Posted by Jeffrey on Jan 12, 2010 in
Baking,
Recipes I first became acquainted with the Ventura Limoncello brand at Twiistup about a year ago and have since kept at least one bottle in my freezer. I can vouch for the high quality of their limoncello as well as this recipe. I also got to break out my “new” cake pedestal that Crystal and I picked up at a yard sale. The recipe is rather involved, but the cake it produces is quite amazing and a wonderful spring/summer dessert.
Continue reading Ventura Limoncello Lemon Cake…
Posted by Jeffrey on Dec 21, 2009 in
Agile,
Conference,
LA,
Technology The following are my notes from the Agile Comes to LA seminar on Thursday, December 17th 2009. The event was sponsored by AccuRev, Coverity, Electric Cloud, Rally Software, and BigVisible. The event saw leaders from each sponsor talk about how Agile software development techniques and the tools that support them can help you reduce risk, boost the productivity of your existing organization, and cut development costs.
George Schlitz (BigVisible): Agile Hits Ground in the Organization
+ Required, if humorous, reading: You Might Be a CrAgilist If…
+ Educate PMO on new ways to report progress (e.g., Burndown Charts)
+ Educate Compliance/Audit on difference/changes w/Agile
+ Ensure measurements reward the behavior that you want (How do we reward the new behavior?)
+ What does career development now look like?
+ Combine benefits of diverse methods: theory of constraints, lean & agile
+ Don’t measure individuals, measure teams and their success
+ You can’t really create an Agile standard for all teams to follow, just get started w/the basics and let the team determine for themselves what will work for them
Cliff Utstein (AccuRev): Automating Agile Software Development Processes
+ AccuRev – process driven SCM software
+ Product quality is fixed, business requirements persist (increase?), resources may be cut, little/no schedule relief
+ increase throughput by improving software development processes: automating & optimizing
Behrooz Zahiri (Coverity): Managing Software Quality in Agile Environments
+ The earlier you find a defect, the cheaper it is to fix
+ Cheapest to fix: in development; more expensive to fix: during integration; even more expensive to fix: during test; most expensive to fix: during production
+ Static Analysis – like a spell checker that finds your most difficult bugs
+ Coverity helps identify bugs for open source projects at scan.coverity.com, 11,303 defects have been fixed since March 2003
+ Coverity supports C, C#, C++ and Java
Martin Van Ryswyk (Electric Cloud): Making Agile Work
+ Continuous Integration = Agile; checkin & get instant feedback on integration problems
+ Fast builds (“espresso” builds), automated builds & test on-demand
+ Access for developers/QA/etc. to schedule builds, on-demand builds or stimulus builds
+ Auto build after code checkin to get fast feedback on build integrity/code quality
+ Include pre-flight tests to help reduce build failures
Alex Pukinskis (Rally): Case Study: Customizing Agile Tools for Project Success
+ Current fave book: The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development by Donald Reinertsen
+ Three meetings: daily scrum, scrum of scrums & regular retrospectives
+ New Rally build due out 12/19 will allow for setup of different types of dashboards built on roles (developer, manager & executive)
+ Remove obstacles for team members ASAP to limit overall delays
+ 100 day delay starts with multiple 8 hour delays
Additional notes from discussions:
+ Look into Bamboo to help with Continuous Integration/automated builds
UPDATE (7 Jan 2010 @ 12:32pm PST): I’ve added links to the presentation files.
Posted by Jeffrey on Nov 17, 2009 in
Agile,
Conference,
Technology Last week I attended a PDMA LA roundtable discussion on “Transitioning to Agile Product Development“. The discussion was moderated by a PDMA LA board member and featured the following panelists:
I was hoping to come away with some lessons learned and best practices on transitioning an organization to an Agile one, but the discussion ended up being more of an overview of Agile as many in attendance were unfamiliar with some of the basic concepts. I did manage to meet some interesting people and continue building my local Agile network, but not quite specifically what I was hoping to achieve, silver lining I suppose.
Regardless, the following are my notes from the event. Note that I’ve tried to note the panelists initials where I can attribute my note to them:
- S.D. – continuous feedback from customers on demos; requirements flexible, time & resources/costs are fixed
- Basic tenets outlined in Agile Manifesto
- S.D. – 8hr workday creates a certain # of defects, 10hr workday creates 11x more defects than an 8hr one
- Comment that Scrum helped elect recent governors of VA & NJ
- The Standish Group found that 7% of features affect a customers buy/build decision, 13% will affect you vs. competitor decision, 64% no one cares about
- S.G. – Contracts can be written w/Agile adjustments instead of hardcoding features/cost/date, Mary Poppendieck has some resources on this
[Jeff Paul - here are some references I found: Agile Contracts by Mary & Tom Poppendieck, Agile Contracts pitch by Mary in 2005, Lean Contracts essay by Mary in 2002]
- Should be constantly improving processes
- Understand # hrs/resource & # hrs/sprint and estimate user stories better
- Check out Reed Hasting’s presentation on Slideshare
- Check out the Business Agility whitepaper on the Enthiosys.com site
- Assume a single project team to get to Agile process & show benefits to help transition larger org
- Get good coaching & training
I hope to attend more events in 2010 and will do my best to summarize them here… cheers!
Posted by Jeffrey on Nov 7, 2009 in
Family,
J&C 
Uno @ 14 weeks, picture #1
Big news coming out of LA today: we’re expecting our first child on March 18th!
Crystal is in her 21st week, we just got back from our doctor’s appointment, and everything looks good. “Uno” (our nickname for Baby Paul so far) is somewhere around 13 ounces right now and appears to have 10 fingers and toes.
These pictures are from our 14th week appointment, but I’ll try to scan in and upload the pictures we got at today’s appointment.
Uno @ 14 weeks, picture #2
We’ll be in Maryland/Delaware for Thanksgiving and in Iowa for Christmas, so hopefully we can catch up with you all in person soon.
Happy Holidays from Jeff, Crystal, Lexi and “Uno”!
Posted by Jeffrey on Sep 8, 2009 in
Charities,
J&C,
LA,
Triathlon Please consider donating to Pediatric Cancer Research at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles
Bike Training in Griffith Park
The Nautica Malibu Triathlon will take place on Sunday, September 13, 2009! Over 4,000 athletes are expected to participate. With your determination and help we know that we can offer a tremendous amount of support to Pediatric Cancer Research at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles!
To donate to my fundraising efforts, click here.
The Childrens Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles is one of the nation’s largest programs dedicated to treating childhood cancer. The funds that I am raising as part of the Entertainment Industry Challenge will make a world of difference in the lives of children battling cancer in Southern California and around the world! Thanks again for any donation that you can provide to help fight childhood cancers and make kids’ lives better!
To see videos of those who’ve benefited from CHLA, click here.
Running the Santa Monica Classic
Your support helps kids like Kali Carrier who was diagnosed with several malignant tumors in her brain and spinal cord. Her parents thought it was a death sentence, since brain tumors are the leading cause of cancer death in children under age 16. But the Carriers found their way to the Neural Tumors Program in the Childrens Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, and couldn’t have been in better hands. Dr. Jonathan Finlay, the program’s director, is a leading researcher in the field of neural tumors, and has developed treatments for brain tumors that are drastically increasing survival rates. Kali is now cancer-free, and loves school, gymnastics, and off-road dirt biking. The funds raised for the Nautica Malibu Triathlon give more children a chance at life!
To donate to my fundraising efforts, click here.
Did you know that cancer is the leading cause of death by disease among children in the United States ages 15 and under? Because of breakthroughs in the treatment of childhood cancers – many pioneered by the physician-scientists at the Childrens Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases at our hospital – children, teenagers and young adults receive the most advanced treatment available anywhere.
To watch a short video about the Nautica Malibu Triathlon, click here.
Swim Training in Malibu
Please go to my website today and make a donation! Every dollar makes a difference so if you can only afford $10, please donate. Your support will help bring health, hope, and happiness to the many young patients in our care. Here are some additional donation levels:
$22.50 – $1 for every mile I’ll undertake
$30 – my age on race day
$43.40 – the average donation made to my fundraising efforts
$75 – $1 for every team member on my team (NBC Universal)
$108 – number of years since Childrens Hospital Los Angeles was founded (1901)
To donate to my fundraising efforts, click here.
