The associates degree tier list for 2023. In this video, we are going to be ranking different associate majors from S tier, which is the best to F tier, which is the worst. So I've been in the kitchen cooking this up for you. I've been working really hard on this year's list, and I have no doubt that it is going to be the best list I have ever made. So I always talk about the two most important things, which are salary and demand. And then I also get into other things like job satisfaction, meaning, et cetera. But on this year's list, I changed something that I thought was extremely important. So basically there's a lot of careers out there that have good demand, but they don't necessarily have a lot of demand at the entry level. So in this year's list, I focused on the degrees that lead to careers that have a lot of demand at the entry level, right? Because we've all seen those job postings that are entry level jobs that require, you know, three to five years of experience. So if you appreciate all my hard work on this year's list, go ahead and swoosh that like button like a Steph Curry 3 pointer. And let's go ahead and get into it. Alright, so first one we're going to talk about is of course, art degrees. Okay, so art degrees at the associate level. Now, I typically do not recommend getting an art degree for anybody except for a very small percentage of people, like probably 0.1%. You know, if you're in the top 99.9th percentile as a guitarist, for instance, okay, maybe you should go to Juilliard and get trained by world-renowned classical guitarists. But it is such a small percentage of people that I recommend art degrees to. However, if you are going to get an art degree, if you have your heart set on it and you're absolutely going to get an art degree, an associate's degree is probably the way to go. Again, I highly recommend not doing it. I think you can learn much more by just putting yourself in an environment with other artists that do whatever your preferred art is, and then just collaborate with them, work with them, share your ideas. You can learn a lot more from doing that in my opinion. And I always talk about this. I recommend the book, Steal Like an Artist. It has nothing to do with stealing like an artist. It's just a clickbait title. Really, really good book. If you're an artistic type of person, you want to learn how to make money with art. Spoiler alert, it does not involve going to college. Now, with that being said, I'm going to go ahead and pick out one. It's multimedia and web design. With this one, you'd expect to make about $40,000 a year starting out and $65,000 in mid-career pay. And the meaning score is about 37%. We can do another one like video editor, for instance, if you type that in on Glassdoor, you're going to see they make about $55,000 a year. If you type in just artist in general, you're going to see they make around $46,000 a year. And if you type in artist on LinkedIn at the entry level, you're going to see 29,000 results. Now, interestingly enough, the skill of art is actually on the rise. For instance, a lot of ad platforms are moving towards being more creative focused. And by that, I mean they're much more focused on the actual art behind the ads, because it's getting easier and easier to do the analytical part of things. So there is hope for artists out there. You definitely can make money from art. There's a lot of great careers out there like web design, UX, UI design, etc. But I typically do not recommend going to college in order to get a job in art. And I definitely don't recommend going to college in order to start your own business in art. So overall, I'm going to put this one into D tier. Next on the list is going to be communications degrees at the associate level. All right. So this one, you're going to make about $33,000 a year starting out and $56,000 in mid-career pay, and it has a meaning score of 50%. Now, if you type in mass communications on Glassdoor, you're going to see the average salary is about $64,000 a year. And if you type in mass communications on LinkedIn at the entry level, you'll see about 2,400 results. So yeah, again, this is one of those typically don't recommend communications degrees to most people. This one is going to go into D tier. Next one on the list is education degrees at the associate level. So this one you'd start off making $30,000 a year and mid-career pay is $45,000. The meaning score is a little bit higher at 60%. So if you look on Glassdoor and you type in teacher, you're going to see they make about $45,000 a year.  So this is of course an incredibly important career in society. But with that being said, I can't just give it a better rating because of that reason, right? Like I have to stick with the numbers and be objective and fair here at the associate level. It's okay. You know, you can get certain positions at that level. I'm going to go ahead and put this one into C tier. My recommendation for somebody who does want to become a teacher, like you have your heart set on becoming a teacher, is to go to a school like WGU because you can actually get a bachelor's degree in education relatively quickly, like within a year or two. And just check out my videos on WGU if you are confused about what I'm talking about. Next one on the list is going to be engineering degrees at the associate level. Now, these are actually really good.  So an example of one of those careers would be instrumentation and control engineering. This is an associate level degree and you'd start off making $54,000 a year and mid career pay is $85,000. And if you type in engineering technician on Glassdoor, you're going to see they make about $55,000 a year. And if you type in engineering technician on LinkedIn, you're going to see 44,000 results at the entry level. So yeah, engineering degrees are pretty much good at every single level. And there's a reason you see so many millionaires and billionaires having engineering degrees. It teaches you practical real world problem solving skills. So yeah, this one definitely goes into S tier. Next one on the list is health degrees. These are also incredibly good at every single level. Now, one thing that's great about health degrees and also engineering degrees is much of the time you actually have to get the degree in order to get into certain careers, right? So with something like technology, for instance, the degree is optional for many careers. Now, do eight, you know, hiring managers prefer a degree in many cases? Yes, there are many cases where hiring managers will prefer a degree, but it's still optional. You don't have to get it. When it comes to health degrees and engineering degrees, you pretty much have to have the degree. So that creates what's known as a barrier to entry to everyone else. They have to go through that gauntlet in order to get into the career, which is good, because that means when you're thinking about supply and demand, you have a competitive advantage there. Now, one associate health related degree would be radiation therapy. They make $65,000 a year starting out in $95,000 in mid-career pay, and it has a whopping 92% when it comes to meaning score. And this is another thing that I'd like to mention is health degrees and health careers do tend to have very high meaning scores, and meaning does tend to correlate with happiness over the long run, right? So the two big things you want to pay attention to when it comes to how satisfied you are with your job is, of course, job satisfaction, you know, how well do companies treat you, for instance, and then meaning. And meaning is basically how much you think your job positively impacts the world. And both of those things are very important when it comes to your overall happiness with your job. Now, when you look up radiation therapists on Glassdoor, you're going to see they make about $97,000 a year. And when you look up radiation therapists on LinkedIn at the entry level, you're going to see 5,800 results. And there's honestly like probably thousands of these little random niche health degree and health careers out there. So you do want to make sure you do your research for these. Some of them require an associate's degree. Some of them require some level of like certification that might take you one to three years to get into. But yeah, definitely do your research. These random little niche health careers can be really good. This one absolutely goes into S tier health degrees are good at every single level associate bachelor masters and doctorate. Next one on the list is going to be language related degrees at the associate level. So this one is surprisingly okay when it comes to the statistics. So you start off at $32,000 a year with something like Spanish, for instance, mid career pay is $47,000 and meaning score is 62%. And if you get into a career like translator, for instance, you'd expect to make about $50,000 a year. And if you type in translator on LinkedIn at the entry level, you're going to see about 14,000 results. Now you technically don't even need a degree to become a translator. It's really just all about your skill. But with that being said, getting an associate level degree does seem to help a little bit with that. But still, you know, it's not amazing. The numbers aren't incredible. I'm going to go ahead and put this one into D tier. Next on the list is going to be a liberal arts degree at the associate level. So an example of this one would be one of my favorite subjects. If not my favorite subject, which is history. If you look at history at the associate level, you're going to see $34,000 a year starting out 58,000 mid career pay and a 40% meaning score. One career path you might go down and I say might because you know, history degrees don't have a lot of career paths. You can go down. Let's be honest is a paralegal and paralegals make about $51,000 a year according to Glassdoor. And if you look up paralegal on LinkedIn at the entry level, you're going to see about 26,000 results. The only problem with this is you can go into that paralegal career path with a bunch of different degrees, right? You don't have to get a history degree to go down that path. You could get any number of different liberal arts degrees or non liberal arts degrees. So yeah, liberal arts, I'm going to have to put this one into F tier. Next one on the list is going to be associate level math degrees. So with this one, you'd expect to make $39,000 a year starting out $69,000 in mid career pay and 51% meaning score. One career path you might go down is becoming an accounting assistant and they make about $40,000 a year. And if you look up accounting assistant on LinkedIn, you're going to see about 20,000 results at the entry level. So yeah, math is a pretty valuable skill. A lot of people can't do math. A lot of people are math phobic. They're afraid of it. So if you are somebody who is good at math, it might make sense for you to get a degree in mathematics. So get off your athletes, do some math, math, math, math, math, math. But it isn't necessarily that applicable to the real world in the same way that an engineering degree is. So overall, I'm going to put math degrees in C tier. Next on the list is going to be science degrees at the associate level. So an example of this one would be a chemistry degree and they make 35,000 starting out and 64,000 in mid career pay and the meaning score is 54%, which is pretty good. Now with this degree, you could become a laboratory technician and they make about $42,000 a year. And if you look up laboratory technician on LinkedIn at the entry level, you're going to see 29,000 results. So I actually think science degrees at the associate level are a little bit better than science degrees at the bachelor's level in many cases, especially when you talk about a degree like biology. And the reason for that is because a lot of those laboratory technician jobs, you actually don't need a bachelor's degree to get you can get into them with just an associate's degree and the bachelor's degree doesn't actually help you out all that much. There's tons of people who graduate with biology bachelor degrees and they can't find a job or if they do find a job, it's not a good one. When it comes to science, a lot of the really good jobs are going to require at least a master's and in many cases, a doctor. So overall, I'm going to put this one into C tier. Next one on the list is going to be psychology degrees. So psychology degrees at the associate level, you're going to start off $33,000 a year mid career pace, 51,000 and meaning score is 55%. Now again, not that many jobs for psychologists at the associate level. One thing you might do is paralegal like I mentioned already before, they're not going to let you help somebody with their mental health, which is an incredibly complicated thing with just an associate's level degree that would make zero sense. So this one goes into F tier. Next one on the list is social science degrees in general. And this kind of falls under the same category. So let's do an example like anthropologists, for instance, you know, they make $52,000 a year. And if you type in anthropologist on LinkedIn at the entry level, you're going to see 865 results. But here's the big problem. You can't become an anthropologist with an associate's degree. You can't become an anthropologist with a bachelor's degree. You probably can't become an anthropologist with a master's degree. You're very likely going to have to get a PhD and there's only 856 jobs available. Well, this is going to hurt like a mother. So, you know, this, this one's really tough, especially at the associate level, you know, it's just not going to be a good one. So social science degrees at the associate level go into F tier. Next on the list is going to be business degrees. So at the associate level, you'd expect to make 50,000 starting out 85,000 mid career pay and 52% meaning score. Now I actually have a close friend who graduated with an associate level business degree. And he started off working at a manager in a store. And I believe he started as an associate manager, then he worked his way up to manager, then he transferred over to another store became a manager. And then he finally transferred to a company that's really good and became a manager at that company. And now he makes super, super good money, all with just an associate level business degree. So business degrees are actually pretty good at the associate level. So for instance, if you became a store manager, you'd expect to make about $51,000 a year. And if you type in manager on LinkedIn at the entry level, you're going to see one million results. So there's lots and lots of demand for people who have management skills. Now with business degrees, there's always that question of whether it's correlation or causation. And by that, I mean, are the types of people who would probably make more money no matter what degree they got, the types of people that tend to go for business degrees, because people who tend to go for business degrees are probably more likely to be interested in making money, interested in becoming managers, maybe even interested in starting their own businesses. So there's always that question of correlation or causation. And that's very difficult to actually determine. Now that being said, you can get into project management without a degree. But I think an associate's degree is going to give you a little bit of a boost there. Now if you're somebody who basically wants to get into a career as fast as possible and start making money as fast as possible, you don't want to have to go to college. You don't want to have to have a bunch of previous experience. You just want to get into a career where you can make money really quickly. I highly recommend looking into tech sales.  So for instance, Della went through the whole college process. She bounced around to a bunch of different colleges. She had a really bad experience overall, but then she discovered tech sales while she was still in college and she was actually just a stay at home mom taking college classes. And she decided to take the plunge, try to get into tech sales, and she was able to actually get in within a month and a half with over $100,000 year salary at her dream company. And if you want to know how she did it, I'll go ahead and put the free training down in the description as well as the pinned comment below. And if you choose to use their advanced plan where they'll give you training, they'll put you into a community of a bunch of other people who are also trying to get into tech sales. And on top of that, they will get you guaranteed interviews with their partner companies, then use my code down in the description below, which is Shane $50 for $50 off. So overall business degrees at the associates level, I'll put this one into a tier. And speaking of technology degrees, that's the next one on the list, technology degrees at the associate level are also very good. So for instance, computer science and mathematics is the number one degree at the associate level. Of course, $45,000 a year starting out, 106,000 in mid career pay, and a 49% meaning score. One career path you might go down is becoming a web developer. They make about $70,000 a year. And if you type in web developer on LinkedIn at the entry level, you will see 24,000 results. This one absolutely goes into S tier. So yeah, like I said before, check out that interview with Della. Highly, highly recommend that. I'll put that right here.


Hello people of the internet, my name is Johnny, welcome back to another very exciting FNAF news video. Help Wanted 2 just got a crazy new teaser and a description revealing more info about the game. The FNAF movie just crossed 300 million dollars at the Worldwide Box Office. We've also got some major upcoming merch releases from U2s and even Funko, so if you guys are excited for all this FNAF movie news, buckle up, and also scroll down, squeeze that subscribe button until it pops like a birthday balloon, and I've also just realized the fruit punch I had earlier makes it look like I'm wearing lipstick, so I guess we're going with that for the whole video. And of course, it wouldn't be a FNAF news video unless we started off with some brand new merchandise from Hot Topic. And this is our first product to take a look at, an absolutely terrifying Freddy Fazbear plushie, who also doubles as a backpack folks do not count this plushie out just yet. Looks like they forgot to color his snout, so Freddy looks a bit off, but yet again another Freddy Fazbear themed backpack plushie. Hot Topic also has four brand new shirts, the first one featuring the daycare attendant, the other one featuring the Freddy Fazbear's Pizza logo with Toy Freddy, the original FNAF one gang on a t-shirt, as well as some art of fun time Freddy. Moving on from Hot Topic to FYE, they released a brand new drink, though this time it's not a fizzy faz, instead it's an energy drink, themed around security breach, as you can see the art is kind of lackluster, it's just the, you know, the poster for security breach. It also has a cherry lime flavor, which I'm not sure how well that tastes for an energy drink, but there you go, a brand new drink from FYE. Taking a break from merchandise, let's talk about some book news, because we actually have a lot of book news to talk about. First up, Fazbear Fright's graphic novel collection, Volume 5, is coming out on September the 3rd of next year. It's gonna feature the story's Jump for Tickets, Sea Bonnies, which is gonna be interesting, and Find Player 2. We also had a listing for a Tales from the Pizza Plex box set, that's gonna be coming out on November the 12th of 2024. And of course, we'll be featuring all the Tales books, so Book 1 from Book 8. So it does seem like the listing we got for the 9th Tales book was actually a mistake, there is not going to be a 9th Tales book. And then we also got the cover for the security breach files updated edition. This comprehensive breakdown covering gameplay, secrets, easter eggs, and alternate endings for both the main game and DLC, will deepen the knowledge of even the most enthusiastic player. On the cover, we've got a hologram of Roxanne Wolfe, the eclipse from the ruined DLC, we have the poster that Freddy gave to Bonnie that we can see in his green room, and then interestingly enough, we have the early concept art for the first ruined teaser we got with Cassie. Scott actually making a comment saying for those who have noticed, it's my fault that the old concept art for Cassie was used instead of the final piece. It will be replaced in the finished product. So on April the 2nd of next year is when we get the security breach files updated edition, that's gonna be interesting because these security breach files, they're not known for being super reliable, so I'm very curious to see how much they change in this updated edition. Moving on now to Hex, they finally released their Shadow Bonnie glow-in-the-dark hoodie. Despite previous reports, a Shadow Bonnie plushie was not released alongside this hoodie. Maybe that's gonna still happen in the future, I don't know. But either way, the hoodie looks absolutely insane. It glows so, so well in the dark. And speaking of Hex, we've got an updated roadmap for their upcoming plushies. First up, the Mangle will be releasing this month, it seems like. The next wave of plushies including Springtrap with their Chica and with their Golden Freddy has been delayed. As Springtrap and Golden Freddy are receiving some design changes and it seems like now they're gonna be releasing in January. Moving on now to U2s, their ruin wave of figures and plushies are now available, featuring Monty, Roxanne, Eclipse, The Mimic, and the Nexus Entity. And for plushies, we've got Glamrock, Bonnie, AR, Roxanne, the Eclipse, and Helpy. Docko's brand new figure, Puppet Docko, is also available. And released alongside this wave was a print featuring the withered animatronics from FNAF 2, though unfortunately, that's already sold out. In fact, it sold out in four minutes. It was limited to 125 copies, so no surprise there it sold out in time. I got mine, did you get yours? She also got an update on U2s' upcoming Anim Dude figure from FNAF World. When responding to updates on the figure, Austin from U2 said that it's probably going to release next year. It's already, but just didn't fit in with the rest of the ruin wave, which makes a whole lot of sense. Though a figure is not the only piece of Anim Dude merchandise we're getting from U2s, because they also showed off a plushie of Anim Dude. And this just looks absolutely fantastic. It's segmented exactly like Scott's Avatar in FNAF World. And also in that video, we got an updated look at the Sitting Popgos plushie, featuring the brand new Chibi kinda styled eyes. Sitting Popgos, Sitting Candy, Long Popgos, Long Candy, Chibi Ignited Foxy, and Sitting Ignited Freddy are all releasing presumably this month. And speaking of fan-verse U2s merchandise, we had King Carter confirming that a third Popgos pin set is on the way. And it looks like the theme for the third pin set is going to be beach. And lastly, for U2s news, we've got the full reveal of one of their FNAF movie figures. And I know what you're all thinking, Oh, I can't wait. Maybe it's going to be the yellow rabbit, or, or Mike, or maybe Sparky, cause he's canon now. No, no, no.  It's going to be the goat, the man, the myth, the legend, dare I say. Doug the lawyer. We had Michael P. Sullivan over on his official TikTok account reveal the concept art for the upcoming figure. And personally, I think it looks almost spot on. The head and the hair, I feel like could be a bit more accurate. But the fact that we're going to be getting an official figurine of Doug the lawyer, the best FNAF movie character, is absolutely insane. In all seriousness though, I do hope they do a proper FNAF movie wave, because, like I just listed off, there's a whole bunch of fan favorite characters that I'm sure people would die to have. But lastly, for merchandise, let's talk about Funko. We don't have a whole lot of Funko news, but what we do have, it's pretty big. Cause we had Scarlet Joker over on Twitter, announced that the Freddy and Bonnie Funko statue is still coming. It's still on the way. And in fact, not only are we getting that Freddy and Bonnie statue, we're also going to be getting a Golden Freddy statue. Hell yeah. Scarlet Joker later clarified quick note. I'm not sure which Golden Freddy it is in reference to FNAF one Golden Freddy or withered Golden Freddy from FNAF two, but his ass will be sitting down. Funko, you cannot mess this up. This is kind of the statue that a lot of people have been asking for besides Springtrap. I'm sure Golden Freddy has been like one of the most requested. So I'm very excited to hear that Funko FNAF statues are still on the way and we're getting such cool ones like Golden Freddy. And now let's take a quick pit stop at the Fazbear Fanverse to take another look at the Jure of Creation ignited collection. Because we had Nixon over on Twitter reveal the official jump scare for ignited Foxy.  Not only are these effects built into the game. This is not like Photoshop. This is an after effects like that will happen in the game. Foxy himself looks absolutely terrifying. He stabs us in the face with his hook. We also had Coco's Beans the animator for this jump scare showoff. The behind the scenes of it. I wanted to show it off here because you get a better look at the full model for ignited Foxy. And my God, he just looks so cool. Nixon also put out another teaser of ignited Foxy. It looks like in the office level once again. Well, this is the more demonic version of ignited Foxy. Right now the working title is the inner version of Foxy like the inner demons.  Like he just looks absolutely so, so awesome here. And now let's move over to the FNAF movie. Because like I said at the start of the video, the movie just crossed $300 million at the worldwide box office. It's the highest grossing film of 2023. It's Blumhouse's highest grossing film of all time. The achievements that this film is setting, they're going off the charts. This is insane. And again, keep in mind the budget was only about like 25 million and they already made that back just by selling the streaming rights. So having 300 million so far at the worldwide box office. Again, that's massive. That's so much money to put into the sequel to make it better. If you missed it, the film also released on digital not too long ago. It's available right now on YouTube movies and TV, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Voodoo Fandango, Microsoft movies and TV, Xfinity Stream as well as Verizon TV. And it looks like depending on where you purchase it, there were three bonus featurettes that you can take a look at. FNAF from game to big screen, killer animatronics and Five Nights in three dimensions. I've watched these.  It's got how they made the actual animatronics, how they constructed Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place, interviews from the cast and the crew, different shots of them filming the movie. It's just so cool, trust me. The movie comes out on physical on December the 12th on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray DVD and there's also a 4K Ultra HD steelbook in the works. This is what it looks like in my opinion. I think it looks perfect on the front. You've got the classic animatronics on the back. You got Freddy and opening up the case inside. You've got all five of the animatronics, including the cupcake. Can't forget about him inside of the ball pit. All right. Well, now let's move on to the final topic for today's FNAF news video. And that is of course, Help Wanted 2 and Steel Wolf Studios. First up, we got Steel Wolf Studios back when it was Thanksgiving, posting a Thanksgiving art piece featuring the gang of Freddy and friends, including Helpy, who's down at the bottom right. He's not in the Freddy and Friends short. So I don't know if this is teasing something. I don't know if they just threw him in because they thought he looked cool. I mean, Helpy is pretty awesome. But now let's talk about this poster. As you can see, this is replicating the Help Wanted 1 key art with all the animatronics kind of mashed together. Though this time they're connected by wires, which is interesting. We got Funtime Freddy, Glamrock Chica, Roxy, the daycare attendant, Circus Baby, the moon, the staff bot, as well as Ballora. Interesting that there's no FNAF 6 representation because we know scrapped babies in the game. But I'd love to know what are your thoughts on the key art for FNAF Help Wanted 2. And now let's move on to a new description for the game. This description is of course by Ray McAfrey. It was featured in a brand new PlayStation blog posted today. It says FNAF Help Wanted 2 is the latest installment in the iconic horror franchise, immersing players like never before through the astounding capabilities of the PlayStation VR 2. Help Wanted 2 drops the player into dozens of insane, terrifying jobs offered by Fazbear Entertainment in order to discover what part of the Fazbear family suits them best. Whether it's preparing food for guests, glamming up the animatronic stars, fixing technical issues with attractions, performing first aid in emergency situations, or manning the DJ booth, there's a long-term career path for all who are interested. The core of the game is designed to be replayable through randomized dynamic challenges. Keep up, or face termination. So actually in that description, we got a bit of lore for Help Wanted 2. If you remember back in the first Help Wanted game back in 2019, we were a beta tester for a VR title, developed by Fazbear Entertainment, but for Help Wanted 2, this is still a VR title made by Fazbear Entertainment, but instead of being a game that publicly releases, it seems like this is only for new Fazbear Entertainment employees, and they play all the minigames to find out which branch of Fazbear Entertainment suits them best. Again, is it preparing food? Is it technical support? Which to me at least lends a lot of cadence to the theory that we're gonna be playing as Cassie's father, because he was a very mysterious character that was barely touched upon in ruin, though we do know he worked at Fazbear Entertainment in some capacity. So I'm curious if Help Wanted 2, that was his introduction to Fazbear Entertainment. We're playing as him, beta testing all the games, seeing alright, where am I gonna go in Fazbear Entertainment. I'm not entirely sure. That's my working theory. I'd love to know your thoughts and theories on Help Wanted 2, and it's deep, deep lore. That's gonna do it for this FNAF news video. Thank you all so much for watching, and I'll see you all on the flip side. Goodbye.


Hello, welcome to this edition of Ableton on Air, the one and only program that focuses on the needs, concerns, and achievements of the differently able. I've always been your host, known as Salah Arlene, and is not here today. She is recuperating in the rehab center from a diabetic abrutation. We would like to, you know, first point out on this edition of Ableton on Air that this is the second part of an Israel series that we have done on what's going on in Israel and with people of special needs and the war. And I'm going to start off by reading my commentary for this. Major sponsors for Ableton on Air include Washington County Metal Health, Where Hope and Support Come Together. Media sponsors for Ableton on Air include Park Chester Times, Muslim Community Report, WWW, this is the Bronx.info, Associated Press Media Editors, New York Parrot Online Newspaper, U.S. Press, Core, Domestic and International, Anchor FM, and Spotify. Partners for Ableton on Air include the HOD of New York and New England, where everyone belongs, the Orthodox Union, the Division for the Blind and Visually Impaired of Vermont, the Vermont Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Central Vermont Habitat for Humanity, Montefiore Medical Center of the Bronx, Rose of Kennedy Center of Bronx, New York, Albert Einstein College of Medicine of the Bronx, Ableton on Air has been seen in the following publications, Park Chester Times, WWW, this is the Bronx.com, New York Parrot Online Newspaper, Muslim Community Report, WWW.H.com, and the Montpelier Bridge. Ableton on Air is part of the following organizations, the National Academy of Television, Arts and Sciences, Boston, New England Chapter, and the Society of Professional Journalists. Welcome to the edition of Ableton on Air, the one and only program that focuses on the needs, concerns, and achievements of the different abled. I'm your host Lawrence Seiler, hello viewers of Ableton on Air, for 30 years I have been a journalist, despite the challenges that I've always managed to persevere. I don't like to see suffering of anyone, war is never good, people get seriously hurt. My wife and I, my wife Arlene and I have joined together as well as the Ableton on Air team to eradicate all terrorism. It must be eradicated and we must bring these perpetrators in Israel, we must bring Hamas and these perpetrators of evil to justice. Getting rid of a whole race doesn't solve anything. It makes it worse and worse, and makes the problem worse and worse. Being Jewish and proud makes us stronger than ever. Freedom is an act of cowardice and killing children, hurting elderly and the disabled and more vulnerable populations doesn't solve anything. It's sometimes hard to be Jewish and challenged, but between you and me there are prejudices for both and it's sometimes a double-edged sword. If we stand together as one we can accomplish more than you think. We at Ableton on Air will always stand for Israel and with Israel to make a common goal where we can live together in peace. That's easier said than done. You know, there have been war atrocities all throughout history in America and even overseas. The Spanish-American War, the Civil War, war started back in the Middle East when the Middle East was being formed. So in the Bible itself, King Herod of Antipas wanted babies killed under two years old. So all throughout biblical history this has been happening. We need to stop the madness and figure a way to get together, to work together for a common goal. This cannot happen anymore.  We just need to figure a way to live in peace. And we hope and pray that Israel, you know, that we figure a way as a global community to work together. We must do this. And you know, people with special needs are passing away, services are being not given because of what's going on, you know, services being given, but, you know, people need food. The bread lines are forming. This madness needs to stop during war. And we just need to come together to have common ground. And now let's take a look at, let's take a look at the 2023 Israel Hamas War. Numbers have been climbing, but I'll give that a little bit later on in this show. During the ongoing conflict between Hamas and the Palestinian military groups and Israel, Israel military forces began on the 7th of October, 2023 on the morning of Shemini Asret, which is a Jewish holiday, 50 years after the start of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Hamas's coordinated surprise offensive, codenamed, codenamed Al, Al Saif flood, began on the morning of, on the morning barrage, at least 5,000 rockets launched from the Gaza Strip against Israel. While some 2,500 Palestinian militants breached the Gaza-Israel border and massacred to set fire to civilian communities and attacked the Israel Defense Forces, IDF military bases near the Gaza Strip. For 1,400, at that time, Israel, Israelis, mostly civilians were killed. Two hundred and sixty people were at a music festival in Reim, and two hundred people, two hundred people unarmed civilian hostages were captured. Israel forces were taken to Gaza Strip. Israel military forces began conducting military strikes before the Israel government forming the clearing war on Hamas later that day. The 2023 war is the fiercest since the Yom Kippur War, and it is part of the Israeli Palestinian conflict which started originally on May 1948, and which, in 2005, saw most of the military extortions taking place, taking place, not to fall from the Gaza Strip. Hamas had been the ruling party of the Gaza Strip since 2007, avoiding major engagements with Israel in 2022 and most of 2023. However, in 2023, before the offensive started, an uptick in Israel, an Israeli Palestinian violence, saw at least 247 Palestinians, 32 Israelis, and two foreigners, Israeli Palestinians, killed. Some sources say Hamas culpably prepared for a major offensive. Despite suspicions of Iranian involvement, both Israel and the U.S. stated that there was no concrete evidence of Iran's involvement, and Iran has denied the role in Hamas' attack. Hamas stated their attack was in response to the desecration of the al-Azir mosque and a blockade of the Gaza Strip continued Israeli settlements and Israeli settlement of violence. After clearing Hamas' forces from southern Israel, the IDF constructed airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, which killed over 6,000 Palestinians. The number has climbed. According to Hamas' run health ministry, fears of a humanitarian crisis were heightened, and Israel cut off food after Israel cut off food, electricity, and fuel supplies to Gaza. And it's been blockaded by both Egypt and Israel. Israel urged 1.1 million Gazans to evacuate northern Gaza, where Hamas called residents to stay in their homes and block roads leading south. The United Nations reported around 1 million Palestinians nearly half of the Gaza Strip population has been internally displaced. The United Nations and many countries called for immediate ceasefire. Human rights groups called for the intake of Gaza refugees caused by war. There has been a widespread killing of civilians and a panel of United Nations special reporters among human rights groups that have accused both Israel and Hamas of war crimes. At least 44 nations nearly Western denounced Hamas and explicitly condemned its conduct of terrorism and joint statement of the United States. The United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany, in contrast, countries across the Middle East called for a de-escalation and decried and decreased Israel's decade-long occupations of Palestinian territories as a root cause, including a joint statement by United Arab Emirates, Jordan Bahrain, Saudi Arabians, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt, and Morocco. The UN warned Israel immediately to stop all military things against Gaza, saying that its allies would inflict a huge earthquake by opening new fronts and threatening to intervene the Israeli military launched a ground invasion of Gaza. For more information on this, you can go to www.wikipedia.org, forward slash wiki 2023 Israel Hamas war. Let's go to the casualties, the current casualties of the war. The total now is 7,028 Palestinians, including 2,913 miners. According to the ministry, the ministry is the only official source of Gaza casualties. Israel has sealed Gaza's borders, barring foreign journalists and humanitarian workers. So according to the Associated Press, they have a death toll here, and okay, here we go. Israel's Hamas war upends years of conventional wisdom. Leaders give few details on what's coming next. Palestinians plead to stop the bombs at UN meeting, but Israel insists Hamas must be obliterated. The ministry is the only official source of Gaza casualties. Israel has sealed Gaza's borders, barring foreign journalists and humanitarian workers. The Associated Press is among a small number of international news organizations. For those, while those journalists cannot do a comprehensive count, we've reviewed large numbers of bodies at the sites of airstrikes, mosques and funerals. October 26th, 2023, which was yesterday, according to CNN, there's Israel's war news, things are not great. Israel's military has carried out a targeted raid overnight over northern Gaza using tanks. The move came hours after President Netanyahu said Israel was preparing for a ground offensive following a deadly November 7th Hamas attack. The United Nations, aiding Palestinians on Wednesday, has said that they'll have to halt operations within a day of fuel that's not delivered, saying that it would mark the end of lifeline for civilians. Pressure is building on the international community to get Israel to allow desperately needed aid into Gaza, with more countries advocating for humanitarian pause. In fighting new satellite images, revealed the devastation wrought by Israel's bombs. Israel forces have been, say they have killed the deputy head of Hamas intelligence directorate and say that this is particularly responsible for planning attacks last month. For more information on how to, it gives right here, on how to help with humanitarian aid. Okay, according to CNN, it says how to help with humanitarian aid. It says you can give to several websites, and according to CNN's website, you can, there's several non-profits, according to this website that you can give to, you just have to choose which one. According to CNN, a deadly fighting between Israel and Hamas continues. So, to does a diet, a dire humanitarian crisis in the area, at least 1400 people have been killed in Israel and the numbers keep climbing, so on and so forth. The international committee of the Red Cross ICRC, which suffered damage to one of its buildings in Gaza, is calling for the protection of aid workers, civilians and critical infrastructure, calling for the situation of horrific doctors, situation horrific, and doctors with our borders, doctors with our borders, sand frontiers, is urging to restrain after medical facilities have been destroyed in the fighting. Impact Your World has gathered a list of vetted organizations on the ground, in responding you can support by clicking on the website for more information, you can go to www.cnn.com forward slash world how to help in the humanitarian effort. Again, that website is once again www.cnn.com forward slash world forward slash again how to help humanitarian efforts in Israel and Gaza, because even though we have family in Israel and we support Israel, it is not fair that both sides are getting hurt, people are dying, we really need to send humanitarian efforts, we need to send food, we need to send clothes, we need to send supplies. For more information on sending supplies, you can go to www.americanredcross.org. That website once again is www.americanredcross.org and for more information on sending supplies to Israel also, you can go to www.morgandavid.org. That's www.morgandavid.org. Like I mentioned in the last show with David Wecker a couple weeks ago on Israel, morgandavid, a dumb is a situation where you can go to Israel and or log on and send supplies, supplies such as food, such as clothes, such as shoes, boots, socks, things like that that people need. Don't send bullets, do not send anything harmful through the mail, that is not a good thing to send during this time. We want to send care packages, not any more things that will harm people. And please check with your local post office on how to send something through the mail, especially a care package. You're not allowed to send any aerosol cans, send toothpaste, toothbrushes, anything like that that can can help. And there is an organization that does help during this time. Okay, there's an organization called Samaritan's Purse. Samaritan's Purse is an organization that is that is responding to Israel's situation right now. It's called Samaritan's Purse. Yes, it is a Christian organization, but everybody is helping right now. And we really need to send things to help people. So if you need to send food, clothes, anybody that is hurting right now, family members, you can send it through here. So the website is Samaritan's Purse, International Relief, www.Samaritan's Purse.org. That is W-W-S-A-M-A-R-I-T-A-N-S Purse.org. And if you want more information on this organization and what they're doing for Israel, please, we must all help each other to make sure that people with even people with disabilities have food, clothes, and any other services that they may need at this time. Again, this is senseless killing that needs to stop. We just need to come together, all of us, for one common goal, and that is to save a life, not take a life. And if you would like to give also, if you would like to give anything for Israel in terms of food and clothes, you can, Habad of Burlington is an organization. It's called Habad C-H-A-B-A-D.org. So that's www.habad.org, www.habad C-H-A-B-A-D.org. Habad.org is a Jewish organization that accepts food and clothes during this time. They have an office in Burlington, Vermont. Just log on to the website and check it out. Again, this has been the second episode of the Israel conflict. For more information, please log on to www.orgamedia.net. And please support Ableton on air with many of the topics that we have done so far, especially things on the Israel War that's extremely important. Again, for more information on anything that you have seen today, you can go, once it airs, you can go to www.orgamedia.net. And again, Samaritan's Purse is www.samaritan's purse.org. S-A-M-A-R-I-T-A-N purse.org and forward slash disaster relief response deployed to Israel. I'm Lauren Seiler. We must love each other, not harm each other. I'm Lauren Seiler. See you next time on the next edition of Ableton on air. Let's bring everybody home safe and sound to their families. I'm Lauren Seiler. See you next time. Muslim Community Report, www, this is the Bronx.info, Associated Press Media Editors, New York Parrot Online Newspaper, U.S. Press Corps Domestic and International, Anchor FM and Spotify. Partners for Ableton on air include Yehad of New York and New England where everyone belongs, the Orthodox Union, the Division for the Blind and Visually Impaired of Vermont, the Vermont Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Central Vermont Habitat for Humanity, Montefiore Medical Center of the Bronx, Rose of Kennedy Center of Bronx, New York, Albert Einstein College of Medicine of the Bronx. Ableton on air has been seen in the following publications, Parkchester Times, www, this is the Bronx.com, New York Parrot Online Newspaper, Muslim Community Report, www.h.com and the Montpelier Bridge. 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Hello everyone and welcome. Can you hear me all right? We tried to make this as much to give this as much contrast as possible, but Can everybody see this? All right, so I think let's start So who are we? I'm Tasos Kutlas. I'm senior technical consultant with Cameron Wilding in London My name is Alissa Stringer. I work for Investors and People. It's kind of the client within Presentation, so I'm currently a product owner within that Can you hear me better now? Great Yeah, so Alissa Stringer, one of the product owners within Investors and People. So in the third entity within this work was Big Blue Door, which was Doing the the technical delivery of the project. So Your words about the Investors and People? Yeah, so essentially this talk is going to talk about how those three partners have come together On a key project to look at our digital platforms of our Investors and People So a bit of background to Investors and People in the organisation So we are the UK's leading people management standard. We offer accreditation for employers. So we're looking at Recognising and celebrating high-performance cultures within organisations Originally set up within government within 1990 and we're kind of commercially driven now and financially self-sustaining We've got a large client base of kind of around 14,000 accredited organisations Across the UK mainly and some internationally To give a bit of a context as to why this project came about so we launched a new standard So that's kind of the framework and the content at the heart of Investors and People in September of 2015 Alongside that we're looking at our digital platforms and how we deliver that Accreditation via that and also via offline methods. So this project really looked at Delivery and iteration of those platforms in order to support that new product We manage the products on the brand at a head office team very small team And that's why kind of we rely on external resources and we'll we'll talk more about that obviously Purpose of this presentation. So why we kind of worked with tassels at Cameron Wilding and why we kind of outsource our external development team And we also have a kind of a larger infrastructure of delivery teams and delivery network. So So us as Cameron Wilding we were located in London in Elephant and Castle for You know We we do primarily for things we do we help organizations Transition into an agile way of thinking and delivery of the products We help with strategy UX and design and we are technology partner as well So we are specialized in Drupal and open source solutions. So we we do that for them We can follow that link and see some of the work we do and clients we work with So just to give you a bit more Context into the situation kind of pre this project and pre kind of our changing ways of working So we are as I say our investors and people very small team We work therefore with our development partner, which is big blue door and we wanted some resource as kind of technical lead But also to kind of help us transition into an agile way of working and consistently apply that across investors and people So we have kind of a core user base of our platforms So those are individual consultants delivering investors and people to organizations Using our platforms on a day-to-day basis to help them do that And we were looking at iterative development to support those people We obviously have a very large client base and we also have platforms that those can also engage with So we're talking quite quite a large client base We had complex six systems and multiple digital products And we're looking to consistently apply some methodologies to that and do some kind of fast and ambitious work with those We have limited in-house technical expertise Hence why we work with kind of external development partners So we're looking to bring about a culture whereby we could start to share that knowledge and expertise We had a very traditional approach to project management we were kind of heavily specking up front and Kind of allowing that to then go on technical side and not being too involved in that So we really at the heart of investors and people brought about kind of a product team A very small team and looked at how we could start to translate requirements and work with the technical guys To actually deliver core functionality and be involved together as that part of that process We had a very patchy approach to testing what we found as we were releasing functionality that was very buggy And it was causing us a lot of issues and releases weren't very scheduled And we were looking to consolidate that So Tassels will talk you through kind of the key challenge. Yes So we identified some of this in three main areas First was to identify the nature of the bags and stabilize the digital platform And that was due to the fact that we had every trust in everyone Everyone involved in the project, but yet we still were having bags So there was something there to be done and we needed to identify why that was happening and how we could actually Mitigate some of those factors second was that We wanted to create something that it could then scale up to other products and be the base Yesterday base for for delivering new innovation going forwards and the third one was to transition There was a there was a a strategic Decision from from investors in people that they they would like to work more as a lean and now outside organizations So they could get more innovation forwards so They the real issue was that we had to achieve that within six months because that was the budget allocated And that was the the period we had to actually show that the way that we were suggesting to work with that would be It can be done in a way. So When I was called in to the project and I met the team I Had to assess the situation and so as we usually do with all of our clients We suggested the spring zero. So that spring zero was a discovery mechanism for me to understand all the the the different the different issues and And what not within the organization so We identified Issues in three main categories, so There were communication issues within the team and within the general organization And I'll get into these into more details in the subsequent Slides, but essentially the three three main areas was communication the project delivery and the quality of what we are getting so First communication so Sometimes we say especially in our style that it's the interactions between the people are more important than the Than the tools and the processes we have Which is true, but these need to happen within a structured way So what we understood when we got into that project is that there were too many different tools where to use were used to track those conversations that they were happening and The discussions were happening across different mediums and tunnels. So emails were Used at some point and then conversations were switching into phone calls between Specific individuals and then a slack channel was there and some other individuals having discussion on that and then There were also different trackers tracking progress of specific things and then they had comments and that Was doing was was not doing the project any justice at all because essentially The whole message was diluted between those channels and the mediums and no one actually knew what was the current version of any Conversation so some people might have a different version of events or not as updated as somebody else within Because they weren't part of that conversation And on top of that we had too many people involved at different levels And that was causing problems because then the message needed to be contained It was not contained in a way and it was across different people Another thing that we've seen about communications was that there was panic when bags were introduced and there wasn't Any any real process to actually deal with those issues So depending on the nature of the bag and who was answering the phone or was capturing that information within the the backtracking system and They had that then to take it up to themselves to put it across to the development partner And then come back to a solution and then the whole release that needed to happen was was completely sometimes was miscommunicated and and and that was causing more issues for us and then I'm sure that you've seen that in other projects as well So they were a set of internal stakeholders that they were leading discussions And they weren't allowed the team to to be autonomous and get to decisions plan the work and then Understand how they they're gonna deliver it So since especially the last piece was was one of the requirements that Came from from our development partner as well because they were frustrated by all of these too and they said you know Sometimes they weren't very clear what the priorities are and it was very difficult for them to actually do work For us in a way and and and deliver in a consistent manner. So we thought that This has to stop and we need to sort of like create a framework that would allow investors in people to To go Back into a process that can scale. So the things that we did we didn't reinvent the wheel or anything You're you're not gonna see any big Eye-opening things in there or any wisdom. We just went back to basics on what agile is behind the process on the principles and what it tries to achieve and so one of that is it tries to achieve collaboration between individuals and Allow for discussions to happen, but it does that Especially in scrum you do that very structure. So there's no external noise. So the team can be You know where you can feel safe that once that discussion has happened Then they have the time to deliver on that and then that discussion can happen again in a predictive and coherent manner. So First thing we did and we identified is that the team working on the project needs to be guarded of all the noise so We we provided the single point of contact and that's the product owner Alyssa in this case So Alyssa was responsible of getting all the communications from the internal stakeholders and the the client and then get these And see she would own the communication in a way with the rest of the team to Deliver the vision and make the team understand what the business value of what we're building is And that was about it on on their own then, you know Using in other slides then the whole responsibility of actually delivering was placed on the team And that's the the trust issue agile and tails so as I said before we had few a few mediums and channels to talk to each other We tried to to cut things down a lot So we standardized a little bit and we said that pivotal which is a tracking system Specifically for scrum So pivotal was our main point main main software to capture the requirements and get the work done We started using slack for any or all discussion. So any discussion outside of slack was for us non-existent as if it hadn't happened and For synchronous face-to-face communications. We started using Skype. So If you ever worked with a remote team, you would know that this is not a solved problem Even in 2016 we don't have a video conferencing software That's good enough to actually say, you know use that and be done with it So we had to go to other solutions like Google Hangouts Go-to meeting and depending on the situation. Sometimes Internet was not great your side. Sometimes internet was not great in our side. But yeah, we we had to To be a little inventive on that on that front Result was though that we ended up working much more smoothly and everybody felt Everybody felt that they had Some more control around the processes and the structure of what we were doing so a little bit more so and that was Essentially what we were doing with With communications. I think it's safe to note here that Once you start building up the team trust and you start building a team to work together Then those especially if you have a process communication issues become less and less because People are people and we have social beings. We work with each other We learn each other and then at some point we we we become we become friends and colleagues and That affinity allows us to actually deliver work much more closely in predictive manner together So the the second pain points Area of pain was the product delivery. So one of the biggest things I have found out discovery was that There wasn't so much involvement in I from IIP and that was directly opposite from from an agile perspective because I Mean a few years back when most of the project were waterfall. There was this kind of Of notion that you know, somebody would compile a very big document of requirements and then throw it over the fence Someone to deliver but you know in an agile project. That's not the case anymore You need to have a product owner who's from the business who holds the the value and the vision within the team to Questions and constantly communicate back to the team why there are things that we need to do and then Get all those discussions that happened within the team and move them into the business and Allow that discussion to steer stakeholders discussion as well. So That was not happening at all. So we had a few There was confusion around the Requirements we had and some of them are very high level and some of them were very low level. So At some points the The work that was landed over the our delivery partners were not Couldn't be delivered because it was very high level and sometimes it was so minute that they were leading them down to specific paths When in fact it shouldn't So we didn't have that that feedback loop from them either. So that's the last point actually says that what we wanted was Because we had an exceptional delivery partner and we wanted to capture the expertise and the experience they had on on delivering those Projects into our way of thinking and then help them shape the product as much as we save it through through the vision so Some agile elements were there others weren't but as a whole that process was not Was not sustainable so Again, you'll see here. We just went back to the basics of of scrum but We actually explained why a few things have are happening that way in Scrum and what's the agile? Principles behind of the so we stopped having Requirements there wasn't any requirement again. So there were a few Spreads it's Excel spreadsheets that they contain strands of the work that we were doing that they were they were capturing the thinking but as Alissa was our productivity had all the answers we Here and I we started using The user story format. So we identified and we understood what kind of users do we have within the platform? And then we tried to capture those requirements from that perspective and I think that's really important because that makes It gives you two advantages basically the first advantage is that it's sort of like separates pet projects or preconception of people that they have of what the project should do because once you put that from the perspective of the user then you need actually Validating and verifying in a way why you need that functionality and the second thing it does especially with the acceptance criteria is it gives you like a roadmap of what that story should be and and I'll show you how we did it in a second but the way we have acceptance criteria Was as questions They weren't statements. They were questions. So the The answer should be yes. So an acceptance criteria for a log in page for instance is Can I enter my password? Can I enter my email? Can I press a submit button? Am I logged in so for for a story to be done? Then, you know, you need it to be able to answer. Yes to all of these but in essence if you wanted to understand what the acceptance criteria is you need to actually understand what the story should do and the story then is linked back into what the value the value creation piece through the user and that's a whole It's a big discussion. We had them. I mean, you remember, I mean Initially when we started to write user stories even for a very long very small pieces took us hours But then we streamlined that process more and more and it will became much easier. So That was one piece of work. The second piece of work was to introduce sprint goals And even though that seems a very simple or small task Once you have a sprint goal, then it's really easy to allow the team to be autonomous because You don't need to be part of the decisions anymore As long as if a developer has a choice of doing a or b Then, you know, they should do whatever is closer to achieving this print goal it's as simple as that and you delegate that decision to them and The the only problem which is a problem and they they should raise their voices if any of the choices actually Delivers on that spring goal because then as a team we need to go back and understand whether that screen goal is is is Is a correct spring goal that we have or not and if there's any problem within that so I Think that was a very good idea for us and works really well We had the full team participate on daily standards and we had we started off with a few standards and internal External so we scrapped all that we said one stand up same day same time same Every day and everyone to participate have a little bit of a cat's up You know, if there's anything blocking anyone basically and move on So we strictly kept that into 15 minutes making sure that everything's okay And you know identify if any conversation needs to happen and then we moved on We started having sprint planning sessions That was not there So and then within those sprint planning sessions, we we split them into two two sort of like Sessions if you will so within the first one we had we were identifying what was important and what was the The the user stories that we will be discovering next and within the second part of the sprint planning We were identifying individual tasks within every user story that needed to happen So we sort of had a top-down and then bottom-up approach So that gave us a very good understanding while we were going into sprints of How good our estimation was and essentially allowed us to become very stable You see at the result section how stable we became in terms of velocity and In terms of having the same understanding of everyone of those user stories of those user story points And how much work they actually were We introduced baccalaureate final sessions and we introduce a spin Review sessions and we allowed the product owner to be our ambassador to the business within the spring review So it wasn't our job anymore to deliver the project but that was like a celebration and the product owner was was Was demoing and reviewing the sprint with the stakeholders and everything everyone else and to celebrate what we achieved in the previous two weeks, and it was In terms of functionality we achieved really really big issues really big strands of work and functionality going forward So just to sum up what has come allowed us to do was to collaborate On the strategy and the technical implementation We improved the tracking of of of our work and the visibility Of what everyone was doing and we we encouraged more open more collaboration from the the stakeholder team and we we had a way to monitor bugs and Capture that work within our our normal our normal work. So that identifying and fixing bugs made was made much easier and within and much more predictable so One One byproduct of working that way was that the team had complete alignment So instead of having a client and vendor relationship and anymore anymore We had one thing and we were all working about the same same same vision. So we we had complete alignment. We shared the product vision Expectations were clear roles and responsibilities were clear to everyone and we had a very consistent framework to actually put Foot-forwards and deliver that work. So just some say boost about reframing the work And I think essentially that's the implementation details perhaps of of of this particular work is That's a user story. That's a user story. That's the format we use for everything So the top there there is a paragraph that's describing the functionality from a user perspective as Alisa said the the standard is delivered through Partners those are called practitioners or delivery partners That's what you see in there and then it's the standard format that you see in in every agile book About user stories.  Why do we want to do it and all those kinds of questions and Alisa's work was to come up with the answers and Making sure that those answers then are communicated with everybody so they can understand second piece of work and this is the extensive criteria you will notice the the question format I was saying But that it was the conversation so with what you don't see is that below this user story There was a whole stream of comments from the development guys from Alisa for myself And everybody else concerned with the project that we were discussing and we were understanding what the story We had different strategies. We perhaps in other situations. We had to split stories Or we were linking stories as in this And I think people tell is is an exceptional tool to it's the best tool you can have to actually Deliver a scrum project. It's much simpler than anything else out there And it makes it really easy to link and have those conversations And very streamlined user interface so I think I Think that allowed us to to have the conversation and not have any requirements at all But use that format to to put forwards what needed to be done so the final set of of Officials we had with it where we think quality so There was a quality Assurance process in there, but it wasn't always enforced and that it wasn't always enforced because it it depended on who picked up the phone Sometimes there was a confusion around the environments and where people should be testing things before moving to production And what the deployment process should really be there were inconsistencies on how the specification was captured around what was wrong with the system and Requirements and Strunts of work didn't have test plans or specifications attached to them. So Once we we were moving forward and releasing then we couldn't go back and do some regressions around some of the biggest things so Again, we didn't even the wheel, but we were very very persistent on some of the odds are principles The definition of done just a simple document, but it's really powerful. It means that Definition of done is a series of steps. Every story needs to go through In essence if you go through everything in the definition of done and all of your acceptance criteria is a yes Then that story it's done if not Then we either haven't captured correctly what needs to be done for that story So we need to add the new story to correctly capture the the functionality or we have a bad and That streamline the process for us very very well I'll give you an example of our definition of done document in a second But what what is important here to say is the definition of done needs to be the same for every story So it needs to contain all the steps that need to be done to to for that story To be to all the steps that the story needs to go before it's it gets approved by the product owner or whoever has the approval capabilities in the project alright, so Two things just to improve quality and making and making that development process as transparent to everyone as possible Was to have a specification written before any code is written So a developer was sitting down and he was saying you know that is the functional Specification of what this story should do and this is how I'm gonna see it So for instance for a story That is about creating a content type and then style it into a specific style It was saying that I the functional spec was I understand that these needs to happen and then I'm gonna go into Drupal I'm gonna create a content type It's gonna have that machine readable name and I'm gonna add fields to it gonna feel at the field of that name Into there that's gonna be a text field. I'm gonna add another field. It's gonna be a text area sort of like that And because we use Google Docs That was shared with everyone And within the user story in pivotal So everybody who wanted to have some visibility or wanted to all senior developers who wanted to understand What the solution of a of a more junior developer is they had a forum to actually discuss those things and That discussion actually helped us a lot to identify things or implementation details that they wouldn't scale early on before even any line of code was written and That helped us a lot to actually produce software what was much more scalable and Had had gone through that review process Even has started in the review process very early on so the second thing that That the software developer was actually then doing was writing the test plan that comes back to the discussion We had yesterday about quality. So I think it's important I know I think I think it's imperative to have to for a for a software development at this time in age to Write the test plan of their stories. They need to sit down and think how someone else comes back and Uses the functionality and that is the only way that can happen because if we take for instance the login story They need to understand how somebody would go through the steps of actually going through that that functionality So if you are to write a test plan about Testing the login and that's before even any code is written, right?  It's gonna have two fields On the first one it needs to have email and then that's when it kicks in and say, you know Do I need to have a method there to identify if something that's an on email just to make sure that people sort of like get I don't say the resources on the server for instance or not and that that that's what makes the discussion Starts happening. Even even if it's not between people even if it's on the developer's head They start understanding what actually the work really is And that's early on again. We need to spend as much as little as possible to to understand the work and then allow them to go into development. So Second was this plan and then it makes it easy for everybody else to actually jump in and test and you don't need to have Dedicated testing team to do that I mean within the same people within the same team within the same screen and within the same story You can have people who are external to that code because they are not working directly on it and have a test run Go through it and make a make sure then that at least function that works And what I consider this is the first step to getting into automated tests as well Because you know at some point you will have a discussion with your developers You do you prefer to write it in in bulleted least or do you prefer to write code for it? And the most likely they say yeah, I prefer to write code for it and then boom so easy you you have automated tests. So Yeah, we use a testing everything that was built and we were strictly having releases at the end of the spring To have release on the end of the street. What's not written in there? We need to have a code freeze And it was very it was challenging at some times, but I think we we got there and we we We were fortunate enough to have a business that could understand that even if we didn't have half a day of development It wasn't that bad as long as we could identify some bugs and fix them and actually have much better and coherent releases so just While I wrap up and I'll show you later at least I can explain some of what we have achieved and with some numbers This is a definition of done document It will Will seem awfully familiar to some of you At the end there, but Essentially what it says is all the steps that need to happen Before a story is considered completely. So that's everything we discussed so far So first thing is to have a spec written and reviewed by another member Of the team to have a test plan written Reviewed and pass But the past only comes later right when the code is complete then We have automated tests written and pass Which you have the code in repository and review. That's the pull request and And the integration testing passing And then you're deploying the study. So up to here You're still within one one branch. So if you if you follow something like git flow, you you still haven't left The brands I mean you might have made it into development and deployed into a development environment But by by this time so you've gone so so much quality already That you don't expect any bugs if if if someone if an external person finds a bag Is an exceptional thing, you know the whole team stops and say wow, how come there's a bug in there? So we we managed to reduce bugs a lot with with this process And then you deploy to staging and that's when you start involving the rest of the people So you start involving the product owners is the user acceptance tests You you involve the client to come back and and see the work But Essentially what we do we safeguard the work in a way So we make sure that when they they actually get eyes on it. It's so so polished and everything's done that They wouldn't have any issues with it Just to bring back some of the specs. So this is a Sable spec the functional part What follows on second section is the the technical part which is more about the the technical implementation So That's the story. That's a user. That's that's a story ID That ties back into pivotal. So if somebody searches ever without ID, they land to that story So it has the user story in the end functionally Has some understanding around what needs to be done and then second portion of it is technical that so you have The there's some detailed explanation on how it can be done. So Again, I think this is very very important Some some people would argue and sometimes you'll find pms that argue that this is a waste of time And you know, you I rather have developers spend time developing and those kinds of Arguments and I can hear them But what I think is important within this is that this is development And this is a more structured way of actually having someone sit down and capture their thoughts of how they will address a development a technical problem problem and Going through that Then they can share it and they can incorporate knowledge from other people who are more knowledgeable about these these kinds of things So this is a great way to upskill your team as well Because if they capture their thinking and then a senior developers goes back and say, you know I see that you're gonna try to create a class out of that, but you know if if you're if you're Injecting objects into the class for instance, and you're not using the dependency injection Then you're hard coding stuff and you perhaps if you do x y or z then it can be more scalable And that's the the thinking that you need that Allows that junior developer to to to get to a better solution. That's easier for you to scale at some point But also get that education that from from the rest of the team. So I consider that very important And this is a test plan so I mean You can you can map that directly into a b-hat test plan In a way, so you have your prerequisites There set up and tear down functions And then you have your tests and then these are steps within the test So in this particular is you select a link you Switch something you go back and you and show specific things are there So it's very easy to take this and if you get into the habit of writing these for every story It's really easy to share the testing burden within the team and make make sure that everybody can pitch in So not having a dedicated team, but essentially everybody can get involved But also we found that this is an amazing way to educate people on the system And allow them to actually learn how the system works and and then train others or Be the help desk and all that stuff. So that was an added bonus bonus for us So, I mean in terms of culture Day one we were an agile experiment, you know, day 180 We were producing interactive software. We had a product backlog with functionality that we could go on for months We have a collaborative and engaged team and we were one team not the client the supplier and consultant and We had an organization and that was really I mean I can't stress that enough.  So they were supporting us a lot Um So just to go into a bit more detail on the specific kind of results that we saw and Kind of the value that that we've saw we've seen throughout that methodology So as we've kind of referred to within the entire presentation, there was a steep decline in bugs So the processes that tassels has taught us through that allowed us to kind of document what we were creating Talk more about the value and everyone have a kind of mutual understanding of what that functionality was Allowed us at kind of an end result to have a piece of functionality that everyone understood But also then that there was less patchy And less bugs it allowed us to communicate effectively internally to the organization what we delivered And if bugs did occur, obviously we had a process for managing those We've got kind of fully functioning product owner roles and now that project has allowed us to kind of scale that up within the organization So we have an accepted way of working within our entire organization investors and people that we now look at product and platform and functionality And individuals can become product owners and lead on some of those things So they can start to develop roadmaps develop backlogs and work with the development team in that way So we've been able to kind of scale that model Um, we obviously have an engaged development team And from the technical side We are able to use the insights and the expertise that's there and use that from a business perspective So have the rich conversations up front around what we're creating in the best way to do that It's kind of scaled internally within the business our technical knowledge So we know how to better approach how to plan work and what the solution might look like We are iteratively developing new functionality and we understand the process for doing that and we can kind of Scale quicker and deliver quicker for the business and for the value We have more open communication internally our side So not only within the within the kind of delivery team, but we also have that within our wider organization So having clear frameworks and structures for working allows us to better communicate internally to our stakeholders To management or to users within of the system what we've created what we will create What could be created and have more richer conversations around ideas and share sharing knowledge and it allows us to Present functionality that's created and then at that point for example within the sprint reviews Inviting people in and getting their ideas and insights and having rich conversations about the value there with those individuals too Um, and we also kind of have have now a better framework for that strategic thinking So as I say having more open conversations about what value we should be creating what a roadmap might look like And I'll just kind of take you through so for example this this roadmap Looks at the functionality that was created Going forwards we we can start to better plan the groups of functionality We did have a hardening sprint at the end Which looked back on all of the functionality we had created and looked to kind of tidy that up and reflect on on on what we had achieved so Sometimes sometimes that has been very useful for us in the past as well We obviously now have story points. We can better estimate work Which allows us in kind of business side to plan better We know what something might look like whereas before we were asking for requirements and didn't really know what Was involved within that and therefore when it would come or how difficult that might be or actually how much it might cost We therefore have a velocity now and we can better plan Our time so we can say if we're looking at this type of functionality How long might it take to deliver that based on what the team can deliver at any one time? Can I say something on that again? So I think this is the the most typical agile graph So on the first screen we didn't deliver anything And on the second we delivered double the functionality because essentially what happened is the functionality of the sprint of the first spring was sort of there but you know Getting used to the specs and test plans wasn't there wasn't done and but instead of saying That sort of done and then push it we said no, it's not done And we take it up to ourselves realize that all of us haven't done it And let's see if we can do it next time and if we can deliver that little piece of Effort that needs to do the first thing and then move on to the second So that's what you see here, but then you see we stabilized a lot and I mean you always have fluctuations. It's a story point up or down isn't much because That that that stability Helped us then plan and prioritize and actually have a budget estimation through that Through something that's so relative because that wasn't tied back in today. That's just purely story points so we we had like a relative measure that we it was Served and understood between us but that measure Was then used to actually estimate budgets and estimates times of delivery and because we were consistent with that We could do it every time so we we we tied effort into Into money And time basically, but that came organically So that's it, yeah Thank you I just want to add in the back just before we get some questions And that there is a white paper that you can follow on that link and people who follow that link They can get 50 percent discount on the book we have out with past publishing on developing for jupy late So So any questions Please Oh, yeah Who do you prefer for doing qa break managers or developers? and So I have no preference. I mean I think that there's one team and within that team people can be flexible in a way So if if there's time for project managers that they can pitch in The way we work they have a test plan They can do it easily if if a developer is waiting for their story to be Reviewed in a pull request for instance, and they have half an hour they can do the qa and and you know Just have it as a as a lego a lego block There was an interesting discussion we had we had yesterday Mr. Anastasius here And he was saying that you need some distance sometimes From from the project and I agree with that and I think the distance that But I think that the distance a developer has from somebody else's code Is is distance enough to allow them to to test it in a way and that's not the final test step That's the test step before you get it actually in front of of Of your Designer to have the designer review In front of the client to have user acceptance test and all sorts of stuff. So I think I think I think That is my answer basically and I don't know if that answers your question. Well, thanks anyone else No All right, thanks very much. All right Thank you very much for the presentation. Cheers. I missed the very start. So I don't know whether you you highlighted how long it took you to really bed into the process and The build up and the level off and get in tune with it. So essentially it was those two sprints I think so, yeah No, we we were fortunate enough to have very skilled skilled people in every aspect.  We were discussing them And we we were flexible and you know, we we We prefer to fail fast Rather than fail late and retain some pride I mean, we we were encouraging people to to to bring up those kinds of things and we And we we tried to have like a very flat structure. There wasn't any any hierarchical structure. So everybody was able to Bring their their views Maybe One more thing that I think everyone would like to have such an enlightened client Yeah, I think I think the project was kind of initiated our side in terms of we knew that we wanted to better understand the process of delivering that that product and I think A lot of a lot of clients are are happy to kind of hand that over and and not maybe see that process through But our kind of ambition was to be become involved in that So we could we could also benefit from the rewards of understanding what that process looks like and get the technical expertise to to pull that in as well so one one thing to say and that's not covered within this is that then we went and so The the the business Actually, um, we're very fond of what we achieved. So they scaled the agile into other Other places as well. So we did lots of strategic thinking around agile with Impact maps and then that allowed us to to map strategy To goals and all the way back down to development. So that was perhaps that's another presentation For another time, but essentially, yeah I I also conclude that it was a it was really I was really happy to work with these guys because they They were always interested in new ways of working and they were I mean You couldn't ever hear like the negativity. I mean, even if something was off and they weren't used to it they were More in They were more prepared to actually give it a try see if it works rather than just, you know guard themselves in the corner and say no So yeah, I mean they're true to their name I think yeah, importantly, it was a we knew it was going to be an experimentation process Um, so we went into it looking at it like that. Um, and just trying to learn as much as possible Any other questions? All right, so thanks very much for coming and probably you got something out of


The Tiger. Financial News Network. Update. Welcome folks, we have the Dow industry is trading up 85, Nasdaq is down 86, Nasdaq is down 85, S&P's are up 5. Gold, Gold contract up $3.80, trading at $19.33 an ounce. We have Silver up 47 cents, $23.02 an ounce, LightSuite crude up 34 cents, $69.51 a barrel, Golds and bonds. Ten-year note, up 5 ticks, trading $1.1307, a 30-year up 6 ticks, at $128.03 and $Kingdala, where $Kingdala is down 213 ticks, trading $102.690, the Euros at $109, the Yen is at $143 and the British Pounds at $127 to $1.00 USD. Let's get over and take a look at the spy first. We have divergence out here. Let me show you what it is here. Now this is intraday. If we take a look at this intraday folks, what you're going to see is this, is that the bar that we had this morning, you know, we just had a sign of strength come in, but we're going to need more than that. On the 10 minute there, we did 890,000 contracts, shares rather. Well, it was going against the 1.4, but it looks to me, it's going to try to take out this 1.4 right now. The reason I'm saying that is that we did test the low already. So the first low came in at 1.2 million, the second low came in at $650,000. When you do it at half of it, you're going higher. So that's telling me that the spy wants to go higher. Now the cues, if we go to the cues, you've got a whole different setup. You'd have a different setup intraday as well as on the daily. So intraday, take a look intraday here, and what you're going to see intraday is that, you know, bottom line is that you have a high volume low that's laying out there. So that hasn't been tested yet. And then if we look at the cues on the daily, it actually is going to break a B point of a small ABC down today. You're going after this 360, 32, you need 47 million shares and you're already got 37 million. So we'll see where this baby shakes up. My take is that the S&P is going to basically move higher as we come to this close out here. If we go to the contract itself, you're down four bucks right now. We take a look at this and what you're going to see, same type of setup that we had tested. The first low came in at the 38,000 contracts. The second came in at 19. That's higher price coming out. Stay right there folks. We'll come right back.