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Sunday, March 24, 2013

Former NFL players speak against domestic violence

DALLAS (AP) ? An NFL legend expressed dismay Saturday that public campaigns and rallies must still be held to tamp down the instances of domestic violence that leave women battered and bruised.

Hall of Fame quarterback Roger Staubach told a crowd of thousands in downtown that men should know better than to strike a woman. But domestic abuse continues to bedevil authorities in Dallas and elsewhere.

"It's amazing that we even need to have this rally," Staubach told the crowd at the rally dubbed Dallas Men Against Abuse, "but the momentum needs to take shape."

Hall of Fame running back Emmitt Smith also spoke to the crowd, and Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant made a surprise appearance. In brief comments, Bryant apologized for his role in a domestic altercation in July. He was arrested for allegedly hitting his mother, but no charges were filed

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and other city leaders have waged a public campaign against domestic violence after a series of high-profile crimes in which woman were killed or attacked, allegedly by men. "You can call a man who hits a woman a lot of things, but you can't call him a man," Rawlings said.

Dallas Police Chief David Brown said his department responds to more than 13,000 domestic violence calls each year, a persistently high number that requires an array of social services for victims.

Rawlings, who has said members of his own family have been victims of domestic violence, said one of every two women in the U.S. will be struck at some point in their lives. The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence estimates that 85 percent of domestic violence victims are women.

Hall of Fame running back Emmitt Smith, who like Staubach was a longtime fixture of the Dallas Cowboys, told the audience that one of the most fulfilling parts of life is to "reach out and help someone along the way."

He said more people must do this to cut into the number of women each year who are victims of domestic violence. He chided men who are unable to control their emotions.

"It's truly not a manly thing to do," he said.

Lara Gaither, outreach director for the Genesis Women's Shelter in Dallas, said Brown has told Genesis officials that over the last year or two, overall crime has dropped in Dallas. The exception is cases of domestic abuse.

"We can't end domestic violence until men are part of the solution," Gaither said before the rally.

Josh Thompson, an early childhood educator for Texas A&M in Commerce, said the most dangerous place for a child is in the home of a mother with a boyfriend who has no strong attachment to the child.

"There's this lack of accountability on the man's part," he said. "We need to man up and hold each other accountable. We can change one another by acting with commitment."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/former-nfl-players-speak-against-domestic-violence-200755813--spt.html

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Police: No sign of 3rd party in Berezovsky death

British police officers cordon off a road near a residence in Ascot, a town 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of London, Saturday, March 23, 2013. Boris Berezovsky, 67, a self-exiled and outspoken former Russian oligarch who had a bitter falling out with Russian President Vladimir Putin, was found dead Saturday in southeast England. Thames Valley police said his death was being treated as unexplained. They would not directly identify him, but when asked about him by name they read a statement saying they were investigating the death of a 67-year-old man at a property in Ascot. A mathematician turned Mercedes dealer, Berezovsky amassed his wealth during Russia's chaotic privatization of state assets in the early 1990's. The one-time Kremlin powerbroker fell out with Putin and sought political asylum in Britain in the early 2000's. He has lived in the U.K. ever since. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

FILE - In this Jan. 26, 2000 file photo Russian tycoons Boris Berezovsky, left, and Roman Abramovich, then both lawmakers, walk after the session of the State Duma, parliament's lower house, in Moscow, Russia. United Kingdom police have said that Berezovsky has been found dead Saturday March 23, 2013. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev, File)

FILE - A Wednesday, July 18, 2007 photo from files showing Russian exile Boris Berezovsky, a close friend of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko who was poisoned by Polonium 2-10, speaking to the media in a news conference in London. United Kingdom police have said that Berezovsky has been found dead Saturday March 23, 2013. (AP Photo/Sang Tan, File)

FILE - A Friday, Aug. 31, 2012 photo from files showing Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky talking to the media after losing his case against Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich as he leaves the High Court in London. United Kingdom police have said that Berezovsky has been found dead Saturday March 23, 2013.(AP Photo/Sang Tan, File)

LONDON (AP) ? British police said Sunday they have no evidence to suggest third-party involvement in the death of Boris Berezovsky, the self-exiled Russian tycoon who went from Kremlin kingmaker to fiery critic.

With an investigation underway, police are treating the death of Berezovsky ? who fled to Britain in the early 2000s after a bitter falling out with Russian President Vladimir Putin ? as unexplained. But the former oligarch survived assassination attempts and recently faced financial difficulties, prompting speculation as to whether his death was part of a conspiracy ? or suicide.

Police said Sunday it would be wrong to speculate on how Berezovsky died pending the results of an autopsy but that they had no reason to suspect

"We are at the early stages of the investigation and we are retaining an open mind as we progress," said Detective Chief Inspector Kevin Brown. "The investigation team is building a picture of the last days of Mr. Berezovsky's life, speaking to close friends and family to gain a better understanding of his state of mind."

Police released some details on the circumstances that triggered their investigation into his demise and a subsequent check for hazardous materials at the property in Ascot, a town 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of London where Berezovsky's body was found on Saturday.

A call came into police from the local ambulance service at 3:23 p.m. GMT (11:23 a.m. EDT) Saturday saying a man had been found dead, Thames Valley Police said in a statement on Sunday.

The police said an employee of Berezovsky told how he had called an ambulance after becoming concerned for Berezovsky's welfare and forced open a bathroom door locked from the inside to find the tycoon's body on the floor.

The employee was the only person in the house when Berezovsky's body was discovered, police said. Members of the ex-oligarch's family arrived at the home while the paramedic was on scene.

Police explained that after a paramedic declared Berezovsky dead and left the scene, a device measuring his exposure to radiation was triggered, which is why chemical and radiations experts were called to examine the property.

"Officers found nothing of concern in the property and we are now progressing the investigation as normal," a statement from police said earlier, adding that the majority of the cordon put in place around the property has now been lifted.

Berezovsky ? who had survived a number of assassination attempts ? amassed a fortune through oil and automobiles during Russia's chaotic privatization of state assets following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.

Once a member of Russian President Boris Yeltsin's inner circle, Berezovsky fell out with Yeltsin's successor, Putin, and fled Britain in the early 2000s to escape fraud charges that he said were politically motivated.

He became a strident and frequent critic of Putin, accusing the leader of ushering in a dictatorship, and accused the security services of organizing the 1999 apartment house bombings in Moscow and two other Russian cities that became a pretext for Russian troops to sweep into Chechnya for the second war there in half a decade.

Putin's spokesman acknowledged Sunday that the Russian president considered Berezovsky an enemy with clearly stated intentions to fight.

"We know for certain that he spared no expense in support of processes, within Russia and beyond, that could be said to have been directed against Russia and Putin," spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on the independent cable television channel Rain. "He definitely was Putin's opponent, and unfortunately not only his political opponent, but most likely in other dimensions as well."

In recent years, Berezovsky fended off legal attacks that often bore political undertones ? and others that bit into his fortune.

Russia repeatedly sought to extradite on Berezovksy on a wide variety of criminal charges, and the tycoon vehemently rejected allegations over the years that he was linked to several deaths, including that of slain journalist Anna Politkovskaya and ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko.

Berezovsky won a libel case in 2010 against a Kremlin-owned broadcaster that aired a show in which it was suggested he was behind the poisoning of Litvinenko, who had fled Russia with Berezovsky's help after accusing officials there of plotting to assassinate political opponents.

He took a hit with his divorce from Galina Besharova in 2010, paying what was at the time Britain's largest divorce settlement. The figure beat a previous record of 48 million pounds ($73.1 million) and was estimated as high as 100 million pounds, though the exact figure was never confirmed.

Last year, Berezovsky lost a multibillion-pound High Court case against fellow Russian Roman Abramovich and was ordered to pay 35 million pounds ($53.3 million) in legal costs.

Berezovsky had claimed that Abramovich, the billionaire owner of Chelsea Football Club, cheated him out of his stakes in the oil group Sibneft, arguing that he blackmailed him into selling the stakes vastly beneath their true worth after he lost Putin's good graces.

But a judge threw out the case in August, ruling that Berezovsky was a dishonest and unreliable witness, and rejected Berezovsky's claims that he was threatened by Putin and Alexander Voloshin, a Putin ally, to coerce him to sell his Sibneft stake.

It also recently emerged that Berezovsky ran up legal bills totaling more than 250,000 pounds in just two months of a case against his former partner, Elena Gorbunova, with whom he had two children and who claimed the businessman owed her millions.

Earlier this week, The Times of London newspaper reported that Berezovsky was selling property ? including an Andy Warhol portrait of the former Soviet Union leader Vladimir Lenin ? to settle his debts and pay expenses owed to lawyers.

News of Berezovsky's death has prompted conspiracy theories along with speculation as to his state of mind, given his recent financial setbacks.

Ilya Zhegulev, a journalist with the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, said he spoke with Berezovsky the day before he died and discussed the tycoon's decision to flee Russia in 2000.

The journalist quoted Berezovsky as saying that during his years in London he had lost the meaning of life.

"I no longer want to be involved in politics," Zhegulev quoted Berezovsky as saying in a story published Saturday on the Forbes.ru website.

He said Berezovsky told him that he wanted nothing more than to return to Russia. The former oligarch said he had changed his views on Russia, saying he now understood that it should not look to Europe as a model.

"I had absolutely, idealistically imagined that it was possible to build a democratic Russia. And idealistically imagined what democracy was in the center of Europe. I underestimated the inertia of Russia and greatly overestimated the West. This took place gradually. I changed my understanding of Russia's path," he quoted Berezovsky as having said.

___

AP writer Lynn Berry in Moscow contributed to this report. Cassandra Vinograd can be reached at http://twitter.com/CassVinograd

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-03-24-Britain-Berezovsky/id-1d34f2b3d16540ea97c1a2a0fba8ff80

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Pope Francis, pope emeritus Benedict XVI meet

By Philip Pullella

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (Reuters) - A reigning pope and a former pope faced each other for the first time in at least 600 years on Saturday when Pope Francis travelled south of Rome for lunch with his predecessor, pope emeritus Benedict XVI.

Francis, who was elected on March 13, flew by helicopter to the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, where Benedict has been living since he abdicated on February 28.

Footage released by the Vatican showed the two men, both dressed in nearly identical white clerical garb, including white skull caps, embracing shortly after the helicopter landed at the large estate.

The only difference in garb is that Francis also wears a short white cape over his cassock and a white sash around his waist - both symbols of his authority. On Saturday Benedict, who often suffered from chills, even indoors, wore a thick white vest over his cassock.

They then rode in the same car to the residence where they prayed together, spoke alone for about 45 minutes and then had lunch accompanied by their two secretaries. Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the atmosphere for the entire visit, which lasted just under three hours, was "family-like".

When they went to pray in the chapel, Benedict offered the place of honor, a kneeler before the altar, to Francis, who declined, saying, "We are brothers, we pray together," Lombardi said. Footage showed the two men praying at the same pew.

Asked about the health of Benedict, who became the first pope in 600 years to resign instead of ruling for life, citing diminishing strength, Lombardi said: "It is normal, he is an old man."

Benedict has been living temporarily in the summer residence in the Alban Hills and will move back to the Vatican after the restoration of a convent where he is expected to live for the rest of his life.

Shortly before his resignation, Benedict, now 85, said he would be "withdrawing into prayer" and would live out his remaining days "hidden from the world".

In February, on the last day of his nearly eight years as leader of the Catholic Church, Benedict pledged his unconditional obedience to whoever would succeed him. Lombardi said the meeting "gave Benedict the opportunity, through his gestures" to renew his pledge personally.

While Lombardi said there would be no statement on what the two discussed, it was likely that the conversation included problems of Vatican administration.

LEAKS SCANDAL

Before he resigned, Benedict left a secret report for Francis on the so-called "Vatileaks" scandal in which sensitive papal documents were stolen from the pope's desk and leaked to the media by his butler.

Last year, the butler, Paolo Gabriele, was arrested and sentenced by a Vatican court to 18 months in prison but Benedict pardoned him and he was freed last Christmas.

The presence of a reigning pope and a pope emeritus is new for the Church in the modern era, but experts say it should not cause difficulties unless Benedict tries to influence Francis's decisions, something he has promised not to do.

Some Church scholars worry that in the event that Francis undoes some of Benedict's policies while he is still alive, the former pope could become a lightning rod for conservatives and polarize the Church.

"Benedict XVI could turn into a shadow pope who has stepped down but can still exert indirect influence," Hans Kung, a dissident Swiss theologian who has clashed with Benedict in the past, told a German magazine.

Francis, who inherited a Church riven by problems such as the sexual abuse scandal in many countries, has indicated in his first few days that his papacy will be more austere.

He wants the Church to be poorer and to be closer to the poor and suffering. In this vein, he has decided to hold Holy Thursday service next week in a juvenile jail on Rome's outskirts rather than in the Vatican or in a Rome Basilica, where it has been held by all his predecessor in living memory.

(Additional reporting by Steve Scherer; Editing by Stephen Powell)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pope-former-pope-meet-first-encounter-600-years-020149372.html

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Winning $338M Powerball jackpot ticket sold in N.J.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) ? A single ticket sold in New Jersey matched all six numbers in Saturday night's drawing for the $338.3 million Powerball jackpot, lottery officials said. It was the 13th drawing held in the days since a Virginia man won a $217 million jackpot Feb. 6.

Thirteen other tickets worth $1 million each matched all but the final Powerball number on Saturday night. Those tickets were sold in New Jersey and 10 other states. Lottery officials said there was also one Power Play Match 5 winner in Iowa.

The New Jersey Lottery said Sunday that details about the winning ticket would be released Monday, declining to reveal where it had been purchased and whether anyone had immediately come forward. Lottery officials say it was the fourth largest jackpot in Powerball history.

The numbers drawn were 17, 29, 31, 52, 53 and Powerball 31. A lump sum payout would be $221 million.

Lottery officials said the 13 tickets worth $1 million apiece ? matching the first five numbers but missing the Powerball ? were sold in Arizona, Florida (2), Illinois, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania (2), South Carolina and Virginia.

Powerball said on its website that the grand prize jackpot has now been reset to an estimated $40 million or a lump sum cash amount estimated at $25 million for Wednesday's next drawing.

No one had won the Powerball jackpot since early February, when Dave Honeywell in Virginia bought the winning ticket and elected a cash lump sum for his $217 million jackpot.

The largest Powerball jackpot ever came in at $587.5 million in November. The winning numbers were picked on two different tickets ? one by a couple in Missouri and the other by an Arizona man ? and the jackpot was split.

Nebraska still holds the record for the largest Powerball jackpot won on a single ticket ? $365 million. That jackpot was won by eight workers at a Lincoln, Neb., meatpacking plant in February 2006.

Powerball is played in 42 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The chance of matching all five numbers and the Powerball number is about 1 in 175 million.

Powerball said on its website that the game is played every Wednesday and Saturday night when five white balls are drawn from a drum of 59 balls and one red ball is picked from a drum with 35 red balls. It added that winners of the Powerball jackpot can elect to be paid out over 29 years at a percentage set by the game's rules ? or in a lump sum cash payment.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/winning-338m-powerball-jackpot-ticket-sold-nj-074556709.html

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Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Huawei security chief says embracing its hacker critics

NEW DELHI/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Under-fire Chinese telecoms equipment vendor Huawei Technologies Co Ltd is reaching out to one of its sternest critics: a hacker who accused it of making shoddy products.

John Suffolk, the company's global cybersecurity chief, told Reuters at a cybersecurity conference in New Delhi that he was sending a team of engineers to talk to German security researcher Felix Lindner, who has exposed vulnerabilities in the company's routers, from its $100 home Internet devices to multi-million dollar equipment run by telecommunications companies.

"We've very much taken on board Felix's views and you'll see over the coming period we've got a whole host of significant operations to deal with these issues," he said.

The move is a departure of sorts for Huawei, which has been battling critics on several fronts. It was last year blocked from bidding for a multi-billion dollar national broadband network contract in Australia over cyber-security fears.

A U.S. congressional committee recommended Washington to similarly bar Huawei and its Chinese rival ZTE Corp from being allowed to sell equipment to U.S. carriers.

INSPECTING HUAWEI'S CODE

Huawei has denied inserting deliberate backdoors in its products to allow for spying, and has invited governments to inspect its code.

In Britain, it set up a center to test out whether its products can withstand security threats, and has offered to set up something similar in both the United States and Australia.

But it has so far been reluctant to engage security researchers and hackers who challenge the company, something that Suffolk said was now changing, in part because of Lindner's allegations.

Suffolk, who was the British government's chief information officer before joining the Chinese company, said the team's trip to Germany had been slowed by visa issues, but would go ahead soon.

Lindner told Reuters after a presentation at a hacker conference in Kuala Lumpur earlier this month that, while he could not be sure there were no deliberate backdoors in the software, there was no evidence in the devices that he tested.

The problem, he said, was that the software was poorly written and left the equipment vulnerable to hackers.

Lindner's views fitted with a White House investigation that found no clear proof that Huawei was spying for the Chinese government, sources told Reuters earlier this month.

SYSTEMIC CHANGE

Suffolk said that Huawei had not sent anyone to attend an earlier presentation by Lindner in July but had done so for the Kuala Lumpur conference.

Their presence, he said, was not to dissuade Lindner from speaking but to see if he was revealing new information.

"We like these comments, although sometimes you think to yourself that's a bit of a slap in the face," Suffolk said.

"But sometimes you need a bit of a slap in the face to step back, not be emotive in your response, and say what do I systematically need to change so over time any these issues begin to reduce?"

The move to engage Lindner, Suffolk said, was part of a broader shift in Huawei's approach that he had led since joining the company in 2011.

He numbered among the changes making it easier for other security researchers to contact Huawei with vulnerabilities they have found. But his long-term goal, he said, was to change procedures to make all products more robust.

"I can fix the Felix issue in a few lines of code," he said. "But I'm interested in systemic change within Huawei."

Huawei's efforts to crack the lucrative U.S. market have been hurt by years of suspicion from U.S. lawmakers, who say the Shenzhen-based company, started by CEO Ren Zhengfei, a former Chinese military officer, has links with the Chinese government.

After an 11-month investigation, the U.S. House of Representatives' Intelligence Committee released a 52-page report urging U.S. firm to stop doing business with Huawei and its smaller rival ZTE due to potential influences from the Chinese government, which could pose security threats.

(Editing by Alex Richardson)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/huawei-security-chief-says-embracing-hacker-critics-081811367--sector.html

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Monday, October 29, 2012

Sunday musings and affirmations 10-28-12 | Martina McGowan

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?A? man?s worth is no greater than his ambitions.? Marcus? Aurelius???

Affirmation:?I combat de-motivation or lack of motivation with belief in my worth.

?I believe in myself. I am confident that I can rise above challenging circumstances because I have what it takes to do this.

My spiritual connection is strong and it fortifies?my strength whenever I feel a greater need for it.

When things happen that threaten to destroy my motivation or?make me question my attributes, I remind myself that negative forces exist to try and keep me down.

However, I know that I am worthy, and no external force can change that belief.

When someone indicates some displeasure with my work, I can admit to myself that it is easy to lose hope.

But then I remind myself of my value.

I know that I have it within me to overcome the challenges trying to hold me back.

So I push a little harder and complete the task at hand with excellence.

Today, I accept the challenge of believing in myself in every situation.

I look within to find the strength to motivate myself to keep going, especially after disappointment.

I know that failure has absolutely nothing to do with defining my worth.

In fact, such obstacles help me to recognize just how strong, capable and worthy I really am.?

Homework -?Self-Reflective Questions:?

1. What steps can I take to build my self-confidence?

2. Do I look to the support of family and friends to encourage me to persevere?

3. How do I feel when I am successful after convincing myself to keep going?

Note- This is a short term experiment that started 10-21-12.

My current plan is to do this every Sunday in preparation for our week ahead. But I need for you to do four things for me.

1. Read the affirmation and statement aloud to yourself.

2. Write out your answers to the self-reflective questions. You don?t have to share them if you don?t want to, but write them down for your own benefit and boost.

3. Subscribe. If we continue this series, the only way you will get it on a regular basis is to subscribe.

4. Comment. I don?t usually press for comments. However,?as I continue to consider adding this as a regular feature to the blog, I am asking for feedback. If you liked it, or didn?t. If you see ways that I can tweak it to make it better. If you found the exercise helpful or not. If you had some kind of breakthrough, epiphany or wake up call. If you?d rather get this as a newsletter on a monthly basis. Anything?

Here?s the bottom line for this experimental feature. Because it will take a little extra time to get these ready, no comments or feedback, no musings. Ok?

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/-lif-/3213233094/sizes/z/in/photostream/

About Martina McGowan

Servant, physician (gynecologist), blogger, businesswoman, seminary student, mother, grandmother, sexual assault survivor's advocate, listener, minister, speaker, teacher, leader, writer, occasional haikuist

About Martina

Source: http://martinamcgowan.com/2012/10/sunday-musings-and-affirmations-10-28-12/

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Thursday, October 11, 2012

Agifalling

The project is consequently split into different practices depending on your role. The developers get the most Agile work. This usually involves two weeks of sprints and daily stand-ups but there?s no product owner and zero contact with the customer. The project manager?s job doesn?t change ? they move around the tasks on their Gantt chart until they have everything in sequential order in much the same way as they did with waterfall, only it?s relabelled ?Agile? (or ?iterative?).

And what becomes of the BA? The BA is caught in the middle between delivering requirements on a waterfall-type schedule while trying to keep up with an Agile development team. In an effort to cover the bases, a BA is usually faced with producing more documentation than they would have delivered on a waterfall project.

A bad hybrid project can result in a BA writing use cases and then extrapolating user stories from the use cases for the developers. Or, distrustful of user stories (not to mention Kanban boards) and thinking use cases are too hard, the project decides that all of their requirement elicitation woes will be cured by producing extremely detailed screen prototypes that take weeks to produce (not to mention 10 to 30 pages of documentation per screen) but contain zero business context.

Although most BAs understand that the job is all about communicating the requirements in a way that allows the requirements to be understood, BAs on hybrid projects can find that they can?t keep up with delivering requirements in a way that will keep pace with a sprint. Usually a BA on these types of projects is pushed to ?just make a start? without any idea of the overall features required. This is based on the assumption that Agile will help the overall goals and features naturally make themselves known as an outcome of the process. If the team has been tasked with delivering hi-fi screen prototypes as their sole source of requirements then the opposite is true. As super-detailed prototypes are developed and people are sidetracked by fonts and radio buttons, the overall design and purpose of the application seems to become more obscure.

The ensuing pressure and panic to define requirements using nothing but screen prototypes coupled with trying to keep pace with the development team usually results in a project that is in a constant state of anxiety. Keeping to schedule somehow turns into doing whatever the customer wants without question, even if what the customer wants is a very bad idea, because it?s far easier just to say yes to everything and shove the wants down the line. Any problems are pushed to the development team, which ends up with an ever-increasing product backlog and sprints that never get out of testing.

Without the additional Agile practices of regularly reflecting on the work done to date and adjusting the approach as needed, all that happens is everyone wearily traipses off to the daily stand-up so they can be harangued by the project manager about why the schedule is slipping.

What can you do if you?re a BA on a bad hybrid project?

Firstly, it?s going to depend on where you are on the project. If it?s already agifalling and the developers are drowning in sprints that never seem to deliver then it may already be too late. You can try suggesting to the project manager that it?s time to limit the requests from the customer and prioritise the product backlog. It?s also probably time to get an idea of the overall feature set to help sort out the backlog. This won?t make you popular since people cling to the notion that Agile is about accepting any and all changes at any stage, but there?s no way you?re ever going to end at the rate you?re going.

You could try talking to the project manager about Agile being a collaboration between the customer and the development team, which means that it would be desirable if the customer could be on site with the developers and the business analyst(s) for a number of hours per week to allow direct and unhindered communication. And if that?s not possible, at least arrange regular conference calls and/or Skype sessions. You can also look at going back to the prototypes giving the development team the most trouble and ensure that you do a quick user story or state a business goal for each screen, showing how the various screens relate to each other. This will at least give the developers some context.

If the idea of running a hybrid project is being discussed but has yet to start then you may have an opportunity to help the project manager avoid the problems that will rapidly appear. This will depend on how comfortable the project manager is with trying new techniques. However, if a hybrid project is pitched from the perspective of making their lives easier, a BA may be able to offer tips and tricks on how to keep the requirements process running in a way that actually focuses on delivering value for the customer (identifying business goals/needs, etc.) while tracking with the developers fortnightly sprint cycle. The project manager may be deeply uncomfortable with most Agile techniques (except for the ones that purportedly make developers code faster) but it may be an opportunity for a BA to design a sneaky template and wedge in a user story or two anyway. No one ever said that a user story had to be on a sticky note.

For example, you could add a small paragraph at the top of the screen prototype (if you?ve been forced down that path) that outlines the goal and how the customer envisions using the screen from a business perspective.

If you?re going down the path of writing use cases first and then extrapolating user stories from the use cases, you can definitely save time by factoring in the user stories at the start. Make them part of the use case as an additional section. This is a little sacrilegious but you?re on a bad hybrid project so any thoughts of using best practice or standard techniques have already gone out the window. Do whatever you can to save everyone time further down the track.

My final thoughts on the hybrid project is that they?ve emerged as yet another ICT attempt to find the silver bullet that will make the extremely hard software development stuff happen as if by a miracle. All of the techniques, whether plan driven or change driven, tend to be successful with the right team of people, the right attitude and a huge dose of pragmatism.

A bad project is a bad project no matter what technique, practice or methodology is used. But that?s a different article.

Don?t forget to leave your comments below.

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Tags: agile, Business Analysis, Business Analysis - Net, Business Analyst Times, development, hybrid project, Management, methodology, Project Management

This entry was posted on October 11, 2012 at 11:00 am and is filed under Articles, Business Analysis, Development, Management, Methodology, On the Net, Project Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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