The agile ability to be Value Driven (and the Paradigm Shift from a Plan-driven Mentality)

Posted by Andrea Gigante on 26 February, 2013
Posted in: Agile, Business, Personal, Product Management. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Human proximity to cat - thanks to XKCD 231Not long ago someone asked me what in my opinion was the most important improvement using Agile methodology.
I could have answer any of the twelve principles that underlie the Agile Manifesto.
For example I could have answered:

  • Welcome changing requirements, even late in development
  • Sustainable development, able to maintain a constant pace
  • Close, daily co-operation between business people and developers
  • Self-organizing teams

What I actually answered instead was:

the agile ability to be Value Driven. Continue Reading

Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, Morse Code and BBC…

Posted by Andrea Gigante on 31 December, 2012
Posted in: Interesting, News, Personal. Tagged: , , , , . 2 comments

Since I was a child, I’ve always been interested in Coding and Cryptography (I now remember that with some friends of mine we even created a simple substitution cipher); now, as a personal hobby, from time to time I simply investigate or read articles about it whenever I can or have time.

Beethoven Symphony 5 opening

At the moment I am reading “Mathematics, spies and hackers; Coding and Cryptography” Continue Reading

Personal suggestions/improvements for the #Ingress game

Posted by Andrea Gigante on 11 December, 2012
Posted in: Google, Ingress, Product Management. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a Comment

The other day I was explaining what this Google #Ingress game was to a friend of mine. He suddenly asked me what my personal opinion was and if I had some improvements for it…

xkcd way to explain Ingress: -Ingress: Foursquare With Space Noises- Original n1143 - Title location - Ingress a Niantic Labs at GoogleFollowing you can find some personal ideas for Ingress, I would just like to remind everybody that I do NOT work for Google, neither I have special insides info or anything similar, those are just some personal ideas for future improvements/features on this game.

Something I believe important for this game to improve is: the team experience.
A step towards a better “connection” between players would be done by items or functionalities like:
“Triangle deploy/hack”: 3 players within range Continue Reading

Movember is over …and my moustache will soon be gone!

Posted by Andrea Gigante on 1 December, 2012
Posted in: Interesting, Personal. Tagged: , . 2 comments

Movember Andrea moustache after a monthAs many of you is already aware, during the month of November each year, Movember asks men across the world to grow a moustache with the aim of raising vital funds and awareness for men’s health issues.
Movember is committed to reducing the impact of prostate cancer on men and their loved ones. This is being achieved as a result of the Movember community supporting a series of world class programs in the fields of awareness, research, education and survivorship.

This year I have decided to participate Continue Reading

What is Ingress? …a Google global game of mystery, intrigue and conquest.

Posted by Andrea Gigante on 26 November, 2012
Posted in: Business, Google, Ingress, Interesting. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a Comment

What is Ingress?
Ingress Official Icon/Logo by Niantic Labs at GoogleIngress is the new social game developed by Niantic Labs at Google.
At the moment it is still Beta and access codes are hard to find (this is how I did).

The viral online marketing campaign is incredible. It is not easy to find information on the game and Google is putting a lot of work to maintain this big expectation over it.

As a simple summary: you’ll use the GPS on your mobile phone to look for “portals” (publicly accessible locations in the real world), and then you’ll claim them for your team by deploying “resonators”. Continue Reading

Methods to get an Ingress code (new Google Social game)

Posted by Andrea Gigante on 23 November, 2012
Posted in: Google, Ingress, Interesting, Personal. Tagged: , , , , , , . 5 comments

One of the best emails I’ve received this weekend: “You’ve Been Invited to Play Ingress”
You have Been Invited to Play Ingress email

I’ve finally get an #Ingress code!
How did I gain an access code to the beta Google Social game?

There are different ways to get it; here we can review a couple of methods:

  • Trading Creativity: The first one as commented in the official Niantic Project page (where as a Twitter message) we can read: “NianticProject People are trading creativity for access to the leaked Ingress tech. The next Tychos? nianticproject.com/?id=00tod17 #nianticproject #ingress” Continue Reading

Summary video of agile product ownership and Agile SDLC big picture

Posted by Andrea Gigante on 19 November, 2012
Posted in: Agile, Business, Product Management. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a Comment

A really good high level summary video of agile product ownership, by Henrik Kniberg.
Personally I believe it is valuable not just for Product Owner but for the whole team as general knowledge.

This video is basically a 1 day product ownership course compressed into 15 minute animated presentation.
As Henrik Kniberg comments: there’s obviously more to product ownership than this, so see this is a high level summary.

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Agile Product Ownership in a Nutshell Continue Reading