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The Scrum Process Framework

Tags

Agile, scrum

Agile in general, and Scrum in particular, have become increasingly popular in the last few years. Many organizations have implemented the Scrum Process Framework, and hired dozens of Scrum Masters and Scrum Coaches to implement it.

Most people have heard of Scrum, but are unfamiliar with the Scrum Process Framework. The SPF is an imaginary framework that consists of some or all of the roles and ceremonies of Scrum, laid on top of Waterfall. Unfortunately, both types of organizations, those that are using the SPF, and those that are using Agile Scrum, call what they are doing Scrum, so it is sometimes hard to tell which one they are actually doing.

So, below are some questions you can ask, formatted as a tribute to Jeff Foxworthy, to tell if an organization is doing Agile Scrum, or using the SPF.

• If the product owner is nowhere to be found, you might be using the SPF;
• If you have sprints, but only deliver once, at the end of the project, you might be using the SPF;
• If the project scope is fixed at the beginning of the project, you might be using the SPF;
• If the project has several weeks of planning, before development begins, you might be using the SPF;
• If the Scrum Master manages the project, you might be using the SPF;
• If you have a team of experts that can only do one thing, you might be using the SPF;
• If testing is done by a dedicated testing team, you might be using the SPF.

I could go on, but it is much easier to remember just one thing: if the organization isn’t focused on, and even obsessed with, delivering the most value in the shortest period of time, then they are almost certainly using the SPF. Agile isn’t a framework to implement; it is a state of being.

To be clear, I am not saying that the SBF is bad, or that it can’t work—only the results can say whether it is working. However, if you are using the SBF, and it isn’t working, maybe you should try being agile. The only thing you have to lose is missing out on more value in a shorter period of time.

See you next time…

The best sled ever; or, how I learned about testing early.

I think I may have been out of bed and fully awake before my eyes were completely open. This didn’t usually happen on school days, but today was different. The weatherman had promised we would get snow; a lot of snow. Not just a few inches, mind you, he said it could easily be a foot.

I ran downstairs and turned on the radio, “…Fox C-6 closed, Grandview R-2 closed, Hillsboro R-3 closed…” There it was, the phrase I was longing to hear. School was closed.

I headed back upstairs to get dressed. I started with two pairs of jeans. Getting the second one on over the first one was a chore, but at least I would be warm. Next came a couple shirts, followed by two pairs of socks. I put my boots on, grabbed my coat, and headed back downstairs.

I stopped in the kitchen to get some cereal. A bowl and milk would take too much time, so I opened the box and started pouring it into my mouth like a mother bird feeding her chick. Pour, chew, swallow, pour, chew, swallow, pour, and head out the door.

I was to the end of the driveway before I had my coat on. I zipped it up as I ran across the street. Hopefully Jeff and Kelly, my cousins, were already awake. I knocked on the door and Kelly answered immediately. “What took you so long?” he asked. “We’ve been ready for ten minutes.”

“What do you want to do?” I asked, “do you want to get everyone together and play football? Or should we start with sledding?”

“Sledding,” he replied. “It might warm up, and I would rather play football in slush than try to sled.”

“Cool, I was hoping to go sledding first anyway,” I answered him. “I will go get my sled and meet you up on the pasture hill.”

“Ok, we’ll be there,” he said as he was closing the door.

I headed back over to my house and went into the basement. The basement had an outside entrance. As I understand it, the door opening used to be large enough for my grandfather to park a car down there. I assume there was a ramp going down where the steps are now. But the large opening has been closed and replaced with a standard door for as long as I had lived there.

The sled was hanging from a nail in the set of shelves at the far end of the basement. I grabbed it and headed back across the street, past grandma Grote’s house, and into the back pasture. Grandma Grote was my great-grandmother. She died a long time ago, and my dad’s cousin inherited the house and land; but we all still called it grandma Grote’s house. There was a barn and pasture behind the house, but there hadn’t been any livestock since Grandma died; so, we never had to worry about running into a cow or a patty.

I was out of breath by the time I got to the top of the hill, but I managed to choke out, “where are your sleds?” as I looked around for their runner sleds.

“We are going to use those,” Kelly said as he pointed to a couple pieces of metal corrugated roofing material. He and Jeff had pulled one end of each sheet up a little to prevent the leading edge from digging into the snow. Looking back, a bunch of boys sledding down a large hill on pieces of sheet metal is probably not a very good idea. I guess we should be thankful we didn’t have any amputated legs.

They both jumped on their crudely fashioned sled and took off down the hill. I sat on my tiny aluminum saucer and followed. We continued to climb the hill and slide down until we became so wet and cold that we started to shiver. As we were walking back to their house I asked about another piece of sheet metal.

“I don’t know if we have another one or not,” Jeff said. “look around in the tractor shed and take what you can find.”

I searched the shed and found nothing. I looked under the tractor, against the back and side walls, outside of the shed and found nothing that even resembled a sheet of metal. I was about to head for home when I looked up and saw it; a glorious piece sheet metal, up in the rafters, just waiting for me to rescue it from obscurity and turn it into a down-hill racing machine.

I climbed up on the tractor and pulled it down; then headed for home. On the way, I began thinking about what I could do to the metal to turn it into a real sled. Just a piece of metal was fine for the other two guys, but I wanted a machine; a racing machine. The best sled ever devised or built.

On my way down the steps into the basement, an old step ladder caught my eye. In my imagination, I could see the perfect frame for my hot rod. The ladder was missing the back legs and only had the half that contained the steps. It was five feet long, so it was exactly the right length. This would perfectly fit the six-foot piece of metal, with just enough to pull up in front. I laid the metal down on the floor and grabbed the ladder. I laid the ladder on top of the metal and then went to find a hammer and nails.

I wrapped the metal up one side and nailed it to the ladder; then I repeated the process on the other side. At that point, I realized I had a problem. Now I couldn’t wrap the metal up in front because it was already wrapped up on the sides like a ladder taco. I looked around on the tool bench and found a set of tin-snips. I could cut the metal down the side at the front of the sled and bent it up.

When I went back to the bench to return the snips, I noticed an old car side mirror on the bottom shelf of the bench. “Sweet”, I said to myself. I grabbed it and attached it to the right side of the sled. Now I would be able to see Jeff and Kelly as I left them behind in a dusting of snow.

I noticed the mirror was still a little loose but, with just nails to hold it, I wasn’t going to be able to get it any tighter. But that wouldn’t stop me. It wasn’t a bug–it was a feature. I found an old piece of wood from a building my dad had rehabbed, and attached it behind the mirror with a single nail. Now I could push down on the wooden handle and the mirror would push up so I could see the top of the hill. When I let it go, I could see directly behind me. “I am a genius”, I thought. This truly was the best sled ever.

I was working so hard I had long ago shed my outerwear. I felt nice and warm, even in the cold basement. Jeff and Kelly had to be warm and ready for another session of speed by now. I really wanted to put a few coats of paint on it, but I was anxious to take it on its inaugural run.

I bent to pick it up, and realized I had made one heavy sled. It was going to be a bear getting to the top, but with all that weight, gravity will pull me a lot faster. I grabbed some bailing twine and tied it to the ladder near the front, then manhandled it up the steps and pulled it up the driveway, across the road, and toward the hill.

Jeff and Kelly were already outside taking wood into the house. “I will meet you up on top,” I yelled, without stopping. They caught up with me and we all arrived at the top together. “What do you think?” I asked. “It looks heavy,” Kelly said. “Maybe for someone with teeny muscles like you,” I retorted. “Shut up,” he quipped. “Let’s just see who gets to the bottom the fastest,” I challenged. We lined up our rides, Jeff on my left and Kelly on my right. We got comfortable, with our legs out and our feet in the snow, holding us back from the tug of gravity.

“Ready, Set, Go!” Kelly yelled, and we all pulled our feet into the sleds and took off down the hill. I went so fast, I barreled through the mound of snow we had erected to stop us, through the high grass, and stopped just before the creek. I turned around and saw them still half-way up the hill, gently coasting down.

Actually, that was how I had imagined it would go. What really happened was we all lifted our feet and Jeff and Kelly took off down the hill and I went nowhere. I just sat there. I put my feet out to try to scoot myself forward, but still went nowhere. I kept trying to get it to move until the other boys were back on the top of the hill. “It won’t move”, I said. Jeff turned it over and said, “it is covered with rust. There is too much friction. You need to find a piece of metal that doesn’t have rust on it.”

I was heartbroken. I grabbed the twine and pulled my failed creation back across the street and into the basement. I pulled it all apart and threw the sheet metal into the corner, put the mirror back on the bench, and then took all of the wood out to the fire pit and lit it on fire.

I was sitting there looking at it do the only thing it was good for, burning, when Kelly came up behind me. “Hey, do you want to play football?” “Might as well,” I replied. Kelly had already knocked on our door and alerted my two brothers, Tim and Kevin, that we were going to play; and had called my cousin, Bill, who lived up on the top of the hill behind our house.

It wasn’t long before the only thing that mattered was the score, and my failed sled attempt was forgotten.

Actually, it was never forgotten. I still remember it like it was yesterday. But now I don’t see it as a failure. I did a lot of good work. I simply failed to test early and often. If I had tested the metal before I built anything, I would have known it was never going to work. I would have either looked for a sheet that did work, or given up on the project before I had spent any time on it.

Preventing these kinds of expensive failures is the reason we test so much in Agile. Early project termination is not the failure in Agile that it is in Waterfall. In fact, we should actually be looking for things that could cause us to stop the project. We want to know these risks as early as possible so we either have time to resolve them, or stop the project before we spend any real money. I was so excited and emotionally attached to an old ladder, a piece of sheet metal, and some nails, that I wasn’t able to accept failure as a possibility.

When you are talking about the lives of three astronauts, it may be true that failure is not an option. However, for an Agile project, “failure” is not only an option, it should always be on the table and discussed.

So, don’t build a rusty sled. Either, build a sled that moves, or don’t build a sled at all. Unlike me, who could move on and get over it by dragging his brothers to the snowy grass as they were trying to score a touchdown, you may lose your job and find it hard to get another.

Test early and often, or don’t even try.

See you next time…

Life Lessons from Flying

My mom taught me that life wasn’t fair. This was her go-to answer when an atrocity such as unequal desert portioning occurred. Random events happen that, for good or bad, affect us.

A long time ago, when I was still flying regularly, my brother and I decided to fly from St. Louis to Atlanta to attend a wedding. It was a beautiful day for flying and we were both excited to get started. I made a call to get the weather and was disappointed to find out there was a large thunderstorm between St. Louis and Atlanta. The meteorologist said it didn’t reach as far south as our destination and we may be able to fly south, then east and go around the storm.

That sounded like a plan to us, so we did our pre-flight, climbed aboard, got into the air, and turned our nose toward the southeast. About an hour later we were near Cape Girardeau, MO and could see some darkness out of our left window. It was still a long way away, but we could tell it was there.

An hour and a half later, near Jackson, Tennessee, we could tell the storm was getting closer, so I turned the plane a little to the right and headed due South. By the time we hit Tupelo, Mississippi, the storm was upon us and I was looking desperately for a place to land as the low clouds continued to force us lower and lower. Fortunately, we were close to Tupelo Regional Airport, so I called the tower and asked for clearance to land.

We were able to get down before the full fury of the storm hit. We borrowed a car from the airport and drove toward the center of town where we found a cheap motel. By the time the storm passed the next morning, it was too late to get to the wedding, so we flew home. It was a harrowing experience, an utter failure in regard to getting us where we wanted to go.

Sometimes our environment works against us. It isn’t always the weather, sometimes it is rules or regulations, or custom or social norm. Whatever it is, the sooner we remember that sometimes things happen and we can’t change it, the sooner we can accept it and move on. Despite missing the wedding, my brother and I had a good time flying and seeing the sites.

Early in my flying career, I started taking my kids up. I started with my oldest, Sarah, then took up Laura, followed by Jon, the youngest. Jon was in his toddler years. He was old enough to be starting to talk, but he certainly wasn’t ready to have a reasoned discussion.

I grabbed the car seat with one hand and Jon’s hand with the other and walked over to the airplane, an old Cessna 172. I buckled the car seat into the copilot seat and then got him strapped in. I went around and climbed aboard. The skies were mostly clear with just a few puffy white clouds. Soon, we were up in the air having a great time doing lazy-eights and big wide circles so Jon could see the ground.

We flew for about an hour going nowhere in particular and then started back for the airport. About ten minutes out, Jon decided he wanted to get into the action and began pressing the control yoke with his feet. The plane went into an unexpected dive as I struggled to level off. Jon was young, but his legs were very strong. I had to reach over and knock his feet off the yoke before I was able to level off.

About the time we got to straight and level, he stuck his feet up and started pushing again. I got his feet off again and started explaining the forces associated with flight, but he wasn’t having any part of my analysis. His feet shot back up to the yoke. I spent the next ten minutes flying with my left hand and holding his feet down with my right. Each time I had to take my hand away from his feet, for instance to lower the flaps, I had to do it quickly so he didn’t have time to get his feet back up.

We were eventually able to land safely, but that is the last time I will ever take a toddler up in a small plane alone.

There are times when other people will work against us. Everyone has their own hopes, aspirations, desires, and ideas. Sometimes we are the pilot, trying to do what is right, and they are the toddler, not understanding the bigger picture and working against something that is actually in their best interest. However, we need to recognize that sometimes we are the toddler. Jon knew nothing about what the yoke did and how it related to his own survival. He was just doing what he always did–interact with new things in order to see what they do. We have to be willing to be open to the possibility that it is possible we don’t know everything and the person working against us is actually trying to save us.

While I did take people flying occasionally, I usually flew alone. The airport was near my office, so it was easy to head over after work and go for a quick flight. On one such day, I decided to fly over to a rural area that was often used for flight training to practice my stalls. A stall occurs when the wing is raised to too great of an angle and is no longer able to create lift. Pilots practice them so they know how to respond if they ever find themselves in one.

Shortly after I took off, I noticed some abnormal wind noise. I noticed that the latch on the cockpit cover was not completely closed. I was flying a Diamond Katana, a very small composite aircraft that was only a few years old. In this airplane, there are no doors. The entire top of the cockpit is one canopy made of clear plastic and opens on a hinge at the back. To lock it shut, you have to push two bars (one on each side of the cockpit) forward and into the fuselage.

The left rod was not pushed all of the way into the slot and was allowing air to leak in between the fuselage and the canopy. I pushed as hard as I could but the bar would not budge. Then I tried pulling back to see if I could get it to move at all. Unfortunately, it did. The rod came out completely and the canopy opened two inches on the left side of the plane. The only thing holding it down now was the right rod. If it broke, the canopy would fly open and back and could take out the entire tail section.

I made a quick U-turn and called the tower. “Chesterfield, this is Katana Papa-Foxtrot-Nine-Sixteen. I am having problems with my canopy and would like to land as soon as possible.” The tower responded, “Katana Nine-Sixteen, are you declaring an emergency?”

“No, I am definitely NOT declaring an emergency. However, I would love to get down as quickly as possible.” I said, knowing that once an emergency is declared, months of investigation would kick off leading, almost certainly, to nothing good for the pilot.

“Roger, Nine-Sixteen, you are number two, behind One-Seven-Four,” I heard the tower reply.

An unknown voice broke in, “Tower, this is One-Seven-Four, I am going around.”

“Roger, One-Seven-Four. Nine-Sixteen, you are cleared for landing,” the tower replied.

I landed safely and taxied back to the parking area. I tried the latch and it worked fine. I had the canopy checked out and everything was working fine. I just failed to get it completely latched and the wind pressure during flight was just too high to allow me to push it closed.

Sometimes we work against ourselves. Whether it is carelessness, ignorance, or something else doesn’t matter. We sabotage ourselves and hold ourselves back. The only thing to do is to realize it and stop, then move forward.

If you aren’t making the progress you thing you should, figure out what is holding you back. Is it environmental? If so, figure out a way to go around the problem, or change your destination.

Is someone else holding you back? In this case, you need to figure out who is the pilot and who is the toddler. Remember, neither the pilot nor the toddler thought they were doing anything wrong.

Are you holding yourself back? Did you do something stupid or careless. Then land the plane and start over. Fix what you are doing to hold yourself back and take off again. Like drag on a plane, there will always be things that work against us as we try to fly through life. The more we know about what is causing the drag, the better able we are to eliminate it.

See you next time…

Scrum Interviews Revisited

Back in January I wrote an article, The Scrum Interview Process. Since then I have rethought the title and think I prefer calling it the Story Interview Process because it uses user stories to organize the interview. While user stories are often used in Scrum, they are not prescribed by Scrum as required, so clearly the process I suggest shouldn’t be called the Scrum Interview Process.

Regardless of what you call it, I still argue that it is a much better process than asking the traditional “what are your strengths” questions. And, while I am not a Nobel Laureate, I ran across an article today written by Gus Lubin, and published on Business Insider, about a new interviewing process created by Nobel Laureate Dr. Daniel Kahneman that sounds very much like the process I described. For more information on Dr. Kahneman’s process, I refer you to his book, Thinking, Fast and Slow. Dr. Kahneman, a former United States Army Officer, described the Army’s old interview process as “almost useless for predicting the future success of recruits.” He designed a new interview procedure to address the weaknesses he saw.

When you consider that the Story Interview and Dr. Kahneman’s processes both focus on asking the interviewee to talk about their experience in terms of the actual needs of the position, it isn’t hard to understand why these types of interview processes almost have to be better than an unstructured process. Drop me an email, or post a comment, with your thoughts if you decide to try either of these interview methods.

See you next time…

Stay Interviews

Prevention is better than cure.
—Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536)

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
—Ben Franklin (1706-1790)

Treatment without prevention is simply unsustainable.
—Bill Gates (1955-)

Philosophy, history, and common sense tell us that it is often preferable to prevent a harm from occurring than to attempt to fix the damage once it occurs. Studies about software defect remediation show varying results, but there is strong consensus among them that finding and fixing a bug during design is much less expensive than fixing it after deployment.

So, it should come as no surprise that Stay Interviews are much more effective at retention than counter offers after a valued employee tenders their resignation. Counter offers are usually too-little-too-late and often come across as offensive to the leaving employee. If the company thought they were worth more money, why weren’t they already paying them more? Besides this, money is rarely the only issue. Even when a counter offer is accepted and the individual stays, it often only lasts until a better offer comes in.

The purpose of a Stay Interview is to learn about issues as early as possible so they can be addressed. A Stay Interview is usually a one-on-one, semi-structured conversation between the employee and the manager. Some organizations involve HR, but one of the goals of the Stay Interview is to help build the relationship between the employee and the manager, so HR involvement should be limited.

I have come up with a mnemonic for the areas that should be covered during the interview: HARBINGER. A Harbinger is a person or thing that announces or signals the approach of something. The categories, and one or more sample questions for each, are listed below. However, before we get to that, let’s go over some preliminaries.

Definition
A Stay Interview is a one-on-one, semi-structured discussion driven by open-ended questions whose focus is on the employee’s satisfaction with their position and the company. Stay Interviews should be done once or twice a year with anyone whose retention is important to the firm.

Benefits
Stay Interviews open a dialog with at risk employees and provide an opportunity to keep them as employees. They stimulate and engage employees; and focus the manager and employee on building a personal relationship. Stay Interviews are an easy-to-learn way to gather inexpensive feedback from your key employees.

Rules

1. Don’t couple with performance appraisals. The focus should be on current and future desires, not past performance.
2. Should be done by the individual’s manager, but HR can be involved if necessary.
3. Listen, clarify, and seek to understand. Do NOT argue, pushback, or otherwise seek to be understood.
4. Be sincere and casual.
5. Follow-up on any promises. If nothign changes, then the Stay Interview will be perceived as just-another-management-event. It is probably better not to do Stay Interviews at all, than to do them and then not work on making the necessary changes. I am not saying the manager has to give the employee everything they request, but everything they request should be addressed.

Now, without further ado, below are some sample questions to get you started.

HAPPINESS

• What bothers you most about your current position?
• What do you like most about your current position?
• What might tempt you to leave?
• What do you like most about working here?

ASPIRATIONS

• Where do you see yourself in [6 months, 1 year, 2 years, etc.]?
• If you could wave a magic wand and put yourself in any position or role what would it be?

RECOGNITION

• How do you like to be recognized?
• Is there anything that you have done or accomplished while at this company for which you were not recognized?

BLOCKS

• Is there anything that is preventing you from doing your job?
• What can I do to help you do a better job in the position you are currently in?
• Is there anything blocking you from advancing in your career?

INTERESTS

• What are you passionate about?
• What is your favorite activity?
• What is the one thing in your current position that you most like doing?
• What do you think about on your way to work?

NEEDS

• Is there anything you need that I might be able to help you get?

GROWTH

• Are there any tasks or areas in which you would like to work that you aren’t now?
• Are there any new skills you would like to learn?

ENTHUSIASM

• What about your job makes you want to jump out of bed?
• When was the last time you felt unusually motivated? What do you think caused you to be motivated?

RESUME

• What would you like to see on your resume that is not there now?

I hope you try Stay Interviews if you are a manager. If you are not a manager, then introduce the concept to your manager and ask for one.

See you next time…

PowerPoint Presentation Icons – Version 1.1

I have added some new, and updated other icons to the Presentation Icons file that I uploaded a few months ago. There are now nine groups:

• Office and Business—pencil, mouse, laptop, file folder, coffee, etc.
• Symbols—check mark, exclamation point, musical note, playing card suits, etc.
• Travel, Transportation, and Vehicle—bus, car, ambulance, airplane, blimp, etc.
• Technology—USB, electricity, bug, smart phone, printer, WiFi, battery, etc.
• Math, Science, and Medicine—microscope, telescope, chemistry flask, syringe, integral, etc.
• Buildings and locations—government, office building, home, hospital, castle, etc.
• Miscellaneous—trophy, medal, newspaper, book, lock, magnifying glass, etc.
• Web Logos—Android, Apple, Windows, Facebook, LinkedIn, RSS, Twitter, etc.
• Avatars—student, chef, doctor, office worker, etc.

There are also pages that let you see what various elements look like using different templates and color schemes. Like everything else I post, the icons are free to use, but are made available as-is, without any kind of warranty, including fitness or copyright protection.

See you next time…

Outlook Location Button

Tags

Outlook, VBA

I wrote a simple subroutine last year that puts my conference line information into the location window of my Outlook appointments. After showing it to my work buddy, Rizwan, he suggested I post the code on my blog. So here it is…

Option Explicit

Public Sub WriteConferenceInfoIntoLocation()
    Dim oAppt As AppointmentItem
    Dim sMessage As String
    
    sMessage = "212-555-1234 Code: 567890"
    If ActiveInspector.CurrentItem.Class = olAppointment Then
        Set oAppt = ActiveInspector.CurrentItem
        oAppt.Location = sMessage
        Set oAppt = Nothing
    End If
    
End Sub

The code is pretty self-explanatory if you have done any coding before. If you haven’t, I have tested the code in Outlook 2010 and 2013. It should work if you if you follow the instructions. All you need to modify is the sMessage variable text to include the text you want to display in the Location field. You can pretty much set it to whatever you want, as long as it doesn’t include any double-quotes.

First, open Outlook, and then get into the Visual Basic development environment by pressing Alt-F11.

Right click on Project1, and select Insert, then Module.

You should get a new module called Module1, as shown below.

Double-click on Module1 to open it in the IDE.

Copy the code from above and paste it into the module window, as shown below.

Notice the Option Explicit command at the top of the page. This may have already been present in the module when it was created. If it was, make sure you don’t add another when you copy the code. The code should look exactly like it is above.

Next, modify the sMessage text to be whatever you want to show up in your location field.

That is all there is to the code. You can close the IDE now.

Next, we need to add a button to the Quick Access Toolbar on the Appointment Window.

Open the Outlook calendar and double-click on any time block to open a new appointment. Click on the down-arrow icon to the far right of the Quick Access Toolbar on the meeting invite window. Make sure you aren’t doing this on the main application toolbar or you will have the “Add Location” button there, instead of on your meeting invite windows.

From the Quick Access Toolbar menu, circled below, select More Commands…

You should get the Options window, which should look similar to the next image.

Click on the drop-down under “Choose commands from,” and select Macros. You should see your new macro in the left window. Double-click on it to move it to the right window; then select the newly added item on the right and click on the Modify… button at the bottom of the page.

Change the display name to whatever you want, I chose, “Add Conference Info to Location.” Then select an Icon, I picked the telephone.

Click OK on that window; then OK again on the Options window. Now close the new appointment window but don’t save your changes.

Double-click anywhere on the calendar again to open a new appointment window and look for your new icon in the Quick Access Toolbar of the appointment.

Close that meeting invite too, without saving, then exit Outlook. IMPORTANT: when Outlook asks you if you want to save the VBA project, say YES.

The next time you load Outlook, you should still see the button on the Quick Access Toolbar for all of your meeting invites. Pressing this button should put your conference line information into the location field of your message.

If you press the button and nothing happens, you probably have to make a change to your Outlook Trust Settings. In Outlook, click File, Options, Trust Center, and then click on the Trust Center button on the right. The Trust Center should open.

Click on Macro Settings and pick “Notifications for all macros.” Click OK on that window, then OK again on the previous window, and close out of Outlook. The next time you open Outlook, it should work.

At some point after doing this you will get a warning pop-up telling you of a “potential security concern.” Press the Enable Macros button on this pop-up to enable your button. On my computer with Outlook 2010 I get this warning as Outlook is loading. On my computer with Outlook 2013 I don’t see it until I try to use the button. I am not sure if the difference in timing is because of the difference in version, or because one is running on an enterprise computer and the other is running on a personal computer.

Regardless of when you get it, you will only have to click on this once per session. You could select “Enable all macros” instead of “Notification for all macros” if you don’t want to click the button; but it doesn’t really bother me, since I normally don’t turn my machine off each night.

I hope this is helpful; and special thanks to Rizwan for suggesting I post this article.

See you next time…

PowerPoint Presentation icons

I needed a few icons for a document I was working on and started making icon clip-art. Once I got started I couldn’t stop and three weeks later I had almost 500 little icons created. I pulled the best of them together and created a file of 352 Presentation Icons.

Also included in the file are some example uses, and four palettes that can be used to see what a theme or color palette change will look like.

The file was created in PowerPoint 2013, but should work with anything since 2007 when support for the XML file format was included.

See you next time…

DREAD and STRIDE Model

DREAD and STRIDE are Threat Risk Models used to classify software security vulnerabilities.

DREAD stands for:  Damage, Reproducibility, Exploitability, Affected Users, and Discoverability.

According to OWASP (the Open Web Application Security Project), each category is scored separately with a number from 0 to 10. The average of the five numbers is used as the DREAD Score.

I think this model is too simplistic, in that it weights all five categories the same. I prefer to put more weight on Damage. I also think a scale of 0 to 10 is too large for most people to use effectively. I chose to use a three-tier scale of high, medium, and low for input. The model still calculates a number between 0 and 10 so it can be evaluated the same way as a traditional calculation.

After I built my model, I ran across David Leblanc‘s blog entry that discusses the same issues that I had. However, while his model uses a completely different calculation, the two models seem to produce similar risk score sorts.

The model also slices the vulnerabilities a different way using the STRIDE model. STRIDE stands for: Spoofing Identity, Tampering with Data, Repudiation, Information Disclosure, Denial of Service, and Elevation of Privilege

Download the Excel DREAD Score Model and compare it to original calculation and decide for yourself if you prefer its calculation to the standard, average, DREAD calculation.

See you next time…