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I'd like to try scrum with my team. Studied a lot of posts about scrum tools here, but i think it's all superfluous and excel file is ok for product and sprint backlog. But it's problem to fing a good template. Maybe somebody could share excel template he is using for scrum backlog? Thanks.
Excel is really an extremely powerful tool and is very appropriate for the product backlog (and it has my preference if suitable: just share the product backlog on a network drive and there you go). I have used the following templates successfully in the past:
Henrik Kniberg's Index Card Generator and a wall for the sprint backlog
Petri Heiramo's advanced product and sprint backlog template (video tutorial here)
You can browse my personal collection for more of them but I recommend the two above.
Don't have any templates, but what tool you use for scrum is indeed whatever works for you, so excel could be just as good as any other. Just so long as it's quick and easy for all to use.
I was taught scrum techniques using physical props. Sticky notes and meeting drawing boards. The idea is you use that for a while, and then see if you can fit it into technology after if it doesn't hinder the scrum process.
I'd just try and knock up an excel template that fits for you, starting from a blank worksheet and just build up whatever seems to work.
Though for backlogs it may be better to have a tool that manages it if you are going to have a lot of items, and especially if you will have many stakeholders inputting into it. Maybe a bug tracking kind of tool. Plenty of good open sources ones about. Don't know how they fit into scrum, but always thought the likes of bugzilla could work but haven't tried it.
I'll say it is a good idea to start for a couple of sprints on paper.
It will let you understand the process before having to fight against the difficulties in using the software tool.
On the other hand, scrum can be used for projects of different nature, and not in all cases will have computers available.
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I am Computer Science student, but there is no particular provision or course for learning game programming in our college. I have been studying allegro API for the past year. But I am still unsure how to apply physics in games and realistic games. Its overwhelming and lack of resources is quite confusing.
I think the best thing you can do at this point is simply start making games. They may not be complex or realistic, but getting some experience under your belt will set the stage for learning more complex things. I would disagree that there is a "lack of resources", a plethora of advanced game development tutorials are a web search away. I think the problem here is more related to those resources seeming "overwhelming", as you said.
If your experience studying computer science is anything like mine was, you likely spend a lot of time studying relative to a small amount of time actually doing. Use your interest in game development to get practical experience doing something that interests you. The important thing here is to complete games. When working on simple games, its easy to stop as soon as the bare minimum feature set is completed (I've got a paddle and a bouncing ball -- my pong game is complete!). Take the time to create a title screen, add sounds and music, can work out bugs.
As you gain confidence making smaller games, you'll have a better basis for learning more advanced concepts. It's not a matter of being 'smart' enough to understand complex tutorials, its a matter of being able to retain and absorb that knowledge because you are able to immediately apply it. College computer science teaches a ton of knowledge, but, at least in my experience, a large portion went to waste because I wasn't regularly applying it.
The bottom line is: just develop things. Make games. Even the ones that seem simple will end up being more complex that you expected, and as you progress you will gradually assimilate more advanced knowledge. Look up advanced concepts as you need them, not because you anticipate needing them.
That being said, here are a smattering of tutorials I really like:
Entity Component Framework
Programming Game AI by Example
Procedural Terrain
Collision Detection
Of course, don't try to read these all at once. Read these and similar tutorials as you need them, and in the meanwhile, just keep on developing.
And of course:
Allegro5 Tutorials.
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I am looking for a basic and simple-to-install digital version of a Scrum board.
I do prefer physical index cards, but in this case logistics makes it hard. Thus, I need to have it on the computer.
No real need to share data between several clients. To us it is enough if it runs on one single machine.
Just need basic functionality. A drag-drop board and a sprint burndown would do fine.
Due to regularly constraints I cannot use an online SaaS, must keep the data local.
Time is short, so simple install and ready-to-go.
Does not need to be free, but of course price is interesting.
I have not had this set of constraints earlier, so I am unfamiliar.
I have done some research and have some general experience. For example VersionOne, Mingle and Hansoft seem to have a good reputation. Anyone can comment on how those fit the above list? Anyone have other recommendations?
This thread is a bit old now, but leaving my find in the hope to help others searching the same topic.
If you are looking for a simple tool for developers to collaborate on a Scrum project, http://trello.com/ is very simple and intuitive. Absolutely no clutter and easily lets a small team manage their cards.
I would have a look at Atlassian Jira with the GreenHopper plugin - it has a nice dashboard.
http://www.atlassian.com/software/greenhopper/
Have a look at Mingle from ThoughtWorks. A really great tool. Wall looks like this
Free download/install for 1 year / 5 users.
Excel (or OpenOffice) spreadsheet? Why do you need a special tool for this?
I had a similar decision to make a year ago and went for Version One Team Edition - which is free.
http://www.versionone.com/Product/Compare_Editions.asp
It's easy to deploy the SQL database wherever you want it - so locally in your case.
Our team found using the software easy and intuitive.
The free version (up to 10 users) has ample features - the sprints/stories/tasks are easy to setup and view. The burndown chart is good.
All in all, I've no regrets with choosing Verison One - it's easy to install, easy to use and free.
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We have now installed Agilo to manage our Scrum projects, and we have that proble: we can handle just one backlog. How can we have different backlogs?
Thanks for your time!
Maybe you should try other tools? :)
Here are some other tools you might like to try.
Installable onsite are Rally, Version One. I think Thoughtworks' Mingle is available onsite but they prefer to host it for you.
You may also like to try some of the new online Lean tools: LeanKitKanban, AgileZen.
If possible, get one or more big whiteboards and some post-its, then back it up / produce reports etc. electronically. Excel worked well for this for me. Also there's nothing like the tactile and immediate visual feedback from moving post-its around. You can use index cards and holders or blue-tack if the post-its fall off.
You can also represent the multiple backlogs at different scales; for instance, showing whole features, apps or systems completed at a project or programme level while tracking the smaller stories and tasks at a team level.
Do you have multiple products? There should only be one product backlog for each product - having more than one doesn't make much sense.
To break down a product backlog, it often makes sense to add extra columns to the backlog for different categories within that product. That would make it easier to filter and see different areas of the backlog quickly and efficiently.
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There are a couple of online services that offer PSD to XHTML/CSS. Which one do you recommend? How should I choose one?
First, I recommend using someone in your own network of people first. If you know someone with this skill who is open to freelancing, offer the project to them. Talk to local schools with web design/development classes and ask if they keep a list of freelance students. Build up your business relationships with people close to you.
If that doesn't work, choose one online the way you would choose anything. Research. Look at their portfolios. Go to one of the sites they did and "view source" in your browser to look at their code. Ask a web developer friend if she thinks it's well done. Look at more than one example and make sure they have consistent quality. Try to find out how long they've been around. (Do a whois search and find out how long the site has been registered, for one). Look at the person's resume if they offer it, or ask for a resume and any references they may have. You might even try to contact one of their clients and ask how their experience was with them.
In the end, when you've balanced price and your research, you have to take a leap of faith, but with your research, you probably will choose well.
You might want to consider learning how to do it yourself. I find that even with a complex design, I usually spend 90% of my time making the design in Photoshop and only 10% converting that to HTML+CSS. It's really worth getting to know HTML and CSS inside-out so you can complete the process.
Some clue here
alt text http://shup.com/Shup/375934/11063214233-My-Desktop.png
You can get help from this site
http://www.psdtohtmlreviews.com/
And I think this one is mostly recommended
http://designshack.co.uk/articles/reviews/psd-to-html-by-psd2html
But first of all consider answer of #josh
And here are links of some good tutorials of PSD 2 HTML conversion http://www.bestpsdtohtml.com/20-best-psd-to-xhtml-css-tutorials/
You can learn yourself
If you have to convert for once you may look at http://csswithcolour.com/
and if you have requirements for many projects or future projects then
http://htmlbutcher.com/ looks to be a good tool.
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How many people actually write an SDD document before writing a single line of code?
How do you handle large CSCI's?
What standard do you use for SDD content?
What tailoring have you done?
I certainly have. Historically and on recent projects.
Years ago I worked in organisations where templates were everything.
Then I worked other places where the templates were looser or non-existent or didn't fit the projects I was working on.
Now the content of the software design is pretty much governed by what I need to describe to get the idea across to the audience.
"before writing a single line of code" there wouldn't be a a lot of detail. The documents I produce before I start coding are meant to get the idea of what we need to build across to the affected teams and senior management so they introduce high level architecture, functionality, technologies, risks and scope. Those last two are really important. The rest is to show other teams where you need to interface with them and to leave managers with a lingering notion that cool stuff is happening.
Most big software companies have their own practices. For example Motorola has detailed documentation for every aspect of software development process. There are standard templates for each type of documents. Having strict standards allows effectively maintain huge number of documents and integrate it with different tools. Each document obtains tracking number from special document-tracking system. They even have system (last time I seen it was in stage of early development) for automatically requirements tracking - you can say which line of code relate to given requirement\design guideline.
I would suppose that most people who write SDD documents and use terminology like CSCI have to be using a specific software development methodology and most likely are working for some serious government customer. They usually tend to take their preparations quite seriously and the documents are ready and approved before any development starts.
In an Agile process the development and the design document could be developed in parallel. It means that there will be plenty of refactoring to be done but it usually delivers very good results in the end.
In more formal processes (like RUP) a SAD document is mostly created during the elaboration/prototyping phase based on the team research.