Dog-fooding Journal #1 – Train-Research-Planning (TRP) Sprint Preparations

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We will journal our Ruck innovations dog-fooding (see Proposed innovations … a byte for your thoughts? and Proposed innovations to the v1.2 guidance. Thoughts? for details) as part of the vsarSecurity prototyping project.
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This ensures that we have a transparent record when we eventually update our guidance based on dog-fooding feedback, that our Ruck masters have a point of reference and that we can get your candid feedback.
image… candid feedback is always welcome  Smile

where are we in the process?

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As shown by the yellow area we just completed the kick-off and are in the process of establishing a vibrant team.

create a new team ecosystem

  1. Create a new project team, called vsarSecurity, and add project lead and ruck master as team administrators.
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  2. Create a TFVC folder and appropriate subdirectories, using the TFS Branch Tool or doing it manually. 
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  3. Assign the iterations to the project.
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  4. Add the features as presented at the kick-off to the backlog and link them to the flight (epic). At this stage we do not have the epic type on VSO and are using a feature work item, that has children features, as our flight (epic).
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  5. Add a program manager (PM) pbi, add the draft objectives and acceptance criteria and link it to its parent flight (epic).
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  6. Add the default stories to the pbi and assign the innovations stories to the project lead (PL) and the planning stories to the ruck master (RM). We believe that the demo video can be done in a full-time day, the planning and innovations in less than a day, and are therefor assigning 1, 0.5 and 0.5 story points respectively … the team can (should) revise these defaults.
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  7. Customise our backlog board to contain a current sprint and a ready for review column. The idea is that stories relevant to the current sprint are moved to the “current sprint column”, stories under development will sit in the committed column and stories ready for final testing and signoff in “ready for review” column.
    Remember a story is only done when both the developer and the tester of the story pair give the image sign.
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  8. Refine our team home page, using tiles and light-weight graphs.
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  9. Create a team mail distribution list (DL).

what’s supposed to happen next?

  1. Commit the team, which will include the program manager (PM), project lead (PL), ruck master (RM), product owner (PO) and <10 team members made up from developers/contributors and/or testers/reviewers.
  2. Update the mail DL accordingly.
  3. Schedule the training, research and planning (TRP) sessions well in advance to allow team members to plan the TRP sprint.
  4. Schedule the weekly 15+15min stand-up meetings, which typically start during the TRP sprint or the first Development (DEV) sprint.
  5. Go, go, go with the TRP sprint. In out case we start on 17th March for a 2-week TRP adventure.