Recently in TomTom Category

These are the TomTom runners (spot me if you can).

I knew I could do it, and that's exactly what I did. Just a steady pace for 16 kilometers keeping focussed and resolute. At almost exactly two o'clock I crossed the finish line, having run the whole way without stopping. That was a tremendous feeling.

05 km    0:29:06
10 km    1:00:25
15 km    1:32:20
-----    -------
16 km    1:38:53 <<<

So when I finally got home I took a nice long hot bath, and I haven't had such a nice bath like that in years.

We've worked long and hard on the project, the many complex pieces of the puzzle are now falling nicely in place, and now the first fruits are being plucked from the tree of success.

Today Startpagina verkeer went live using the advanced HD Traffic technology. One has a good feeling that it has been a worthwhile endeavor, and to think that there is more to come makes it all even more exciting. Just wait and see what we have in store!

I'm proud to be a part of the team, that's for sure.

I have to admit that when Garmin first came back and out bid us, I was starting to get a little nervous about the future.

Now that TomTom has beaten Garmin in battle for Tele Atlas, I feel relieved.

The future is looking pretty good.

Discover TomTom's secret services for yourself.

At the end of each sprint, it is important to keep the following in mind:

"When determining velocity count only finished stories, that is, stories that pass their acceptance tests. Do not count stories the team partially completed during the iteration."

It is too easy to just pretend that things are going better than they are, so the important thing is to remain realistic and just tell the truth.

Otherwise you are bound to accept a technical debt which will only add up and confuse things before you realize it. No use struggling at the last minute when it can be avoided far in advance.

Be careful, be brave, and report correct information, despite the deadlines.

A natural tendency for software engineers nowadays is to divide large functional territories into digestible plots of land. Although blinded by their natural ideas of what technical activities are required to conquer the ever smaller acreage, one must avoid this urge of tasks splitting with all one's might.

Don't split a large story into tasks. Instead, try to find a way to fire a tracer bullet through the story.

Delivering a consistent and cohesive subset of all layers of a feature is better than delivering all of a single layer. By definition, a tracer bullet travels through all layers of a feature, taking with it a small piece of each layer.

For more information please have a look at Agile Estimating and Planning by Mike Cohen.

"Geocoding is the process of assigning geographic identifiers (e.g., codes or geographic coordinates expressed as latitude-longitude) to map features and other data records, such as street addresses. You can also geocode media, for example where a picture was taken, IP addresses, and anything that has a geographic component. With geographic coordinates the features can be mapped and entered into Geographic Information Systems."

from Wikipedia/Geocoding

Although the agile project team knows when they will finish the next development iteration, they do not know exactly what they will deliver.

By having the courage and wisdom to admit that the result is kind of vague and unknowable in advance, good planning practices dictate a more straight-forward process of setting and revising goals that more importantly lead to a longer-term objective.

Embrace change, be flexible and go for it with everything you've got.

For an entertaining and well-written book covering this concept (and from which I paraphrased the words of wisdom above), please have a look at Agile Estimating and Planning by Mike Cohen.

Just call me Mr. Scrum Master from now on, please.

As of today, I completed the (grueling but fun) 2-day Certified Scrum Master training course given by the renowned founder and promoter Jeff Sutherland.

The highlight happened at the end of the day when Jeff Sutherland himself handed me my official certification and we did the secret handshake.

"At first, a theory better explains an event in the world, but then, as more details are calculated with it, it breaks because it can't account for some events or predicts results that are different from observed values. Eventually, as more and more 'defects' are found with an existing theory, these defects give rise to a crisis that is only resolved by a new theory which explains and accounts for the observed phenomena. Software development does not escape this historical evolution."

- Agile Software Development with Scrum, Ken Schwaber.