Author: Darcy Casselman

Falling down

So I left for work this morning, intending to walk to work as usual, braving uncleared sidewalks and bitter winds.

After [my fall on the ice a few years ago](http://www.flyingsquirrel.ca/index.php/2007/03/19/winters-final-crushing-blow/), I started using [Yaktrax](http://www.yaktrax.com/walker), which I highly recommend. They’re a bit of a pain to get on, though.

So I left my house this morning debating whether I should put the Yaktrax on. I’d fallen during a dodgeball game last week and jammed my shoulder, so reaching down to pull these rubber things on my boots would probably hurt. I’d walked to work plenty of times without a problem, and it was just packed snow, really. It didn’t look like there was much ice.

But then I started thinking it would really suck if I re-injured my shoulder.

And that’s when I fell.

Damage seems to be minor. I landed on my knee first and went down slowly. But I’m going to see if I can book an appointment with my chiropractor today to make sure everything’s back where it should be.

Have I mentioned I hate winter?

Why track velocity?

Say you’re on an agile software development team and your Customer doesn’t care about release planning or even whether you make your commitment in an iteration. You’re a good team and he’s confident you’ll get the work done when it needs to get done.

Is there still value in tracking velocity? If your customer doesn’t care, is it worth the time to create burn-down charts?

[Burndown! OMG!]

### You can’t manage what you don’t measure. ###

Velocity tells you how much work your team can do in an iteration–say one or two weeks. It’s based on two things: how many discreet items of work you completed and the unitless “size” of those items, as determined by the team themselves, often a long time ago.

Knowing velocity has three separate benefits for the team, regardless of whether anyone else is interested in seeing that number:

1. It can be motivating for people who want to try to improve that number,
2. It tells you how much work your team is likely be able to complete in a subsequent iteration, and
3. It gives you feedback to improve the “size” estimates.

Motivation is great, but the biggest benefit I see is the future iteration planning one. A big part of iteration planning is having the team “commit” to a bundle of work. You can spit-ball an estimate, but software estimation is notoriously hard to get right. Having velocity takes away a lot of the guess-work. It’s not perfect–changes in the team and errors in estimation make the number less reliable. You’re not looking at a precise, hour by hour estimate, however. You just want to have a reasonable amount of confidence in the amount of work you can do on aggregate. Velocity gives you that.

Making your commitment for an iteration is good discipline even if, again, no-one else cares. As a professional, you should be able to finish what you said you’d finish when you said you’d finish. Fortunately, knowing velocity helps you with that.

One of the compelling things about agile for me is the automatic feedback mechanisms. If you plan more work than you’re able to do, your velocity goes down and your next iteration should be more manageable. If you plan too little, and you’re able to take some work off the backlog, your velocity goes up, so you’ll automatically do more next time. Eventually, you find an equilibrium.

Likewise, if you tend to overestimate the “size” of work, your velocity will be high. “Size” has no direct relationship to time besides velocity. Any future estimates you make knowing previous size and velocity will be somewhat improved over your initial, somewhat arbitrary estimates because you now have a better yardstick to measure work by.

Your first iterations are almost certain to be unsuccessful, because you don’t know velocity and you have poor estimates. If you work the process, however, your estimates will improve and you start to have a hope of making your commitments. And it’s much more fun when you’re winning a game than when you’re losing all the time.

If you’re interested in delving deeper, [James Shore does a way better job explaining this stuff than I can](http://jamesshore.com/Agile-Book/estimating.html).

It’s voting day! And the region

It’s voting day! I’m kinda sad I didn’t get around to posting about amalgamation or the LRT, but neither of those issues are ending today, so there’ll be more time.

### This blog endorses Jane Mitchell and Sean Strickland for Regional Council and Ken Seiling for Regional Chair. ###

I’ve been particularly disappointed about how the campaign has turned around the LRT. The provincial government failed to come through with its promised commitment. The region will have to come up with the remaining $250 million (or thereabouts). Some wag did a back-of-the-envelope calculation and decided that that meant a 9.1% increase in property taxes to proceed.

Except no-one would ever agree to that. I don’t agree with that. I might be okay with a 9% increase in property taxes for myself to fund LRT, because I think it’s that important, but I’m not a senior on a fixed income the majority of whose wealth is tied up in their house.

So that would never happen. But increasing property taxes isn’t the only way a government can pay for things. And we aren’t dealing with a fixed price tag anyway. The plan can adapt.

We don’t know what we’re talking about until regional staff can get back with options. Everything that’s been said about LRT during this election has been useless because *we don’t know* what we’re dealing with.

It’s all incredibly disappointing.

I’m voting for the people who I think stand the best chance of building the region I most want to live in. Although I’m a bit sad that no-one except Ken Seiling has seriously stood up for the LRT plan they voted for.

Please vote today! Hopefully I’ve been a little bit helpful.

Ward 3 and Fluoridation

Moving on…

The race in Waterloo’s Ward 3 is between incumbent [**Angela Vieth**](http://angelavieth.ca/) and last minute challenger **Michael Gagnon**.

Gagnon is a [self-styled “regular guy”](http://news.therecord.com/article/786143). And I have to say, I’m grateful to him for running. Throwing yourself into the political arena is tough. [Acclamations are bad for democracy](http://kingandottawa.wordpress.com/2010/08/23/acclamations-damage-democracy/), so I think he has done his community a service by running, and I’m thankful.

However, with no website and not much of a message, he isn’t posing much of a challenge to Vieth. He did submit a response to [TriTAG’s candidate survey](http://www.tritag.ca/election2010/?ward=303) (wheras Vieth didn’t), but his answers could be expanded upon…

So…

### This blog endorses Angela Vieth for Waterloo Ward 3 ###

[Angela Vieth and Fluoride]

I’m not just voting for her by default, either. I’ve met Angela and think she’s done good work for the ward. She’s an environmentalist and I like that. She performed well at the city council meetings I’ve attended. I’m happy to elect her for another term.

One thing that’s raised some eyebrows amongst some friends, however, is her push for a plebiscite on water fluoridation, which is going ahead in this election.

So I’ve had to think about this. All in all, I’ve had relatively few cavities in my life so far. I credit some of that to water fluoridation (Belleville fluoridates) as well as fluoride toothpaste, fluoride rinse treatments in school and fluoride treatments at the dentist.

Thing is, though, there are people who do not want to ingest fluoride in their drinking water. I know some. They are not assuaged by protestations of safety. It’s their body, and they don’t want that in it.

So for me, it comes down to this: do I believe the state is right to make people ingest a chemical?

And I think, under some circumstances, yes, I do. I’m a firm believer in the public health practice of mandatory vaccination, for example. I’m quite happy to be living in a world without small pox or polio. But is the public good of fewer cavities enough to compel us to force people to ingest a chemical they might not want in their bodies?

I don’t think it is.

There are other cheap and effective ways to get fluoride on your teeth. If we want to talk about other public health measures to improve dental health–fluoride treatments in schools, like I had, for example–I’m very much open to that. But I don’t think it should be compulsory.

I have to say, though, I haven’t been impressed with the campaigning on either side. The No (to fluoridation) side uses wild rhetoric about “toxic waste.” The Yes side warns of a dental apocalypse (which, strangely, seems to have skipped over Kitchener, which doesn’t fluoridate) and doesn’t even bother to show up for debates because they say “[there is no debate](http://www.waterloochronicle.ca/news/article/219160).” I’m sorry, I love scientists and all, but sometimes you have to get down off your high horse and talk to normal people. It’s hard, I know. Because there is a debate. There’s a question put to the people and they need to be informed and they need a framework upon which they can make a decision.

And I think I’ve come to a decision I can live with. I’ll be voting No to fluoridation.