Comments for Intention Technology

Comment on Succeeding with Agile: Software Development Using Scrum by W. Menner

W. Menner — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 11:41:04 +0000

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

Excellent Book, January 9, 2010

This review is from: Succeeding with Agile: Software Development Using Scrum (Paperback)

Great content. Great layout. Extremely well-written.

This book is written for people who already have some understanding of Scrum or other agile methods. As such, the book is well-timed. Agile methods have been around long enough that many people and organizations have adopted them and now find themselves dealing with nuances not covered in other literature. So, Cohn fills this void, providing experience-based ideas and solutions for the difficult (but rewarding) efforts that must be made to successfully adopt agile methods.

Part I builds the case for agility by citing positive results from experience, research, and surveys. It goes on to provide "tools" (ideas) for developing the awareness, desire, and ability (skills) that are critical for successful agile adoption. How do you adopt agile methods throughout an organization? Do you "start small" with pilot programs and spread the wealth? Or, do you "go all in," converting your entire organization to agility at the same time? What factors are most important?

In Part II, Cohn contrasts traditional organization and project roles with the roles of Scrum and provides strategies for making the transition and overcoming potential resistance. He also draws from extreme programming to provide insight into the technical practices that developers must learn to maximize the benefits of agility. Cohn then extends his treatment of individual concerns to teams in Part III. How do you structure Scrum teams? What is the nature of teamwork in Scrum? How does leadership manifest itself on Scrum teams? What does a Scrum team's work flow look like? How do they plan? How do they address quality?

Cohn tackles organization-level concerns in Part IV. How do you scale Scrum to large, multi-team projects? What if your teams are distributed across significant geographic distances? How do you handle working with other non-agile teams? What changes might your HR, facilities, and program management staffs need to make? Cohn tackles all of these issues and more.

Also important to note is Cohn's community-driven approach to agile adoption that emphasizes methodology creation (organizations or teams fitting a process to the specific needs of their industry and projects, i.e., one size doesn't fit all) and continual improvement (not getting complacent with best practices). Another interesting book feature is the many "Things to Try Now" call-outs that concisely state Cohn's advice.

In my classroom at JHU, I teach the fundamentals of agile methods from an academic perspective. Also a practitioner, I share my agile experiences to help students apply the material to their projects and organizations. But, my experience pales in comparison to that of Mike Cohn, who has spent several years discovering the nuances of successful agile adoption through his hands-on work helping a large number of organizations transition to agile values, principles, and practices. This book allows me to pass these nuances along to my students. It will also allow all readers to achieve a deeper understanding of the success factors associated with agile methods.

(If you are completely new to Scrum and agile methods, I recommend starting with Ken Schwaber's "Agile Software Development with Scrum" and "Agile Project Management with Scrum." Then read Mike Cohn's "User Stories Applied" and "Agile Estimating and Planning." Follow this up with "The Art of Agile Development" by Shore and Warden. Then read Mike Cohn's "Succeeding with Agile." Of course, there are many other good books on agile methods, but this strategy should serve you well.)

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Comment on Succeeding with Agile: Software Development Using Scrum by Andrew Stellman "author, project manager, pro...

Andrew Stellman "author, project manager, pro... — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 11:11:41 +0000

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

Insightful, practical and a good read, November 5, 2009

Andrew Stellman "author, project manager, pro... (Brooklyn, NY) -

This review is from: Succeeding with Agile: Software Development Using Scrum (Paperback)

I've read many, many books on software teams and building software, and I've written several myself, and I've come across very few books that do as good a job as Succeeding with Agile: Software Development Using Scrum. This book gives great -- and very readable! -- advice, not just for people using Scrum (or even Agile development), but for anyone who is looking to improve the way their team builds software. Mike Cohn deserves a lot of credit for putting together a great book.

If you've tried to change the way that your team builds software, then you know that it's not easy. All too often, even a change that seems simple or straightforward turns into a royal mess, alienating the team and irritating everyone involved without actually making a difference to the final product. That's why "Succeeding with Agile" stands out as a terrific book.

"Succeeding with Agile" is at once enormously practical, deeply insightful, and a pleasure to read. It combines great ideas with stories and examples from around the software industry. It will appeal to a wide range of readers, from those looking to adopt a new company-wide agile process to developers who just need to improve the way a team is running a single project. Mike Cohn does an impressive job of showing readers the ins and outs of agile practices. But what really makes this book stand out as one of the best in the field is the way it explains how to make change happen in the real world. The extensive advice Cohn gives readers will ring true for anyone who has attempted (successfully or not) to convince a group of people that there's a better way of building software.

The ideas in "Succeeding with Agile" are adaptable to work in a wide range of personalities, teams and organizations. Changing the way a team builds software is a difficult business. Mike Cohn points out the pitfalls and obstacles, and shows you multiple paths around them so that you can choose the one that best fits your team. Anyone -- programmer, architect, tester, project manager or someone who just needs to work with a software team -- who wants to learn about how to improve the way that software is built in a company will find a wealth of real-world, practical advice that's easy to read.

(A few other things to note about Mike Cohn: Jennifer Greene and I interviewed Mike in our book, Beautiful Teams: Inspiring and Cautionary Tales from Veteran Team Leaders, and were extremely impressed and entertained with what he had to say. And if you haven't seen his blog -- [...] -- you should definitely check that out as well. He's got a lot of knowledge and real-world experience with improving the way teams build software, and it comes out in his writing. You should do yourself a favor and take advantage of this gem.)

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Comments (2)

Comment on Mead Spiral Notebook, 3-Subject, 120-Count, Wide Ruled, Blue (05746) by Michael Griswold "Michael Griswold"

Michael Griswold "Michael Griswold" — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 06:55:42 +0000

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

There uh...Notebooks, April 22, 2011

Michael Griswold "Michael Griswold" (Rockford, USA) -

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Mead Spiral Notebook, 3-Subject, 120-Count, Wide Ruled, Blue (05746) (Office Product)

As a general rule, the only reason for a person to write a negative review of notebooks is if they have some sort of glaring defect that renders them unuseable such as cover falling off, wire coming unbound so that it stabs you in the hand as you try and write, pages poorly bound together so they fall out all over the ground, notebooks don't come in color described on product page, page density is so thin that your gel pen that smears everything actually bleeds through onto the next page of the notebook, etc. Seeing none of these defects, I have no choice, but to give the product five stars...great quality from Mead once again.

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Comment on Orion SpaceProbe 3 Equatorial Reflector Telescope by Casey L. Pettitt

Casey L. Pettitt — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 14:21:15 +0000

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

Great telescope, January 5, 2010

Casey L. Pettitt (Denton, TX USA) -

This review is from: Orion SpaceProbe 3 Equatorial Reflector Telescope (Electronics)

This is my first telescope. My wife bought it for me for my birthday and the first thing I did after setting it up was took it outside and saw Jupiter! Using the 25mm and 10mm eyepieces that came with it, I was able to see the dark bands around Jupiter (better on the 10mm) and the 4 Galilean moons! I just got 2 more eyepieces for Christmas and am looking forward to trying them out. I haven't gotten any filters yet, but that's next on my wish list.

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Comment on Orion SpaceProbe 3 Equatorial Reflector Telescope by W. Waters "Cat Isis"

W. Waters "Cat Isis" — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 13:54:13 +0000

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

A good scope for the price, November 2, 2009

W. Waters "Cat Isis" (USA) -

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Orion SpaceProbe 3 Equatorial Reflector Telescope (Electronics)

I was worried when I read the other reviews on this product but decided it was the best scope in the price range and went ahead. I think the other reviews do this product a disadvantage. This is a really nice telescope.

One review said it was hard to put together with little instruction. This is not the case. I has step by step instructions that are easily followed. You must pay attention to what you are doing though. Each image in the directions is clear as to which part goes up and the axis for each knob, etc. It takes time to assemble. I did it with my ten year old sister and let her try to figure each direction out and do it and it took us 1.5 hours to assemble. If an adult was doing it probably 45 min. would be about accurate.

Once it is put together it is great. I could easily find things in the sky to look at. I did have trouble aligning the red dot pointer but once on a good object and aligned it is hard to get out of alignment. Constellations are very nice to look at in the scope and the moon and some close planets are spectacular in detail. I was pleased in purchasing this as a gift for a ten year old. Also she was quick to catch on how to use it and it didn't take more than a half hour for her to be finding and adjusting the knobs to get things in focus. I would recommend this for a low-medium priced scope.

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Comment on Orion SpaceProbe 3 Equatorial Reflector Telescope by M. Meckfessel

M. Meckfessel — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 13:03:39 +0000

101 of 101 people found the following review helpful:

Great Telescope!, December 26, 2006

M. Meckfessel (Dallas TX) -

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Orion SpaceProbe 3 Equatorial Reflector Telescope (Electronics)

I bought this telescope for my girlfriend for Christmas. She had been wanting a telescope for sometime so I decided this would be the perfect gift. I was looking for a scope that wouldn't break the bank but wouldn't be a piece of junk either. I looked at models from Meade and Celestron but ultimately decided on this one.

I chose this over the refractor telescopes mainly because it seemed that to look into the refractor scopes would require a lot of bending over whereas this one has the eyepiece closer to eye level which makes viewing easier. Also, go for the equatorial mount, it's much easier to track things in the sky using it as we quickly found out.

Ok, so how was it? Well it came in a big box (which made the g/f crazy with this HUGE gift under the tree!) and everything was nicely and neatly packed. Everything appeard to be of high quality and good build; which is typical of Orion products from what I've read. The instruction maunal on assemble was pretty scarce. Anyone who's pretty handy at building things will be able to figure it out; but it's not the easiest thing either. This is mainly because of a lack of pictures to go along with the assembly steps. Well we got it assembled and waited for dark.

It was pretty cold and we just did some viewing of the moon and a couple of stars from the front yard. A hazy night with tons of light from the street didn't provide the best viewing conditions. That being said the moon looked amazing!! The detail was outstanding. We were able to also see the Orion Nebula and looked at other stars. I can't even imagine what it will look like on a good clear night. We're looking foward to bringing it camping with us where there will be some great viewing. The included software is also extremely useful and fun to use. The software alone is easily worth more than half of the price of this scope. Even if you hate the scope; you can learn a lot of great information from the software.

Overall this is a great scope for the amateur astronomer. It's cheap enough that it won't break the bank (good especially if you're not sure if astronomy is for you) but still plenty good enough for some great viewing. The instruction manual could be better but the quality of the software and of the scope itself more than makes up for the poor manual. I would not hesitate to recommend this to anyone looking for a good budget scope!

*Update* We've had this scope for about 16 months now, and it's fantastic!! We have taken it with us several places camping and have gotten to see some really great stuff. It's fairly easy to find the planets and even a galaxy or two. The only downside is that it takes up a lot of room in the car when we camp; but this would be true for any decent telescope. So not so much a problem with this one specifically, but with telescopes in general. Even to this day, we're still amazed just looking at the moon. The details and "awesomeness" of it never get old. Really looking at everything never gets old. I'm so glad we have this scope!

*December 2010 Update* I thought I would give an additional update. We have had this telescope for 4 years now. It's fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. I cannot recommend it enough. Recently we were looking at Jupiter and could make out all of the Galilean moons as well as being able to make out red striping of the planet itself (still haven't been able to see the great spot!). All of this from the front of our yard in the city. A buddy of mine got a 7" reflector scope, and while his can see much deeper and give better resolution, this one is still tops in my book. It's easy to transport and move around and still provides great viewing. We just love taking it camping with us - get 50 miles out of the city and the "awe factor" grows exponentially. Try taking a huge super powerful scope camping, or seeing anything cool with one of the cheap toy-store ones. For price and features, you can't beat this one.

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Comment on Canon PG-210XL Cartridge (Black) in Retail Packaging by mvconsults

mvconsults — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 18:07:30 +0000

89 of 91 people found the following review helpful:

Ink is Ink: It Gets Used Up FAST, October 31, 2008

mvconsults (San Francisco, CA) -

This review is from: Canon PG-210XL Cartridge (Black) in Retail Packaging (Electronics)

Get the XL cartridges, not the regular PG-210s. According to Canon you get almost 2x more pages, for < 40% more money.

What does that mean? I emptied out my regular 210 cartridge within 1 month of rather light usage on my new Canon MP240 printer. The XL cartridge now in it is < 1/2 full but going on 6 weeks.

Soon 3rd parties will be selling replacements, but I got some OEM Canon carts for $9@ from sellers here on Amazon. You don't have to pay full price.

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Comment on Canon PG-210XL Cartridge (Black) in Retail Packaging by cameokid

cameokid — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 17:48:25 +0000

68 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

signals low ink when more than half full, November 26, 2010

cameokid -

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Canon PG-210XL Cartridge (Black) in Retail Packaging (Electronics)

These cartridges both black and color start signalling low ink levels when you have used less than half. That means you can get good quality copying and printing for much longer.
NET take out the cartridges, gently shake em up then re-install. You will still get the low ink lights but I've made more than 100 copies after those lights appear. Seems to be a ploy to encourage waste of ink and therefore more sales for the cartridges.

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Comment on Toshiba Satellite L655-S5158 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black) by Ceska

Ceska — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 03:30:46 +0000

Happy I purchased Toshiba Satellite L655-S5158. I am probably in the silent majority and normally don’t bother writing a review following a purchase from Amazon unless I am dissatisfied with it. But I have decided to mention how satisfied I am, that this is such a terrific deal and lot of computer for under $500. It seems a lot of poor reviews are related to a noisy fan (not recent purchasers) or customer service. My fan is very quiet when it turns on to cool once in a while. What I do know is that Consumer Reports rates Toshiba Laptops of having more reliability then any other laptop brand, which is important to me. I would recommend this Laptop to anyone

Comment on Rediform DaVinci Notebook, College Rule, 9.25 x 7.25 Inches, Cream, 150 Sheets per Pad (A8005) by LG

LG — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 20:16:55 +0000

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

Beautiful!, November 29, 2009

LG -

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Rediform DaVinci Notebook, College Rule, 9.25 x 7.25 Inches, Cream, 150 Sheets per Pad (A8005) (Office Product)

This journal is beautiful and I love it. The outer material has a nice feel to it, great warm color and looks upscale. The inside is elegantly lined. This is going to be my go to journal from now on. My only complaint is that I wish it had more pages. 150 pages is nice but I would love one with double that amount too.

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