shortcuts?)

But it has also dawned to me that with EPFC I can make the fruits of my labor accessible to future users and utilizers more easily than just in the form of a written Ph.D. dissertation. You see, all the tasks, activities, roles and work products that processes are described with in EPFC can have descriptions and guidance, so I can practically include the results of my research in the process models themselves.

In addition to that, there’s a publish feature in EPFC that allows me to publish whole process descriptions (with relationships, descriptions and guidance) into a website. You can see an example of what the published web version of a process library looks like in the EPF Practices Wiki. My goal is to publish the process modeling results related to my research both as a navigatable website and a EPFC method library for everyone to use. Open sourced of course.

Plan for Sprint 3

I have a month and a half before the deadline of my first article, so it seems to be the right time to go for a longer sprint. I’ll make this about four weeks so I’ll still have a choice of adding another shorter sprint before the deadline.

The goal will be to produce a “shippable” version of the article on process inspection and improvement in game-based learning environment development. For the next four weeks I’ll be concentrating on that article alone. If everything goes well I’ll be able to concentrate on the other article after that. If not, I’ll still have a couple of weeks to revise my first article.

The third Sprint will end on May 15th.

Sprint Review – Sprint 2

Overall Success

My goal was to create a basis for both of my articles so that I could write them in time. In retrospect I think I succeeded very well in fulfilling this goal. I submitted my DiGRA abstract in time (and had time to incorporate feedback for it as well) and I created the basis of writing the other one as well (process models and outline).

I didn’t complete all the tasks in the Sprint backlog but as they weren’t crucial for my Sprint goal, that’s all right. I just have to keep working to get the articles finished in time.

What Didn’t Work

• majority of the tickets (tasks) were too broad and not clearly defined. This made working on them harder.

What Did Work

• When the tickets were divided into smaller clearer tasks into another tickets, completing them became much easier.

So, in a nutshell: I’ll try to divide genera high-level tickets into low-level concrete ones as soon as possible. I guess there are many reasons why high-level tickets are harder to work on:

• there’s no way of completing them straight on
• no certainty of what to do first and how to go on from there
• therefore not much feedback on progress so working on them doesn’t provide feedback

Happily I was able to divide the work to more sensible tasks later on in the Sprint which seemed to boost my productivity. But, a note to self: When you get this feeling that you don’t know just how to resolve a ticket, draw a plan and divide it to lower level tickets according to that.

Daily Scrum 10 – 17.4.2009

Work done

• worked out the article chapter outline and outlined the contents of each chapter
• revised the process models made: made model diagrams and described relationships between activities
• added additional tasks to the discipline process models

Issues

• None for now

Will work next on

• Sprint Review
• Next Sprint Goal setting and Sprint Backlog selection

Estimated Sprint work left: 0 (3.75 moved back to backlog)

Sprint Backlog Removed

I removed the print backlog from this blog as I haven’t had time to keep it up-to-date. I still have and use the actual backlog on my trac over on devjavu, but updating it to the blog proved to be too much of a hassle. I’ll make better use of that time writing my Ph. D.

Daily Scrum 9 – 16.4.2009

Work done

• Revised and submitted the DiGRA abstract.
• Described the development processes of the case projects with SPEM, EPFC (not implementation / production phases yet)

Issues

• None for now

Will work next on

• work out the article chapter outline
• revise the process models made

Estimated Sprint work left: 5.1 (most are not crucial for the Sprint goal)

There’s Something Missing

But fortunately only from the pdf’s LaTeX made from my plain text files. I had one too many round bracket opening on one of my heading definitions and because of that there’s half a chapter missing.

The chapter in question is 3. Game Production. I’ll cook new pdf’s when I get around to it.

Daily Scrum 8 – 10.4.2009

Work done

• Wrote the research question section of the article.
• Described game production process (normal, iterative design) with SPEM, EPFC

Issues

• Found out that my dissertation pdf has some stuff missing

Will work next on

• Process modeling the case projects
• work out the article chapter outline

Estimated Sprint work left: 6.25