Jeff Patton outlines the concepts behind design thinking: clear problem definition, ideation, iteration, and execution plans that emphasize continuous learning, accompanied by real-life examples.
Team Foundation Server 11 has added many features in the area of Application Lifecycle Management. Some of the highlights include support for code reviews, iterations/sprints, resource allocation, third part testing frameworks, and a much more capable dependency graph.
There is a constant tussle between following Agile techniques and still managing to do enterprise architecture. While Agile development focuses on adjusting the design as more insight is gained, architecture establishes the technology stack and addresses quality attributes. Combination of the two is successful when agile techniques are leveraged to drive towards the desired architecture.
One of the frequent questions in Agile adoption is related to the ideal iteration length. Teams usually gravitate between iteration lengths ranging from a week to two months. Choosing the right iteration length is an important decision and the success of Agile adoption depends a lot on the right iteration size.
Eric Jan Malotaux presents a way of implementing SOA in small iterative steps, each step delivering value to stakeholders, higher than the costs involved, using feedback from previous steps to adjust the requirements and design accordingly.
Experiences and lessons learned facing DevOps problems in the IT trenches (even if they weren’t calling it DevOps!). The good, the bad, the surprises, and ideas for the future.
Eric Evans advocates on gradual blending of modeling and design into iterative development based on a correct and deep understanding of the domain, avoiding both “analysis paralysis” and the “easiest solution” for a user story, in an attempt to create a solution that expresses the domain and is flexible enough to support future variations of the model.
Beside presenting the overall Facebook architecture and scaling solutions used, Aditya Agarwal talks about the iterative process of constantly improving the site, making sure to avoid over-engineering and adapting along the way by dropping solutions that worked in the past but are no longer useful. The last part of the session was dedicated to answering questions from the audience.
Robert Johnson discusses Facebook’s approach to scalability issues resulting from a large growth of the user base. He talks about: why one needs to prepare for horizontal and not vertical scalability, very short release cycles which are better because they introduce fewer bugs, the need to streamline to deploying process for short release cycles, and making the entire process faster every day.
Agile development is not about doing a set of practices, it's about a way of "being," it's about learning. How is this learning accomplished? By taking brief pauses after small experiments, even large problems can be solved. In a recent Harvard Business Review interview of Toyota's president, he observed, "...when 70 years of very small improvements accumulate, they become a revolution."
