Reducing organisation costs - what would you do if it was your money?

In current economy, managing costs is absolutely crucial in any organisation. Many of us are having to change our spending habits at home, and in work we’re also having to focus hard on cost control. This comes at a time when the wider business needs our support to help deliver what our customers want at a cheaper price.   In most of the organisations, we spend half our life either in meetings or preparing for meetings (what a waste of time?!? Lol ).  Therefore I thought why don’t I change the format of meetings and reduce the cost and save some time (and be productive ;) .  There are few simple measures any organisation can implement and achieve huge cost savings:   ·         Avoid overnight stays. No overnight stays, hotel accommodation or rail or air travel should be booked for the same day and meetings should be arranged for the later part of the day so that attendees can arrive comfortably.   ·         Events. Large scale events and conferences should be subject to rigorous cost control. Encourage employees to use company’s internal facilities where they can. In addition, attendance at external conferences and external training should be approved in advance by senior managers providing a full justification.   ·         Making the most of teleconference facilities. If you’re not in the same building, try to use teleconferencing facilities instead of face-to-face meetings. Conference calls have many advantages – they reduce our fuel costs and environmental impact; avoid the costs incurred with non-productive travelling time; and support our employees well being.  ·         Use Smart board or project: We all print documents for meeting attendees and it get thrown away immediately after the meeting. Instead use Smart board or projector and avoid printing presentations. Advantage – reducing printing and paper costs and environmental impact (10 points for being green and saving trees!). Few other simple tricks: ·         Recruitment. Recruit people from within the company or encourage employees to recommend their friends and relative. ‘Recommend a Friend’ reward should encouraged to reduce hefty fees of recruitment agencies.    ·         Personal equipment. Any unused personal equipment (for example blackberry’s, mobiles or laptops), should be recycled for new starters/replacements wherever possible.      We all need to work together as a team to ensure that we get the maximum value for our money. Tell us what you would do if this was your own cash? We’re interested in finding out how you think we can become even more efficient.    Thanks for everything that you’ll do to help and make sure you keep the ideas coming.   Regards Krish  

Estimating story from trenches

To me, Complexity, Effort and Time are three key things we need to consider. You look at the complexity of a story to derive the effort required to estimate the time it will take you to finish the story.
 
To use an analogy of carrying a log of wood from point A to point B:
 
COMPLEXITY: “How BIG and HEAVY is the Log of wood?”
EFFORT: “How much horsepower is required to pull this log?” This is where Story point comes in (IMO).
TIME: Say it takes 2 Horsepower, “how quickly can 6 horses move the log from A to B?” And this, we all know is velocity which can only be derived after a few Sprints.
 
Complexity cannot be seen in isolation and effort cannot be measured without knowing the complexity.

What happens when SAP meets Agile? | Bluefin Solutions

What happens when SAP meets Agile? | Bluefin Solutions

Agile and SAP – Oxymoron? | Agile Scout

Agile and SAP – Oxymoron? | Agile Scout

‘Single’ tasking rules : : I learn therefore I am

‘Single’ tasking rules : : I learn therefore I am

Is there a point in story point estimation? How do we estimate accurately?

This is a relative size of the story compared to other story estimated by the same team – it has nothing to do with who is implementing it and how long it's going to take. Story points are relative estimate, so that you know that 5 point story will take approx. 5 times longer than 1 point story.
 
Benefits are
-          Team’s velocity can be measured

-          Allows team to plan future sprint without over/under committing and forecasting total number of sprints. As a result no unrealistic expectations are placed on the team

-          Helps team to focus on completing dev and testing in the same sprint

-          Helps teams reach a sustainable pace and due to this the business starts to believe in the team


Hours (or ideal hours) are more about time estimation. It can lead to several problems:

- Your "hours" are not the same as mine. It can be harder to make team estimate during release planning.

- It’s easier to make relative estimates and then calculate team velocity in points.

- Stories are usually decomposed to tasks for the sprint. These tasks can be implemented by different people. So total effort is not simply calculated as sum of task estimates.
Usually it's recommended to make story estimation in points for release backlogs and in hours for sprint backlog.

1. Story points are a pure measure of size and complexity
2. Story points are relative (say, with respect to the simplest story) and so have a much longer shelf-life
3. Story points are usually independent of who gives the estimate (as in, an experienced developer and an apprentice can usually agree on something like complexity fairly quickly)
4. Story points avoid the need for discussions like “what are *ideal* hours, really?” or “My ideal hours are different from your ideal hours, stupid.” These add no value.
5. Story points don’t influence behaviour (e.g. Parkinson’s Law)
6. Story points are easier to work with – especially when product owners start to wonder why “3 ideal days take a week…”
7. Story points are more fun – especially when they’re in units like gummy-bears, polar bears, or other endangered species.
 
Have fun

Guidelines for home working

Guidelines for Occasional Working from Home

It may be appropriate for some employees from time to time to carry out
some of their duties at home. Such arrangements may be made on the basis
of an informal agreement with their Line/Team Manager. There are
obviously potential benefits for both the employer and the employee in
such arrangements but it is important to be aware of the implications
and of the responsibility of the parties.

It should be noted that this guidelines covers occasional work from home
only and if an employee or prospective employee requests to be
designated a home-worker further advice should be sought from the
HR\department. For the purposes of this guide, occasionally will be
defined to represent no more than 20% of working time calculated on a
monthly basis.

1. Guidelines for Employees
From time to time it may be more appropriate for you to work from home
for example to complete a piece of work with the minimum of disruption.
Please note that working from home is a privilege, not prerogative and
should allowed only when it serves the need of individual as well as
team/department.

If you wish to be considered for occasional working from home you should
approach your line manager.

1.1 Essential tools for Remote/Home working

There are certain recommended tools available to facilitate effective
and efficient home working:

Category    Tools
Remote connectivity    VPN(Virtual Private Network), Internet
connection(Broadband)
Instant Messaging (IM)    Skype, MS Communicator
Document Sharing    SharePoint , Team site
Remote Meeting    MS Live Meeting, SMART Board
Agile planning tool    Mingle, Mountaingoat's online poker tool

1.2 Availability and communication
Consideration must be given to the work of the individual's team and the
requirements for communication. Employees must be available and
contactable during agreed working hours.
*    Ensure VPN (Virtual Private network) has been installed on the
laptop/machine and VPN token has been issue. Please check VPN
connectivity beforehand.
*    Ensure all required and approved communication tools such as MS
Office communicator, MS Live meeting, Skype etc has been installed, user
registered and activated before hand.
*    Ensure availability of a reliable internet connection.
*    Ensure a Headphone and microphone is available to use with
communicator /live meeting
*    Ensure your IM (Instant Messaging) id is available to the team
members and you have added your team members in your contact list.
*    Update the outlook calendar and 'Out of office' response to
reflect that you are working from home.
*    Ensure your contact phone number is available to the team
members.
*    Always update your status if you are likely to unavailable for a
certain period of time.

In order to work from home securely and safely, you need to consider the
following:

1.3 Security
Employees must take care to ensure the security of work in their home,
this will include;

*    Security and confidentiality of company equipment and
information
*    No access of friends and family to work related information.
*    Protection of home computers and their links, employees must
ensure that work moved by disk does not transfer viruses to company's
laptop/machines
*    Do not leave any work related sensitive material on your home
desk or personal computer

1.4 Display Screen Equipment
If you do work at home using a computer the Display Screen Equipment
Regulations apply and you should undertake an assessment of your
workstation to make sure it does not present any health and safety
hazards.

1.5 Electrical and Other Work Equipment
Employees are responsible for the safety of the wiring/electricity
circuit in their homes. It is important to ensure that any electrical
equipment, for example laptop computers provided for work at home is
safe and regularly maintained


2.0  Guidelines for Line/team managers:

Consideration needs to be given to the role of the person who home
works. For example a Development Lead who works from home/off shore 2
days a week and this can present difficulties in having to take the role
of Proxy Development Lead on quite a few occasions.

Working from home can be considered where there is no requirement for
close supervision or regular interactions in order for work to be
completed and where working away from the workplace would not affect the
quality of the work. Consideration must also be given to the work of the
individual's team and requirement for communication.

The team/line manager should agree with the employee, clear guidelines
of what is expected. These should include:

*    Clear tasks and objectives
*    Procedure for assessing and monitoring performance and output
*    Communication arrangements including agreement of when and how
the employee can be contacted, it should also be defined who may be
given access to the employees home phone number
*    Any training & development needs identified as a result of the
agreement
*    Details of any company's equipment used at home
*    Frequent face to face meetings, especially during team
retrospectives or sprint planning session.

These guidelines are suggestive, rather than comprehensive.
These guideline can be customised to suit your organisation.

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