Using FastBlogIt with Agile Processes

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NO-LABEL is a good conversation about using FastBlogIt itself to keep track of the evolution of FastBlogIt. Like CyberMind before it, we may have to expand FastBlogIt with some more features if we want to use it for more formal project control along with expanding the programming staff if those are desirable goals.

What FastBlogIt does well is organize items in multiple ways by tagging, grouping and self-indexing - all without having to alter the database or offline processes. What it does not do well is create matrices. The RTE (Rich Text Editor) has a matrix function which is not that easy to use. The matrix function has no calculating functions in it. It does accept cut and paste from Excel or other matrix software which has those functions, but the format is not tranlasted well see 2262. The main problem is that the matrix is offline from FastBlogIt & therefore has to be maintained separately.

I see that FastBlogIt is super for maintaining stories and perhaps the assignment of people & progress updates on each item & the ongoing evolution of a usecase.
What agile process & project management does is buldle a set of stories (use cases) into an interation based on the the size of the effort needed to implement & test the results (often in ideal time units or abstract units relative to eachother). Iterations are generally a fixed number of weeks (say 2 weeks as an example). So we need a way to interrogate the items for the estimates and collect the estimates together to fit into an iteration. (This will be a manual occupation for now.

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Mark de LA says
There may be simple open source matrix software we could bundle with the RTE or external to it somewhere on the internet if there is interest along this line. Fit tables and Xplanner are external softwares that do some of the job. Fit tables are integrated in a wiki (see 1793 for my bookmarks on these items.)

Mark de LA says

Lets say there are labeled numbers in the comments or body of an item. Lets also say that there are many items in a tagroom that have these numbers on them. Does the

think that quads can provide a solution such as adding the numbers all up and returning it to say [my numbers: sum tag iteration1] ??

Seth says
Given that a item tagged "$bug", or "$wish", or "project" is a free form description of some work to be done, and given that we can organize these units in a matrix, what other formal information do we need to collect to do the kinds of infomation necessary to do and display the calculations that you need ? Can you concieve a form that could be submitted that would provide that information?

Seth says

Mark 2005-12-13 07:52:55 2260

Lets say there are labeled numbers in the comments or body of an item. Lets also say that there are many items in a tagroom that have these numbers on them. Does the

think that quads can provide a solution such as adding the numbers all up and returning it to say [my numbers: sum tag iteration1] ??

Yes. Quads can specify calculations to be performed in some context. Quads link together to create forms (think of the kind of form that you fill out for some governmental process to occur). You still need to precisely speciify what the context of the calculation is and link that up with a set of quads.

Mark de LA says

Was thinking something like ve label: gress memvance for the number. Then words like add, subtract, multiply & divide with some syntax. Lets say I had a tagroom with comments which had the text estimate: nnnn where nnnn is a number. I would like the wiki reference [estimate: sum tagroom spec] to navigate me to an item with a 2-column matrix - the lefthand column is a list of items the righthand column is the numbers which were labeled estimate: & at the bottom is a cell that has the total. This is just a rough spec.

Mark de LA says

seth 2005-12-13 08:07:30 2260

Can you concieve a form that could be submitted that would provide that information?

If we can have a search for labeled info such as ve label: gress memvance

then we don't need an extra form.

Mark de LA says
I'm unclear as to how quads relate to calculations. With FIT tables you write a java program to help with the tables.

Mark de LA says

ITEM	COUNT
1023	10
1342	12
2180	14
TOTAL	36

Mark de LA says
Notice that the excel spreadsheet paste preserved the item links! (;-))

Mark de LA says

seth 2006-02-10 13:20:56 2260

has this question~answer beed satisfied ?

I didn't see a question that was answered. Anyway the solution really demands a decent spreadsheet that can be maintained in the tool itself. See Scott Davis' DJUG presentation from February 2006 archive download pdf for more on the fundamentals of Agile. He touts XPlanner previously mentioned in my bookmarks as the project planner for Agile.

Using FastBlogIt with Agile Processes

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