Your ScrumMaster is a project manager in disguise

In 6 attributes of a good ScrumMaster Mike Cohn repeats the common line that the ScrumMaster role does not always require a full-time, eight-hour-a-day commitment. Often the ‘orchestra conductor’ role of ScrumMaster is an unofficial one within your organisation even though it clearly has well defined functions and responsibilities. So many people do ask the question Is a ScrumMaster a full time position? As Boris points out, it is, and he explains why it is a 100% fulltime job.

The ScrumMaster has internal and external responsibilities. Even if the team is well disciplined with following the process, and they address most of their own impediments there is still the challenge of being a gatekeeper between the management and the team. This is being recognised in many organisations now and you can even see ScrumMaster as a recruitment position. It’s interesting to note that many of these positions have Project Manager / ScrumMaster as the title.

What does a Project Manager do that a ScrumMaster does not (or vice versa)? A project manager is the person who has the overall responsibility for the successful planning and execution of a project. This title is used in the construction industry, architecture, information technology and many different occupations that are based on production of a product or service. While strictly speaking, the team, rather than the ScrumMaster has responsibility for the success of the project, a ScrumMaster does assume responsibility for the team’s adoption of Scrum and practice of it. A ScrumMaster takes on this responsibility without assuming any of the power that might be useful in achieving in it.

To boil it all down to it’s essence, a ScrumMaster is a Project Manager who has realised that they don’t really have the power to successfully deliver a project, and has adopted a framework to take advantage of that humbling position.

Oracle VPN

Virtual Private Networks have made remote working and access to critical corporate resources so much easier over the past few years. In fact, there is so much about the way we work today that is dependent on being able to get at data remotely yet in a secure manner. The VPN diagram to the left provides a simple representation of what a VPN does. It creates a secure tunnel (red lines) for the transfer of data (green line) between two points.

So what do you do when you need to get some work done, but you’ve got your corporate laptop safely and securely locked in a drawer in the office?

There is a website for Oracle employees that has software downloads, remote access tools, patches and so on. It is called Oracle Desktop External Support and can be accessed over the internet without the corporate VPN. Almost all downloads on the site are suitable for installation and are licensed for use on Oracle employee’s personal systems. I have the site on my synchronised bookmarks and it comes in very handy.

Strange cloud heads for Iceland

Google appears to be always thinking about new tools or approaches to make or save money. Lots of these ideas sneak out onto the internet and lots of discussions, articles and opinions get generated. Occasionally, a real product is eventually seen. Way back in 2008 rumours about a Google data centre navy abounded. That particular Times Online article mentions some statistics and reports about data centres and carbon footprint which I have yet to verify. However, other articles and press releases have suggested the data is not without foundation. Here’s a quote:

Data centres consumed 1 per cent of the world’s electricity in 2005. By 2020 the carbon footprint of the computers that run the internet will be larger than that of air travel, a recent study by McKinsey, a consultancy firm, and the Uptime Institute, a think tank, predicted.

It was with great interest that I read about a zero carbon foot print data centre being proposed in Iceland. The data centre will not be up and running until next year, but is being built on an old NATO base. Expecting to take advantage of free ambient cooling and 100% renewable electricity verneglobal are predicting substantial reductions in carbon released from day to day operations.

While a great idea, I feel the greatest speed bump in the migration to Iceland is regulation and legislation, or rather the perception of compliance with data privacy laws and in particular the Patriot Act.

Ireland’s new Baywatch mashup

Due to a new initiative from the EPA you can keep up to-date on the water quality of Ireland’s major bays (hence the article title), beaches and rivers. Made possible by some hard work from the clever people at IBM’s Water Management Centre of Excellence, Splash provides a great way to research different beaches and decide where to visit based on a number of parameters — water quality, weather, and whether or not a lifeguard is on duty, and so on. You’ll note from the spelling of Centre that it is European based. In fact it’s current home is right here in Dublin.

The site is a clever mashup of EPA water quality data, which is provided by the local councils, some location data and weather reports from AccuWeather. There also appears to be a Twitter status check as well but I have not seen any data from this actually displayed on the site. The location data includes a description of the area and some images.

For the Oracle offices in Dublin, the nearest beach is Dollymount Strand. The Splash website provides the following description:

Dollymount provides tremendous respite from Dubliners from the vagaries of city living. It is along beach with sweeping views of the Dublin Mountains. This seaside area and wildlife reserve is located north of Dublin Harbour. The strand is connected to the shore by a late 19th century wooden bridge. Dollymount is on the seaward side of Bull Island, one of the most protected pieces of property in Ireland. Cars are allowed on a small section of this beach which is separated from the Blue Flag beach by wooden pilings.

I’m not sure how ‘respite from Dubliners’ is achieved. Anytime I’ve been on the beach, at least one Dubliner has been there. The images are also of great interest as the site provides a birds eye view that you can zoom in and out of as well as a photo of the location. No Dubliners, or people for that matter appear in the images, so perhaps that is the respite referred to.
One of the IBM blogs suggests that this form of mashup will be rolled out to other countries in the future. Personally, I think this is a great example of innovation within Ireland and I look forward to seeing more if it.

Fear of maths is a problem worth solving

According to researchers at the University of Granada, 6 out of every 10 university students present “mathematical anxiety”. This study was carried out in a sample consisting of 885 first-year students from 23 different degrees given at the UGR which include the subject of Mathematics, both compulsory and core. The sample included four of the five university fields of study: Health Sciences, Experimental Sciences, Technical Education and Social Sciences. The conclusion is that many students choose 3rd level courses different to those they preferred – and in which they would be really good in many cases – in order to avoid studying subjects connected with Mathematics. Clearly there needs to be some help with math at an early stage in life to avoid this anxiety and help people get comfortable with maths.

At first this may not appear as such a big issue for Computer Programming, particularly as the majority of the software development emphasis is on business rather than scientific solutions. It may be obvious, but it has to be pointed out that one of the key residual benefits from studying to solve math problems is the development of problem solving skills. While many of us , years later, may rarily use the algebra we study in school, the process of breaking down a problem into it’s constituent parts stays with us when we go out into the real world. Where problems have vague specifications. Where there is more than one way to solve a problem. Where you run into problems you have never seen before.

There is free online math help available. To name just a couple there is:

Also there is a great book called Maths: A Student’s Survival Guide which will be valued particularly by those who need to make up a deficiency in a specific topic or to remove the rust from their mathematics. If all this is too much to start working on your own mathematical anxiety then consider chocolate. At least you’ll get something out of it!