Adaptive Sampling, you're doing it and don't even know it.

Alistair's article of adaptive sampling make a good point about quality not needing to be uniform:

"... First of all requirements statements aren't requirements, they are only placeholder tokens for [need-solution] pairs. Secondly, the system doesn't have a single quality requirement, the quality characteristics vary by [need-solution] pairs. We can save time and money on the project by examing each "requirement" (or wish, or user story, or backlog item) individually, and working out what the appropriate level of effort will be needed at that one spot. We can save time and money in that endeavor by using [this] adaptive sampling idea and breaking the work into areas, those with similar quality needs..."

Stretch Tasks

In Kelly Waters' "All About Agile" blog Kelly says: "Include a bit more than you think can be achieved. It's important to prepare more items during planning in case the team finishes early. These items can be clearly identified as stretch tasks and the Product Owner should not expect them to be completed. These are the things you will only do if the Sprint goes better than you expected."

A great quote

I found this valuable quote in the Introduction to the Eclipse PPT. It's by Alfred North Whitehead, a 19th Century British mathematician, logician and philosopher.

"...by relieving the brain of all unnecessary work, a good notation sets it free to concentrate on more advanced problems, and in effect, increases the mental power of the race."

Agilists at Graffiti labs

Here Bre Pettis hosts Michael from Graffiti Reasearch Labs, Vienna. Michael expands on a traditional Agile mantra saying "...release early, often and with 'rad' music..."

No more "done"

I dislike the word "done" because the defenition can be so subjective. For instance, my idea of "done" may not be your idea of "done." Instead of asking "...is it done?" I would prefer we ask "...does it perform?"