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  • Escaping Method Prison

    Methods are our best tool to get great software. But today they put us in method prisons with method wars, reliance on gurus and swings from method to method. How foolish is this? It needs to be stopped. The new Essence standard efficiently stops that path. And, teams get better methods, selected from a practice library and support in their daily work. Executives get forever learning org’s.

  • Technical Practices as a Hack on Consciousness: Why to Hack Yourself

    Software technical practices are usually adopted as a means of creating better products. These practices can create and maintain a healthy human system. Technical practices raise the consciousness of individuals and the team as a whole. Technical practices hack consciousness giving us a quick, deep chute into depths of connection that improve our selves, our products, and our world.

  • Why Won’t They Pair?

    Pair programming is one of the core techniques of eXtreme Programming and has been shown to be effective for knowledge sharing as well as code quality, but it is a practice that is often not used, even in the most agile of organizations. Linda Cook explores why that is and provides some advice on how to encourage teams to try the practice.

  • Revisiting XP: be a thoughtful programmer by exercising more collective ownership

    Frequently developers cause and face regular frustration often due to a lack of consideration for those who come after them. This article explores the approach of programming more thoughtfully by revisiting one of the most simple (yet often misunderstood) XP rules: collective ownership

  • Naresh Jain: Dealing with Change in an Evolving Contextual World

    Naresh Jain won the Gordan Pask award in 2007. He writes about the need to adapt our processes and build on top of agile practices, one size doesn't fit all and processes must evolve as we tackle more and more complex problems. He examines some of the key elements from the Lean Startup movement and shows how they are the logical next step for many agile implementations.

  • Making TDD Stick: Problems and Solutions for Adopters

    Mark Levison observed that, after solid classroom training, teams in larger companies still struggle to adopt TDD. To better understand the problem he surveyed team members. In this article he shares the problems he uncovered and his own comprehensive strategy, designed to help anyone introducing TDD into an organization.

  • Book Review: Agile Adoption Patterns, A Roadmap to Organizational Success

    Ryan Cooper reviewed Amr Elssamadisy's new book and found it a useful framework for designing customized adoption strategies. Rather than a single recipe of Agile practices for everyone, the reader is offered patterns and tools to help determine which practices will most effectively help them reach their own organization's specific goals.

  • Kent Beck on Agile Adoption & Values

    In an interview with InfoQ editor Kurt Christensen, Kent Beck shares his thoughts on a range of topics, from the challenges associated with adopting and applying agile values and practices within a large organization, to the future of agile as it gains mainstream acceptance.

  • Case Study: Targeted Practice Adoption using Patterns

    It's easy to forget what originally motivated us, once we're implementing Agile. Teams spin, trying to figure out which practices to start with, unsure which will have the biggest impact, or how they fit together. Amr Elssamadisy and John Mufarrige propose a customized adoption approach to help teams decide where to focus first - an alternative to adoption of pre-packaged methodologies.

  • Adopting Agile Development Practices: Using Patterns to Share our Experiences

    Agile adoption often proves challenging. Participants at a recent OpenSpace event focused on the dynamics of adoption rather than the structure that results from adoption. The resulting patterns are part of an effort to compile Agile adoption patterns answering: "What specific practices should I adopt?", "How can I adopt incrementally?" and "Where can I expect pitfalls?"

  • Experience Report: Agile Development Apprenticeship at NMHU

    During the 2004-2005 academic year, Pam Rostal and Dave West ran a unique work-study degree program at New Mexico Highlands University: 20 students using Agile practices to execute real world projects. This story shows what can happen when education goes beyond the ordinary: when people are encouraged to strive for mastery and taught the thinking tools to do so.

  • Interview: Jim Johnson of the Standish Group

    Jim Johnson, founder and chairman of the Standish Group, took time out from his vacation to talk with InfoQ editor Deborah Hartmann about his research, and the role of Agile in changing the IT industry. Johnson is best known for creating the CHAOS Chronicles: 12 years of independent research on project performance, including data on over 50,000 completed IT projects.

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