I remember. Look forward. Backwards. A day. Never to come. Looked for the words of a singer in a band. Lyrics with the 1991 If I Die, I Die… CD. Crazy. Lost the words. Bought the CD in 1998 during our honeymoon in… Ireland.

But it took until 2004 for Gavin Friday to restore the real grandeur of this Virgin Prunes master piece. And he even managed to reinforce the original brown and blue parts.
The sides I always saw as the spiritual and the earth side.

The brown side is extended with Dave-ID Is Dead, following Pagan Love Song, before Fàdo (formerly unknown to me) melancholically ends it. I didn’t know Dave-ID was dead before the 1993 ‘Pagan Love Song’ EP (‘Tormentallama’ and ‘Vibeakimbo’ mixes and my beloved Lovelornalimbo).

Chance Of A Lifetime went from black to blue (originally on my The Faculties of A Broken Heart 45″), making way for Yeo (formerly unknown to me) to close side and album. The recurring piano tunes of Fàdo and Yeo seem subtle hints at the re-gained balance of the album. 2 x 7 = 14 and the re-issues are YEO1 to YEO5

The loss of the original cover picture is compensated by the enhanced booklet. Immersed in the spiritual and earth feels.
Never before released pictures. Ghosts. Forest people. Another tribal side of the band (remember the on-stage pigheads and Pig Children imagery). Colin Newman granted a revenge with the ‘director’s cut’ of Baby Turns Blue.

Whatever happened to Emancipation Act 72/3/4?
Did it die with its sole signatory in 1996?

{
’t matig machtige is nooit genoeg te doen
aan het doel        allicht        middelmatig
tot licht
vertier
van ’t nut
gesteld

Een woord verdicht tot gedicht
is van tijd ontboeid          daar
waar 1 minuut niet denken moet
illuster  slechts  behouden  moet
sub in ratio van illusie en niet echt
ont ____________________hecht

de sommatie van een cliché en een dag is niets
middelmachtigheid is onvoldoende middelmatig
}

My My.Fragility framework adds my insights for fixed price (-negotiable scope) projects to XP and Scrum.

I included a Product Backlog Estimation model to calculate a total price using my Definition Of Agile Planning. And on top of User Stories and Story Points the Sizing of User Stories is to be considered:

The right size of a User Story is 0,5-5 ideal days (di) (ideal time = Story Points). For development. To be invEST. To comfortably fit a Sprint.

• Epic Stories can be 5-15 di. A size not suited for development but acceptable for estimating. To be split into User Stories.
• Cosmic Stories are >15 di. They can serve only as a beginning to understand a Product, not for estimation or development.
• Tiny Stories are < 0,5 di. To be combined into User Stories.

Note: ‘Minimal Marketable Features’ (MMF) from Kanban can be a set of User Stories. Possibly an Epic Story.

The best base to estimate is experience. When experience is limited, use relative estimates (complexity scaling). I use a 1-2-5 scale:

• Size is set upon complexity to 1-2-5-10-20-50-100-… Always use the higher value if you end up in between two points.
• Find some reference points in your experience to compare.
• Refine until you end up with real estimates (Story Points).

note: Ideal time is development time without breaks, questions, problems or any interrupts. It is multiplied with Velocity to get Planning days.

Peter knows which way to go. And not only because his spaceship knows.

On his personal, newly established, music label Huvolla Peter Murphy has been releasing some Secret Covers, named after his latest concert tour. It started with the John Lennon classic Instant Karma, that was also used in a (JP Morgan) commercial.

Then came David Bowie’s Space Oddity. Peter added his special oriental feel; the one in which his CD Dust was already… covered. The distinct electric violin of Hugh Marsh re-appearing after Dust and Peter’s -incredible- live album Alive (Just For Love).

Next, Peter released the live and cracklin recording (with his band) of Joy Division’s Transmission, performed at the Highline Ballroom (NYC) in July 2009. I remember Bauhaus playing “Isolation” live during their last tour (ever), with Peter already copying some of Ian Curtis’ typical gestures.

Both as solo artist as with Bauhaus, Peter has performed on a number of occasions with Nine Inch Nails. He performed Hurt with Trent Reznor at a radio (FM live) session. I downloaded that one for free. Peter now released it as secret cover #4. And I bought it. Being a collector-fan and to support Peter.

Peter Murphy is a remarkable voice in today’s musical landscape, a position he rightfully gained by being an expressive, committed and original artist. Not because he’s god. Because there is no god.    But god.

I have combined personal insights for fixed price (-negotiable scope) projects with practices from eXtreme Programming and Scrum in my My.Fragility framework.

The main estimation steps from the framework’s Product Backlog Estimation model were highlighted in my Definition Of Agile Planning. But the model also implies at least an understanding of some definitions.

After my definition for User Stories here’s how I use Story Points:

• Story Points equal ideal time (“ti”). But using ‘Story Points’ might prevent people from confusing it with realistic time. The eXtreme Programming notion of Gummy Bears (“Bg”) might be a bit too abstract, although it’s fun to use.
• Ideal time is the development time for a User Story without breaks, questions, problems or interrupts of whatever nature. Spending every minute of every working day on productive coding.
• Ideal time is mulitplied with Velocity (“v”) to estimate Planning time (“tp”). In my experience, an overall velocity of 2,5-3 results in a realistic number of planning days.

planning time (“tp”) = ideal time (“ti”) * Velocity (“v”)

• An alternative definition of Story Points is the number of productive coding hours per day. This is generally accepted as maximum 5-6. Velocity is then expected to be around 1,33.

Note I generally apply an overall Velocity to all User Stories, although my model allows a specific Velocity per User Story, e.g. depending on the expected complexity.

Over various projects I have applied a set of Agile practices from eXtreme Programming and Scrum. Adding personal insights to specifically handle fixed price (-negotiable scope) projects resulted in my My.Fragility framework.

The framework includes a Product Backlog Estimation model, for which the main estimation process steps were highlighted as part of my Definition Of Agile Planning. Furthermore does the model at least imply an understanding of my definition of a User Story:

A User Story describes a feature from an end-user perspective. It is independent of software layers or parts of the project

A User Story can be explained as an essential Use Case

A User Story should be INVEST to be ready for development

• Independent: User Stories have as little interdependence as possible. Resolve it by putting related Stories in the same Sprint
• Negotiable: a User Story is an invitation to discuss implementation. The best design and code result from communication!
• Valuable: a User Story represents effective business value for an end-user
• Estimatable: the size and knowledge on a User Story is sufficient to reliably estimate the Story
• Small: a User Story is small enough to be estimated, developed and tested. It is comfortably realizable in one Sprint
• Testable: a User Story has a clear result that can be tested

1989. A man. Boy. No real man (not like fathers). Locked. Away. Stares. A river. Cries. A river. Need to sleep. Love lost. A fool romantic. Tortured heart. Could have been so good… for you. Eyes that see the world. I have no words. The moon looked down.      And laughed.

2004. Gavin Friday finally succeeds in re-releasing, re-arranging, extending and re-shuffling the complete Virgin Prunes back catalog.

The Moon Looked Down And Laughed got new artwork and Just A Lovesong, the most honest lovesong ever (previously only a ‘rarity’ on Over The Rainbow). Courtesy of Dave-ID and Dave Ball. True Life Story remained with its crazy growling in Russian by Mary’s girlfriend (not on LP but on the New Rose CD). White History Book deleted (previously on the B-side of my “Don’t Look Back”-EP and the New Rose CD).

Preferring Lovelornalimbo (previously on my Our Love Will Last Forever Untill It Dies-EP only) over Love Lasts Forever ultimately removes a slick feeling of compromise. Away with the slightest doubt if -6 years after the Red Nettle statement- they had secretly tried to be ‘the new pop sound of Ireland‘ after all. Sir Poddington beheaded as a treacherous knight.

2009. Still love it! Gav settled things. No sacrilege. No harm done. But I still feel that The Hidden Lie is worthwhile… but Gavin doesn’t. Who am i?

Hier is de vraag, again. Met een dansje (enfin, 12.000 dansjes). Waar blijft het antwoord?

Kippenvel (knappe montage overigens). Dus open je ogen, toon je, via de website, via Facebook, lees Nic Balthazar, loop storm… want vele druppels maken een VLOEDGOLF.

When reviewing Chet Hendrickson’s paper on the evolution of Extreme Programming practices, I was surprised that he completely ignored Kent Beck’s revision of 2004. As does Ron Jeffries’ practices representation, by the way.

5 Years of eXPerience resulted in a complete revision of Extreme Programming Explained. The general tone softened, partial adoption became acceptable and the practices were extended, and divided into primary and secondary practices. Maybe Kent considered XP as under-adopted, but I missed the strong and ahead leadership from v1. No compromise. Working software is the goal. Extreme focus. Programming is the way.

I also felt that in the v2 edition, good ideas were introduced, but good practices were also replaced. Because I instantiate Scrum’s engineering standards with XP practices in my framework My.Fragility, I decided to merge the best of both:

Note: when checking the original Extreme Programming Installed book myself, I wondered (after all these -6- years!) why it did not mention the Coach role. When moving to Scrum after our ‘pure’ XP application, I kept promoting this role. I still do in my My.Fragility framework (on top of Scrum’s Product Owner, Team and ScrumMaster).

And I still don’t known why User Stories was not an explicit XP practice from the beginning…

To review Chet Hendrickson’s retrospective paper on his book Extreme Programming Installed, I went back in time myself. Back to my first experience with Extreme Programming.
In September 2003 I was asked to urgently take on a project as project manager. Customer approval was late but the predicted delivery date remained (December).

A 15 min introduction convinced me of eXtreme Programming. Because so much was incorporated that was traditionally so easily forgotten or overlooked. We convinced management, and off we went (October). After 3 iterations (of 3 weeks) we delivered… in time and on budget!

Because I considered myself too illiterate (after all, we only did it) to present the project at Javapolis 2003, I started reading some books. The inevitable Extreme Programming Explained (‘Embrace Change‘), Planning Extreme Programming and… Extreme Programming Installed. It was remarkable to find that our ‘naive application’ was an extraordinary match with what I was reading. Presentation went very well.

In 2004 I started using Scrum as process and certified as a ScrumMaster. During follow-up projects for our satisfied customer we kept combining Scrum and XP. However, we had to operate within a context of realizing a (negotiable) scope in a given timeframe. So along the way (2004-2006) additional practices, tools and views were embedded, to finally become my My.Fragility* framework.

The framework holds following (partially XP based) Quality Loops:

Implementation of Engineering Standards. To be performed every day:

• A pair writes all code upon a Test First basis (including Selenium GUI tests)
• Checked in code is tested in a Continuous Integration system (multiple times a day) and can be refactored
• A ‘guide’ (additional, explicit role) functionally tests a stable, CI’ed version (multiple times a day) and feeds back results to the team
• A functional working version may be deployed for performance testing (running overnight)

* The name of the framework has its roots in the big relief I felt when morphing from project manager to ScrumMaster. The option to be fragile (agility through fragility), of not constantly having to intimidate people. Because, after all, it’s just a matter of talents and roles, not of… hierarchical slavery.