In This Issue

• Top 10 Estimation Best Practices - Leading Answers by Mike Griffiths
• Questioning the Retrospective Prime Directive - Linda Rising
• Leading Volunteers with Agility - Mike Cottmeyer for Agile Chronicles
• Knocking Down Silos: Transitioning the Enterprise to Agile - Guy Beaver for Agile Journal
• Scrum Gathering Conference - April 14-16 in Chicago, IL
• VersionOne Now Offers Hosted Community Edition - More Info

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Top 10 Estimation Best Practices - Mike Griffiths

"I have written a few posts now on estimation and so I thought it was time for a summary. Also, I am planning to create a series of one page best practice summaries / cheat-sheets for agile and this seemed like a good candidate...."

1. User more than one person...
2. Use more than one approach...
3. Agree on what "It" and "Done" mean...
....

Another great post by Mike on his Leading Answers blog. He even supplies a link to an easy-to-print .pdf.

Read the post HERE
(http://leadinganswers.typepad.com/leading_answers/2008/01/top-10-agile-es.html)

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Questioning the Retrospective Prime Directive - Linda Rising for InfoQ

The 'Retrospective Prime Directive' is a practice used by many teams as part of their continuous improvement cycle. As outlined in Norm Kerth's book, it is intended to foster the deep learning that is the heart of a retrospective. This article is an enlightening conversation, captured by Linda Rising, between senior practitioners on the benefits and the challenges of using this practice.

Read the article HERE
(http://www.infoq.com/articles/retrospective-prime-directive)

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Leading Volunteers with Agility - Mike Cottmeyer: Agile Chronicles Blog

Mike Cottmeyer, services team member at VersionOne, has been on a blog writing tear as of late. This is one example of his latest posts that have been very well received.

Mike lists nine things you better be doing if you want to effectively lead a group of volunteers. As a commenter points out and Mike posts as an afterthought, this is an article that goes beyond volunteers and really relates to all teams.

Read the post HERE
(http://www.agilechronicles.com/blog/2008/02/leading-volunte.html)

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Knocking Down Silos: Transitioning the Enterprise to Agile - Guy Beaver for the Agile Journal

In a previous article addressing the challenges of Enterprise Requirements Management, it was suggested that the legacy enterprise organization requires restructuring so that productivity gains promised by Agile methods can take root and grow. At the same time, there is a growing chorus of IT skeptics who are singing about the ineffectiveness of the CIO. Legacy enterprise organizations struggle to stay coupled with business drivers, with the most collaborative relation...

Read the article HERE
(http://www.agilejournal.com/articles/articles/knocking-down-silos:--transitioning-the-enterprise-to-agile.html

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Scrum Gathering - April 14th-16th in Chicago, IL

The Scrum Gathering is an opportunity for Scrum users of all experience levels to gather together to learn about and share experiences with Scrum. Topics for all levels of expertise are offered. The Gathering includes Open Space sessions where you can discuss timely topics with experts and peers in a small group setting. Join the Scrum community in a learning environment!

Learn more or register HERE
(http://www.scrumalliance.org/pages/74)

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VersionOne Now Offers Free Hosted Community Edition

VersionOne recently began offering its popular Community Edition as a free hosted service. Previously only offered as a download for local installation, the community edition is now offered with the same deployment options as the Enterprise version of the software. The only remaining differences between the two editions are a limit of 5 users and no phone or email support for the Community Edition.

Download or request a free subscription HERE
(http://www.versionone.com/communityedition.asp?nl0208)