Development methodologies weren't taught at Cornell when I took Computer Science 1982-1986. I first remember hearing about them in the early 1990's. At CivicActions, we've talked about "agile" and "scrum" for some time. But it really took the last couple of projects for me to embrace these methods.

I had hoped to present my "Scrum" methods at DrupalCon Paris, however my title was poorly choosen. So I was pleased when another "Scrum" presentation was selected over mine... it meant that I had less to prepare and I could sit back and learn something. I learned that I have my own technique, somewhere between scrum and "Extreme Programming." (Scrum is the management process and "Extreme" is the engineering practice.)

This video helped me understand better the keys of scrum:

• Time boxed
• Each sprint results in "done", which includes testing and documentation.
• Feedback loop for client requirements
• Cross functional teams
• Small teams are better, 3-4 people are good, 8-9 at most
• The classic ham and eggs joke, only pigs are committed and get to speak in Scrum.

I also like this slide from the DrupalCon presentation, which tells me how to write a "User Story" by filling in the blanks "As [role], I want to have [functionality], because [I can achieve goal]".