Nixx Cards - Break the jargon matrix !

Spoiler alert - at nixxing.com we’re not good at jargon or acronyms. Personally I’m always suspicious of anything that can’t be explained in plain english.

Jargon may give the illusion of knowledge or agreement whenever a sub-group of fanboys talk at each other in technical newspeak but it can also add to the sense of imposter syndrome that the rest of us may feel.

Nixx cards take the rocket science out of common concepts and leave behind the art/science of making things. We don’t dumb down but try to live by Albert Einstein’s wonderful quote “explanations should be as simple as possible - but never simpler”.

Each nixx card takes one common concept and explains in plain english:

  • What it really means
  • How to make good, practical use of it
  • When not to use it
  • Real life stories from the trenches - some educational, some comical, some a little bit of both.

If there’s a subject you’d like to see turned into a nixx card just click the speech box below.

What Is Work in Progress
What does managing the WIP mean ? WIP or Work in Progress represents the amount of work that a team or a member of a team is doing at any moment in time. A team of 5 developers doing 5 things is a healthy WIP. A team of 5 developers doing 10 things is not. If you don’t have a metrics driven approach then WIP is probably one of the most important metrics to start measuring.
Cycle Times
What are Software Delivery Cycle Times ? What are Cycle Times good for ? Cycle Times are an accurate measure of the speed with which we can deliver software given all of the different variables that can impact delivery. That may sound like the more traditional metric of Velocity but, oddly, Velocity is less a speed and more a measure of the quantity of work a team can deliver in a given cycle - or more typically a sprint.
Sprint Planning
Retros
Sprints
What is a Development Sprint ? From the atlassian website: “A sprint is a short, time-boxed period when a scrum team works to complete a set amount of work. Sprints are at the very heart of scrum and agile methodologies, and getting sprints right will help your agile team ship better software with fewer headaches.” We’re not so sure about the fewer headaches. Sprints are an arbitrary unit of time - typically two weeks - in which a team plans and commits to completing a certain amount of work.