6 May 2015
Like all software companies, estimates are a challenging aspect of the business for us at Planet Argon. Why are they so troublesome? What can be done about it? The Clever PM has an interesting and informative article about this topic.
19 Aug 2014
The Retrospective Trifecta
4 Apr 2014
Our friend, Megan, over at Cloud Four opens up on what being agile means to their process.
13 Mar 2014
Tuesday night I attended the second ever PDX Digital PM meetup session at Instrument. It was beyond refreshing to meet with other project managers / producers and hear that others are facing similar operational challenges that candidly, we deal with daily at Planet Argon. During the meetup we broke into small groups and discussed various topics such as preferred tools, process, and client expectations.
The small group format provided us with the opportunity to share our experiences and work with each other through some issues that we face. Garnering such rich information from peers in the industry is beyond valuable, especially for someone who works with a small team.
One of the most valuable pieces of information that I carried away with me last night concerns a scheduling tool called 'Merlin'. Listening to the Instrument’s producers rave about this tool while at the same time voice concerns about other tools I myself have tried and immediately discarded in the past, I knew I had to try it. So far, I might just be sold on it.
Special thanks goes to Adam Edgerton, of Metal Toad Media, who took the time to organize these meetups. Prior to this, I was unable to find anything quite like this in Portland. Last night’s turnout clearly indicates that this is a much desired gathering of the minds. I'm greatly looking forward to the next one on April 8th!
24 Jun 2013
Kris Gale of Yammer talks about the costs of introducing complexity into your application.
While I agree with many points, i do worry that sometimes there is too much of a disconnect between Engineers and the Product Owners. If you’re in the position of asking someone to build something… are you explaining why it needs to be built?
If you’re the person being asked to build something… are you asking why?
28 Aug 2012
Both outline the reasoning and motivation for how we estimate at Planet Argon, and why.
13 Jul 2012
Nothing sinks a project faster than a poor estimate, or rather, an estimate that sets the wrong expectation. Part of the problem with setting expectations is finding the right words to paint an idea of the development effort.
12 Jun 2012
We recently switched issue trackers—and while a feat in and of itself—half the battle was getting our arms wrapped around the replacement… JIRA. When discussing the topic with one of our clients they remarked, “JIRA gives you sooooo much rope, it’s almost impossible not to hang yourself with it all!”
13 Apr 2012
D^5 was built on Agile concepts. It’s centered around individuals and interactions: It’s centered around working software: It’s centered around customer collaboration: And it’s centered around responding (not reacting) to change.
12 Apr 2012
I think it’s important to point out at this stage that we used the D^5 process to create… the D^5 process. We used D^5 to sequence and organize this series of blog posts (look at the titles and order).
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