Working in IT field and have not written a single post about IT!! Oh. That is bad. Here comes my post about the wonderful AGILE methodology!

Let us start with basics. What is a methodology? It is simple. Just imagine that you are going to prepare a great dinner in March for your guests. What will you do? Won’t you plan and figure out an action plan? That is methodology. The dinner you are going to give to the guest is the release of your product to the customers.

One of the traditional methodologies is Waterfall model. What is the difference between it and agile? Starting from January there are 3 months for the D Day. As per waterfall model, you will plan the menu, build and work on your culinary skills and finally display them on the D Day. Guests will taste your dishes! Sounds risky. Isnt it? Whereas in agile, the three month duration is broken down into six periods known as iterations. Say for the dinner you have planned to make three dishes(sweet,pizza and ice cream) ,decorate the dishes, clean the dining room and arrange for small gifts. Each of these six constituents is mentioned as story. If you take the story of preparing pizza you can further break it down as preparing the base, deciding about the topping and finally cooking. These three activities are known as tasks.

Each story has an owner. You can say that a story is completed only after it is accepted by the owner. Say the guests for your dinner are your mom’s friends. Now tell me who should own the stories regarding the dishes? Your mother knows her friends’ requirements and expectations. So she is the owner of the story. Only after she accepts your pizza it can be delivered to the guests. In business, the owner of the story is Product Manager as he is an interface between the customer and the product. (There are few exceptional situations in which Lead or the developer must own the story. Any guesses? )

For each iteration, a specific story and its tasks are taken. Usually iteration lasts from 5 to 15 days. Say in the first iteration you will prepare pizza. At the end of the iteration you will have a demo session. The higher authority, say your mom will experiment your product i.e the pizza and give feedback. If your pizza is accepted then you can move to the next iteration. Say it could be preparing sweet. You can start with the tasks in next iteration only after getting acceptance for the first iteration task. Here comes the first advantage. Once you are done with the first iteration and got acceptance it’s sure that your guests will get a nice pizza satisfying their requirements for sure even though they might not get the sweet or ice cream. In business say, you have committed for three new features to the customer. By the end of first iteration, you are sure that one feature is completed and it can be delivered to the customer!

Consider this scenario. You are not able to prepare the pizza by first iteration itself. You need two more days to finish it. This is known as spill over. The task you have planned for nth iteration has spilled over to n+1 th iteration. Usually cause and impact of spill over is scrutinized carefully. Say if it is due to some unprecedented change in requirement or due to the inclusion of some other much more important task then its justified. If it is due to the faulty task estimation then it needs to be addressed immediately. You have wrongly committed to deliver pizza in 15 days.

Now imagine this. For fifth iteration you have a assigned a task for your little cousin. He has to add nuts to the ice cream that you are going to prepare and put it inside the freezer. His task his dependent on your task of ice cream preparation. Only after you have prepared the ice cream he can add nuts and put it inside freezer. You are the producer of the story “ice cream preparation” and he is the consumer of the story. Say if you have not produced ice cream and deliver it to him by 5^th iteration,then he is said to be blocked. Blocked is a dreaded term as it not only points that you have not completed the task but in addition to it some one else is also not able to do his task due to it.

I will explain the implementation of agile methodology in projects, the most important and much used term,tools used, and the nuances involved in agile methodology in my next post. Until then try to figure out and let us know the type of story which must be owned by the developer.

Margazhi is an auspicious month in Tamil year. Tamil calendar consists of twelve months and this is a very special month. It usually comes in december and lasts till the first two weeks of January. This month  is meant to be dedicated entirely for devotion. Ah! I dont beleive the last sentence. Because our predecessors were neither empty headed to advocate an entire month for devotion  nor they had the luxury to sit and happily sing bajans for a whole month. I seriously doubt the purpose of it.What could it be? Voila!! As expected I found the reason behind it. It is a month with strict timelines and exercise shedules framed by our ancestors to make the young girls stay fit and slim.Do my reasoning sounds idiotic? Well. Read through the entire post and then judge.

Here comes a little background about the famous margazhi. Hinduism has two main  sub divisions namely,saivam and vainavam. In saivam the lord is Siva and in Vainavam it is  Vishnu. Noteworthy poets and sages of saivam are known as Nayanmars and they were 63 in number.In vainavam there are twelve such devotees,known as alwars. Tamil literature is highly indebted to both alwars and nayanmars for their splendid contribution.Margazhi is a special month for vainavam. Andal,a female alwar is  the protagonist of margazhi season.  Her work is the famous thirupaavai,collection of songs for margaazhi.The story goes like this. Andal, a mortal girl falls in love with the immortal Lord Vishnu. She loves the lord,pray for him,observe the fasting in margazhi and finally join with the Lord,her goal! (Its like the paramathma Jeevathma concept,I have explained in my earlier post. The Alchemist & HinduismAn ordinary girl acheives her impossible goal as she beleives in her dream. Yes. One of  the many “The Alchemist” stories of Hinduism.)  This fasting is mainly observed by young ladies to garland the man of their choice.

Firstly Bhakthi or devotion in Margazhi is different from that of other months. It is symbolised with colourful kolams and joyful young girls as against the concept of renouncing and old sages. Choosing margazhi as the month for devotion is noteworthy. Margazhi precedes the month “Thai ”,the harvest season. There is a popular saying in tamil.”Thai piranthal Vazhi pirakkum” - When the month Thai comes many opportunities will come. It is the season when crops are harvested and traded which results in money.So it is a spending season. In this month,lot of marriages and all good things will take place. Doesnt it sound sensible to make the girls fit when such an important season comes?

Margazhi fasting has this procedure.During margazhi, Andal wakes up early in the morning. She goes to each of her friend’s house and wake them up. Together they go to pond,fetch water. Then they return home and adorn their houses with kolam.Kolam is an excellent physical and mental exercise. Proficiency in kolam is viewed as an important parameter while considering the brides to be. It is similar to how singing and playing music was considered as a brides to be scoring section in western world. Andal will be singing songs in praise of Lord Vishnu,her interest while doing all these chores. Isnt it similar to a young girl waking up early in the morning,going to the gym or beach along with her friends and exercise listening to Metallica or any good music along with the frequent chats?

Then comes the diet part. People observe fasting during margazhi. Margazhi fasting is not just elimination of non veg items from food. It includes the exclusion of milk products from the diet. Andal specifies it in her song,”Nei Unnom Paal unnom” (We wont consume ghee and milk). Doesnt it sound like a dietician’s advice?

So the system is like this. For one full month girls will wake up very early, gather together,chat their way towards ponds,fetch water,sing and will draw the elaborate kolams  and have limited diet without milk products. Obviously it reduces the extra weight and makes them slim and fit. Apart from the fitness it also develops the quality which are advocated by many current marriage counsellors essential for a succesfull marriage. The quality of moving amiably with ones acquaintances such as neighbours,forming good relations and doing things together. Its like coming out of ones small circle of family and exploring the outer world with your peers.

Andal must be the earliest dietician cum marriage counsellor!!