10/8/2008 Clarity PLC Fall WebConference This slide copyright Jeffrey A. Bloom 2008 11

Tips and Techniques

Leveraging Clarity’s Notes Facility&

SCRUM in Clarity

Jeffrey Bloom, PLC Secretary

Senior Clarity Solutions Architect

jeff.bloom@xinify.com

10/8/2008 Clarity PLC Fall WebConference This slide copyright Jeffrey A. Bloom 2008 2

Leveraging Clarity’s Notes Facility

OBJECTIVE: Provide visibility of activities of individual staff members

Time is recorded on functionally defined” tasks

But recorded time reported does not communicate the results/status of activity on specific deliverables or milestones

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10/8/2008 Clarity PLC Fall WebConference This slide copyright Jeffrey A. Bloom 2008 3

Leveraging Clarity’s Notes Facility

Timesheets show only hours worked on the functionally defined” tasks

“Timesheet Notes” can provide daily details of activities & milestones!

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Jeff Bloom Jeff Bloom

Timesheet Notes Portlet

Discuss Timesheet Notes Portlet

Demonstrate use

Highlight Value

Identify changes in management process to leverage benefits

10/8/2008 Clarity PLC Fall WebConference This slide copyright Jeffrey A. Bloom 2008 4

Leveraging Clarity’s Notes Facility

Timesheet Notes Portlet Timesheet Notes can be displayed for individual staffers

by time period – or downloaded to Excel for further analysis

Note “Categories” can be defined to allow selection and grouping by Activity, Milestone and/or Date

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Discuss Timesheet Notes Portlet; Demonstrate use Highlight Value; Identify changes in management process to leverage benefits

Demo Timesheet Notes Portlet

Modify Timesheet Notes Portlet

10/8/2008 Clarity PLC Fall WebConference This slide copyright Jeffrey A. Bloom 2008 5

SCRUM in Clarity

Definition from Wikipedia

Scrum is an iterative incremental process of software development commonly used with agile software development.

Although Scrum was intended to be for management of software development projects, it can be used in running software maintenance teams, or as a program management approach.

Scrum is a process skeleton that includes a set of practices and predefined roles. The main roles in Scrum are the ScrumMaster who maintains the processes and works similar to a project manager, the Product Owner who represents the stakeholders, and the Team which includes the developers.

During each sprint, a 15-30 day period (length decided by the team), the team creates an increment of potential shippable (usable) software. The set of features that go into each sprint come from the product backlog, which is a prioritized set of high level requirements of work to be done. Which backlog items go into the sprint is determined during the sprint planning meeting. During this meeting the Product Owner informs the team of the items in the product backlog that he wants completed. The team then determines how much of this they can commit to complete during the next sprint.[1] During the sprint, no one is able to change the sprint backlog, which means that the requirements are frozen for a sprint.

There are several implementations of systems for managing the Scrum process which range from yellow stickers and white-boards to software packages. One of Scrum's biggest advantages is that it is very easy to learn and requires little effort to start using.

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10/8/2008 Clarity PLC Fall WebConference This slide copyright Jeffrey A. Bloom 2008 6

SCRUM in Clarity

Scrum “Project” Probably without tasks or financials With Start and End Dates Report progress and status in lieu of tracking

tasks

Leverage Clarity’s Collaboration Features Status Object to record periodic SCRUM meeting

decisions Use Action Items for assignments and follow-up Use Discussions to record details Use Document Manager to coordinate

deliverables

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