One of the most challenging aspects of commercial open source is balancing the need for a development process that can deliver finished product yet take advantage of the benefits of open source. Over the last few years we have tried different methodologies:

• Just start coding stuff
• Formal requirements complete with wireframes and storyboards
• Focused rapid application development (RAD) weeks
• Incubation process
• Single person working in a vacuum
• Everyone working in a vacuum
• Stick stuff in JIRA and hope it gets done
• Small focused teams

We learned that results were good when a small focused team could work on a reasonably well defined project. Results were even better when that team worked in close proximity, knew what the other people were working on and talked frequently.

Okay, I admit that figuring out that a small focused team with good communication and clear requirements for a small to medium chunk of work may not be much of a revelation. But some how - that idea get lost in the "gotta hurry and get stuff out as quick as possible or we are all doomed" persona of a software start up.

After a few discussions about our development environment and more than a few beers, we started talking about agile and scrum. A little research pointed out that when we are successful, the process we follow is very scrum like. We tried using scrum on an internal project last fall and were very successful. So, can we use scrum in open source environment?

Positives:
• Open source and Scrum are based on a similar set of principles (early and often, transparency, openness)
• Scrum maps closely to commonly-used practices in open source like the creation of milestone versions.
• Scrum Teams are typically small. The core-developer teams of open source projects are typically small.
• The usage of Scrum for open source projects would introduce much-needed consistency, terminology, and a well-defined but light-weight structure.
• Scrum Teams are self-managing and self-led. Core-developer teams in open source projects are self-managing and self-led.
• The Scrum methodology does not need large up-front efforts before development starts.

Issues:
• The Scrum methodology prescribes that Scrum Team should be physically located close to each other.
• The Scrum methodology does not include the notion of a community as participants or stake-holders.
• Scrum does not describe how to react to feedback from the consumer when there is no single consumer or stake-holder.
• It does not describe how to combine acceptance testing with subsequent Sprints.

We think the answer is - yes, we can use scrum, but not without a few changes. James Dixon, Pentaho CTO, has written a paper outlining an open scrum methodology. The paper is an effort to expand on the advantages and answer the issues raised above. It is in the early draft stage and we are asking for community feedback. We believe that defining "open scrum" will benefit greatly from open collaboration. Please check it out:

http://wiki.pentaho.org/display/OpenScrum - You can comment directly in the wiki or email CommunityConnection@pentaho.org.

Next month I will have more information on how Pentaho is using open scrum, including where to find the product backlog, information about current and future sprints and how to participate.

Thanks for making the Pentaho open source project successful,

Doug "Spanky" Moran
CommunityConnection@pentaho.org

This free event is open to community members who will be in the Orlando area on Monday Jan 14th. Please email CommunityConnection@pentaho.org if you are interested in attending so we can plan appropriately.

When: Jan 14th - from 5:30 - 7:00 PM Eastern
Where: Hawthorne Suites, Orlando Airport

For more details and directions, go to http://wiki.pentaho.org/display/COM/Scrum+Awareness+Night

We encourage you to share your experiences in this 15-minute survey http://www.aberdeen.com/survey/TCOofBI. Aberdeen Group is offering a free copy of the results ($399 value) to survey respondents.

Please take a few minutes to tell the world about the benefits of open source and if you happened to mention Pentaho, that would be pretty cool too ;)

Here's an on-ramp to contributing to the projects, the location of the core tools of asuccessful Pentaho developer:

• Community Home
• Downloads
• Get the Source Code
• The Forums
• Issue Tracking with JIRA
• Documentation Wiki
• Tech Tips

Where do you start? Email CommunityConnection@pentaho.org.

Pentaho Training sessions offer the fastest route to becoming a "solution-ready" developer with the Pentaho Open BI Suite.

Sign up early and get a 20% discount!

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See entire training schedule at www.pentaho.com/services/training

Where do you live?
I live in Orlando FL. My wife and I came from Mexico in 1999 and have 2 daughters both born in the US.

What company do you work for and what do you do?
I'm a Software Engineer for Number Six. Since 1999 I've been participating in the development of large scale enterprise system solutions for several fortune 500 clients in different industries like telecommunications, investments, financial and logistics.

My main focus is on software development using Java and Java EE, I also have been involved recently on software development engineering processes.

Tell us about your career/education
I have a bachelor's degree in Computing Systems Engineering and throughout my career I have achieved several certifications like "Certified application developer for RAD" and "Certified specialist for RUP" being the most recent ones. Of course I can't leave out mentioning that I became a "Java certified programmer" back in 1999.

This year I got involved in writing technical articles having my first publication posted at the Rational Edge e-zine on its Jun 2007 issue. Currently I'm doing research on what will become my second publication.

When did you first become interested in open source?
I got interested about open source around 2001 when I saw screenshots of the Gnome desktop environment and believe it or not the movie Antitrust. This lead me to know about the GPL and the ideology behind free software but mostly I got extremely attracted by the idea of software being developed by a loosely coupled community distributed around the globe.

A few years later my interest in the subject got reinforced when I saw successful companies being created around open source projects using the ideology behind free software as the foundation for their business models like SugarCRM, Compiere, JBoss and more recently... you got it! Pentaho.

What projects do you work on at Pentaho?
Pentaho BI Platform.

Do you work with any projects other than Pentaho?
Back in 2002 I founded the SwingML project in an attempt to provide effective cross browser rich client capabilities to the development of web based applications and at the same time give an alternative to HTML. Back then the term AJAX had not even been coined yet and most web based applications were created using plain HTML with some Java Script tricks. I disliked this very much and attempted to do something about it. Today things are much different as we all know.

What do you do in your spare time?
Wash my car, trim the bushes, vacuum the swimming pool, and take the garbage out, good stuff you know. Oh and I also like to run distance and do snorkeling.

Anything else you would like to add?
Well, I got a personal record of riding the roller coaster Kraken at SeaWorld Orlando 18 times in a row; basically that day the operators were launching weird looks at me every time they saw me getting in line again and again.

Also my family and I lived relocating for the past 8 years due to project assignments. We have lived in Sacramento, San Francisco, Kansas, St Louis, Memphis and we have finally landed permanently and most of all safely in Orlando.