Older blog entries for jmeskill (starting at number 54)

Why I became a Certified ScrumMaster

On November 22nd I officially became a Certified ScrumMaster (CSM). I went to my CSM training with Michael Vizdos. I was surprised at what I was able to learn, and the level of conversation was much higher than I had anticipated. To put things in context, we have been using Scrum at Integrum for over 4 years, we have had multiple other CSMs and a CSP on staff, so I figured that I’d heard it all before.

Michael was an excellent teacher, he was engaging, extremely sensitive to the level of knowledge of the other class members and adjusted his content and conversation accordingly. Luckily the other attendees all had some Scrum experience, so we were able to dig into the topics at a little bit deeper level. If you are thinking of taking a CSM class, I would highly encourage you to take one with Vizdos. His experience running and working with large, technical professional service organizations really resonated with me.

So, as the CEO of Integrum, I know that I can never be the ScrumMaster of our team, nor do I want to be. Being a sometime developer on our team is hard enough with the awkward power dynamic of also being “the boss,” being the ScrumMaster would be next to impossible. So why did I spend the money, take two days of my time, and invest so much mental energy into getting certified when I cannot actively take on the role of ScrumMaster?

Part of the answer is, I believe in being well rounded and having a deep understanding of the practices of my company. As I mentioned earlier, we have been using Scrum (and XP) for over 4 years and I feel like I have a good handle on the day to day practice of Scrum. What I wanted to get out of the class was a deeper, more nuanced understanding of why we do the things we do. I’ve read the books, blogs, literature, etc., I’ve talked the talk, and walked the walk, but the one thing I haven’t done is engage in deep conversation about why we practice Scrum, and the role of a ScrumMaster, with someone outside our organization. I want to be sure our practices are mature, and where they are not mature yet, we are taking the right steps and achieving incremental improvements on a path to excellence. We are building a hyper-performance team at Integrum, so we need all the help, training, discipline and experience we can get.

I believe that great leaders, especially when dealing with engineers, also should be practitioners (this is a very nuanced statement, it should not be taken at face value, and perhaps I will address it in depth in another article). I want to feel the pressure, pain, and satisfaction of what I am expecting my employees to do so that I can be a better leader. I also want to be able to apply the principles of Scrum to our entire organization, from sales, to support, strategy to tactics. In order to run the organization under Scrum, I must require of myself an earnest understanding and appreciation of the principles and practices of Scrum.

I am going to be challenging myself to implement more elements of Scrum to how we run the business itself. I can already predict that this is going to be very challenging to the leadership, not because we don’t believe in Scrum, but simply because sticking to the practice of Scrum is difficult. I anticipate we will go through Tuckman’s stages of group development, I imagine some hard conversations being had. We will fail, fast and often. We will talk about why we failed, and how we can do it better next time. We will improve, week after week. Before we know it, we will be more productive, more organized, and more successful than we were a short time before. We will accomplish things we never thought we had the time for.

We will change the world.

Syndicated 2010-11-24 06:16:35 from Jade Meskill

iTunes Connect: Invalid Binary

Invalid Binary.

Gee thanks Apple for that insightful, descriptive message.  Surely with all your advanced binary scanning, static analysis, Application Uploader, etc. all you can give us is a most unhelpful “Invalid Binary”?

If you are suffering from “Invalid Binary” issues, and have done everything short of sacrificing small farm animals, try this trick.

If your Entitlements.plist file was generated with an version of Xcode prior Xcode 3.2.3, remove Entitlements.plist and regenerate it using Xcode 3.2.3.  You don’t need to change any of the options generated on your new Entitlements.plist file, just recompile and submit again. Hopefully this helps someone.

Syndicated 2010-08-10 05:45:02 from Jade Meskill

Moving Time…

I am keeping the contents of this blog for posterity, but I am moving my blogging to http://jademeskill.com.  Please continue to follow me there.

Syndicated 2010-04-17 23:10:26 from i am ruinous

A MacBook Pro Cries For Help!

402x268 - Widescreen

Have you ever seen this before?  Scott Cate of mykb.com fame recently had a little problem with his MacBook Pro.  I think it just realized it was in the hands of a .NET developer!

Syndicated 2009-10-29 21:52:17 from i am ruinous

“Downturn” spelled backwards is “Opportunity”

At Integrum, my Ruby on Rails Consulting and web development shop, I have been speaking with many other entrepreneurs about ideas and products they are looking to bring to market in this time of economic turmoil.  I am amazed at the ingenuity of these fascinating business people and their ability to look into the jaws of a recession, especially in the face of a collapsing housing market, and perceive profitable new ventures.  At this time I am currently under NDA so I can’t discuss specifics, but that is outside the scope of this post anyways.

What I am hoping that is more entrepreneurs continue to be creative, instead of being scared and intimidated into just shutting down and hiding out until “this whole thing blows over.”  Believe me, I alternate from optimistic to terrified on a daily basis, so I certainly sympathize with people who are freaking out, but that is not the answer.

Over at one of my other ventures, Gangplank, an example of creating a hub of innovation and collaboration in Phoenix, we are continuing to do our part.  We have funded a few startups, we have encouraged collaboration and capitalism, we’re not planning on stopping any time soon.

Keep innovating, keep competing, keep collaborating, keep moving forward America!

Syndicated 2009-02-24 05:43:30 from i am ruinous

Why Merb Becoming Rails 3 is a Good Thing

Q: Rails or Merb?
A: Yes. 

So, today’s big news is that Merb will be the new Rails.  Wow!  Who said you couldn’t get people’s attention during the holidays.  This is really going to shake up the Ruby web community. 

There has been a lot of reactions to the news, not all of it positive.  This tweet jumped out at me.  That is a totally understandable first reaction.  What happened to the revolution?  In my opinion this is the best possible outcome of the Merb revolution.  It began life because of frustrations with the Rails core team and the direction that Rails in general was heading. The Merb team chose to go off and do things the way they think things should be done.  Competition was created.

As the competition increased you started to see some of the better ideas in Merb start to be implemented in Rails.  Competition is the best thing on earth to break a monoculture. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in our own little worlds and to keep doing things just because that’s the way we do things.

Now, the situation today is that Merb has convinced the Rails core team that they were onto something, and instead of leading us down the path of Ruby Web Framework Armageddon (which is not wholly bad, but at the very least creates a marketing problem) they decided to now join forces.  Not a decision that was taken lightly, I imagine. 

So what happens to competition, you say? It still exists, there are now many, many Ruby Web Frameworks, and many more will come, even in the wake of this announcement.  There will always be people pushing the status quo, there will always be ambitious hackers out there creating new and exciting things.  Those things will inevitably feedback into the dominant frameworks, if not, then the dominant frameworks will slowly die off, as they should.

So why is this a good thing again?  Well because now the framework I love, the framework that has changed my development life, will now be even better! The infusion of the quality engineering that has been displayed by the Merb team is the best thing for Rails’ long term viability. Enterprise business *want* to jump on the Ruby bandwagon, they are just scared of Rails and it’s issues, real or perceived. Now, Rails will become the Enterprise solution they have been clamoring for, and that makes life great for all us Rails Development and Consulting shops out there!

Here’s to a great New Year for Ruby!!

Syndicated 2008-12-23 23:01:37 from i am ruinous

links for 2008-11-25

Syndicated 2008-11-26 05:02:22 from i am ruinous

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