In this interview, Lyssa Adkins and Michael Spayd, cofounders of the Agile Coaching Institute, discuss the role of the Agile Coach and the competencies (i.e. facilitation, mentoring, teaching, and coaching) necessary to become effective in that role. Also discussed are ways an Agile coach can transform teams and organizations while reinforcing behaviors that will endure after the coach leaves.
Jakob Nielsen, usability guru and author of Usability Engineering, raises the concern that Agile methods are a threat to traditional approaches to designing usability. He goes on to propose solutions so that usability designers can work together in the Agile world. In addition Alistair Cockburn, while generally supporting Jakob, takes issue with a few of his points.
Any change whether an Agile implementation or re-arranging the office furniture is going to encounter some resistance. The real question is how we react when that happens. Dave Nicolette and Lasse Koskela's workshop - was designed too help us understand where resistance comes from and how to handle it.
What are the typical problems that Retrospectives suffer from? What do we do to avoid them?
Teams moving to an Agile approach may feel irritated as they move from command-and-control to a collaborative culture - which can start to look like non-stop meetings, starting first thing every Monday morning. In this InfoQ exclusive presentation, recorded at Agile2007, Agile coach Jean Tabaka shared her experiences working with teams, offering guidance on how to alleviate meeting burnout.
David Spann, himself an experienced facilitator, provides an insightful review of "Collaboration Explained: Facilitation Skills for Software Project Leaders" by Jean Tabaka. Jean, an experienced teacher, consultant and coach, offers techniques to enhance group effectiveness, provides some templates to assure their first efforts are well planned, and tells some great stories along the way.
Teams moving to an Agile approach may feel irritated as they move from command-and-control to a collaborative culture - which can start to look like non-stop meetings, starting first thing every Monday morning. In this InfoQ exclusive presentation, recorded at Agile2007, Agile coach Jean Tabaka shared her experiences working with teams, offering guidance on how to alleviate meeting burnout.
Joseph Pelrine was present when XP took its first steps, was Europe's first Certified Scrum Trainer, and today is still breaking new ground. In this 2007 InfoQ interview, Joseph talked about Network Analysis and how Social Complexity Science informs his work with teams; the usefulness of the Dilbert archetype; & a speed-dating technique to help teams get started (creating software, of course).
Zed Shaw and Matt Pelletier sat down with InfoQ's Obie Fernandez at RailsConf to explore some of the reasoning behind setting up the mongrel project, getting adoption in enterprise and dealing with developers who just aren't ready. Watch the interview to find out how much Shaw's Enterprise Mongrel product will cost, where the support contracts are and who'll come out on top when the vultures land.
