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Agile Teams In A Waterfall Environment: Fixed Budget, Fixed Scope, Fixed Date

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3 years ago

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A waterfall precedes and follows rapids

I recently participated in a panel discussion that was presented with the question: 

“We have been presented with a project with a fixed budget, fixed scope, and fixed date — can we use agile to deliver this project?” 

A bit of context, the work was not a simple request that had been done many times and the software team had not had access to the ultimate customers that requested the work before the scope, date, and budget were set. Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have heard this question this year. The simple answer is that the team can’t be agile in this scenario although they may use specific agile techniques. Just using techniques doesn’t make you agile. One of the reasons the ‘you can’t be agile’ answer is so easy in this scenario is that this type of project explicitly clashes with two of the values in the Agile Manifesto. They are: 

Customer collaborationover contract negotiation

Fixed everything projects represent a contract whether formally enshrined and countersigned or assigned by a manager. Participating on a fixed budget, fixed scope, and fixed date projects with unknowns is an extremely risky proposition. This type of project just doesn’t make sense to developers but is seemingly easier to sell or make sense to those who view knowledge work projects as if they are buying a retail product. As a point of order, these types of projects generated some of the most horrific death marches and quality failures I have seen during my career, whether waterfall, spiral, iterative, or agile (and they really can’t be agile) they are really bad ideas.

Responding to change over following a plan

Fixed scope implies that everything that needs to be done is known before the project starts. Because we know that it is not possible given the context of the scenario someone will have had pre-decide on an approach, which flies in the face of delaying decisions until the last responsible moment and using the freshest knowledge to inform decisions.

With a little mental flexibility, you can make a case that fixed everything projects violate the other two agile values, but overkill is not necessary. Fixed budget, fixed scope, and fixed date projects are not agile. That said, while being agile is out of the question, doing at least some agile techniques is possible. Why would you eschew sprints or a continuous flow Kanban approach? Would you stop doing stand-ups/daily Scrums to replan or swarm to work if someone was in trouble? Using agile techniques is a separate discussion which is the genesis of the Being Agile versus Doing Agile debate. In a fully fixed scenario, some techniques might be useful but generate frustration. For example, Sprint Reviews/Demos are tools to get fast feedback. However, you will have to decide how to deal with feedback if it broaches any of the fixed

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By: tcagley
Title: Agile Teams In A Waterfall Environment: Fixed Budget, Fixed Scope, Fixed Date
Sourced From: tcagley.wordpress.com/2020/08/11/agile-teams-in-a-waterfall-environment-fixed-budget-fixed-scope-fixed-date/
Published Date: Tue, 11 Aug 2020 23:55:01 +0000

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NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Gaming Laptops Powered Massive Cryptocurrency Mining Farm Spotted in China, Over Hundreds of Ampere Laptops

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2 years ago

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February 11, 2021

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Last week, it was reported how cryptocurrency miners are rushing after NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Gaming Laptops to earn that sweet digital currency profits. Well, now a video tour of one of the mining farms has surfaced showcasing several hundred gaming laptops being used to mine the cryptocurrencies.

Several Hundred NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Gaming Laptops Spotted In Chinese Cryptocurrency Mining Farm Video Tour

Earlier, we only got to see a glimpse of the cryptocurrency mining farm but a brand new video has surfaced which shows the complete scale of the setup. The setup is based in China but the user has not mentioned the location for obvious reasons. As you can tell, the mining farm is set up with and utilizes NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Gaming laptops from the Chinese manufacturer, Hasse.

The Hasse laptop is based on the GeForce RTX 3060 mobility GPU. The GeForce RTX 3060 laptop solution is definitely not similar to the desktop variant which offers much better specifications and doesn’t come at a lower price either. According to NVIDIA themselves, the RTX 3060 laptops start at $999 US & the miners can save a penny by purchasing in bulk but they end up paying at least $600 US more for the laptop variant. Plus, they also end up with unnecessary hardware that the laptops feature. At the same time, the laptop variants do feature reduced TGPs which might save electricity costs & offer higher cryptocurrency mining rates.

pic.twitter.com/XJrfH9Fx7V

— 포시포시 (@harukaze5719) February 9, 2021

What’s interesting here is that the user has bought these laptops in a bulk order which means that either the retailer, distributor, or the manufacturer itself is openly supporting cryptocurrency miners over actual customers such as gamers which these laptops are primarily designed for. The selling party could be taking advantage of crypto miners by selling these at scalped prices to earn a profit.

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By: Hassan Mujtaba
Title: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Gaming Laptops Powered Massive Cryptocurrency Mining Farm Spotted in China, Over Hundreds of Ampere Laptops
Sourced From: wccftech.com/nvidia-geforce-rtx-30-gaming-laptops-powered-massive-cryptocurrency-mining-farm-spotted-in-china-over-hundreds-of-ampere-laptops/
Published Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2021 04:17:52 +0000

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Intel 3rd Gen Xeon Ice Lake-SP CPU Rumors – 10nm With Up To 40 Cores, 8-Channel DDR4-3200, 64 PCIe Gen 4.0 Lanes, Max 270W TDP

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2 years ago

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February 11, 2021

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A couple of rumors regarding Intel’s Ice Lake-SP Xeon server CPUs have surfaced over the web, mostly from known leaker, Momomo_US. The information consists of specifications, configs & power ratings of several SKUs that will be part of the 3rd Gen Xeon Scalable processor family.

Intel 3rd Gen Ice Lake-SP Xeon CPU Rumors Point Out Up To 40 Cores, 270W TDPs & Brand New Core Architecture

Starting off with the details, Intel’s 3rd Gen Ice Lake-SP Xeon CPUs will be based on the 10nm+ process node and utilize the Sunny Cove core architecture. The Intel Sunny Cove x86 architecture has been around since 2019 and was first featured on Intel’s 10th Gen Ice Lake processors for the notebook segment. Intel has since moved over to Tiger Lake which is based on the Willow Cove x86 architecture and makes use of the 10nm SuperFin process node.

Some of the major upgrades that Intel’s 10nm+ for Ice Lake-SP Xeon CPU will deliver include:

2.7x density scaling vs 14nmSelf-aligned Quad-PatterningContact Over Active GateCobalt

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By: Hassan Mujtaba
Title: Intel 3rd Gen Xeon Ice Lake-SP CPU Rumors – 10nm With Up To 40 Cores, 8-Channel DDR4-3200, 64 PCIe Gen 4.0 Lanes, Max 270W TDP
Sourced From: wccftech.com/intel-3rd-gen-xeon-ice-lake-sp-cpu-rumors-10nm-up-to-40-cores-270w-tdp/
Published Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2021 10:02:51 +0000

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https://getinvestmentadvise.com/tech/intels-raja-koduri-teases-xe-hpg-enthusiast-gaming-graphics-cards-in-action-within-3dmark-mesh-shader-test-launch-imminent/

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Intel’s Raja Koduri Teases Xe HPG Enthusiast Gaming Graphics Cards In Action Within 3DMark Mesh Shader Test, Launch Imminent?

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2 years ago

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February 11, 2021

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Intel’s Senior Vice President, Raja Koduri, has been dropping some major bombs on his Twitter feed for a while now. The most recent one being the Xe HPC chip shot which is an engineering marvel but it looks like Raja has switched gears and now dropped a teaser of Intel’s first gaming discrete graphics cards, the Xe HPG.

Intel Teases Xe HPG Enthusiast Gaming Graphics Cards, Running 3DMark’s Upcoming Mash Shader Feature

It’s been some time since we last heard about Intel’s Xe HPG (High-Performance Gaming) discrete GPUs or graphics cards. Intel’s main focus has been Xe-LP and they also dive in deeper within the tech that Xe HPC has to offer considering it’s their biggest chip design to date and the flagship Xe product. But the Xe HPG is where the gaming community is more focused at and we have got the first teaser of Intel’s discrete graphics cards based on the HPG GPUs running in action.

Xe HPG mesh shading in action, with the UL 3DMark Mesh Shader Feature test that is coming out soon pic.twitter.com/fnYeWoM08c

— Raja Koduri (@Rajaontheedge) February 10, 2021

The teaser from Raja shows an undisclosed Intel Xe HPG GPU based discrete graphics card running the UL 3DMark Mesh Shader Feature test. This test is coming out soon and will be integrated within the 3DMark test suite. Mesh Shader is one of the major features introduced within DirectX 12 Ultimate API back in 2020. The feature is supported by NVIDIA’s Turing, Ampere, and AMD’s RDNA 2 graphics architectures. Based on this tweet, Intel will also be adding Mesh Shaders support on its Xe-HPG class discrete GPUs.

The technology helps to dramatically improve performance and image quality when rendering a scene with a substantial number of very complex objects. Take for instance a very complex & triangle-heavy mesh and what Mesh Shaders would essentially do is segment it into smaller meshlets. Each meshlet ideally optimizes the vertex re-use within it. Using the new hardware stages and this segmentation scheme, devs can render more geometry

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By: Hassan Mujtaba
Title: Intel’s Raja Koduri Teases Xe HPG Enthusiast Gaming Graphics Cards In Action Within 3DMark Mesh Shader Test, Launch Imminent?
Sourced From: wccftech.com/intels-raja-koduri-teases-xe-hpg-enthusiast-gaming-graphics-cards-in-action-3dmark-mesh-shader-test/
Published Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2021 07:21:19 +0000

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