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Deployment is the Goal

When we write software, we're very good at getting requirements and turning them into code. To turn that beautiful code into working software we need to deploy and test it. Often, we fail to emphasize the latter as well as the former. Do you have a backlog of "code complete" software waiting to be deployed, tested, signed-off and made live?

Julian Simpson
on Aug 13, 2009
Layered Architecture for Test Automation

In test automation, code involved in testing is not only test logic, but also a bunch of other supporting code, like URL concatenation, XML parsing, UI, etc. Test logic can be buried in this unrelated code, which has nothing to do with test logic itself, making test code hard to read and maintain. In this article, the layered architecture of test automation is presented to solve this problem.

Bei Li
on Aug 11, 2009
Tips for Effective Software Reuse

Vijay Narayananoffers 10 practival tips on succeeding with systematic reuse of software components, based on his experience with multiple projects. The collection of tips is not intended to be exhaustive but will help developers and team leaders to appreciate the variety of strategies that one has to undertake in order to succeed with systematic reuse.

Vijay Narayanan
on Jun 18, 2009
Book Review: Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship

Ryan Cooper reviews the Clean Code by Robert Martin and concludes that this book belongs on the bookshelf of every developer who cares passionately about quality and craftsmanship. Ryan suggest that this book will be beneficial to new developers and seasoned developers alike.

Ryan Cooper
on Apr 08, 2009
Book Excerpt: Agile Testing

This book is for testers on an agile team, test and quality assurance managers transitioning to agile development, and agile teams learning how to approach testing. The book introduces agile testing, how it's different from testing on a traditional team, and what makes agile testers different. The book contains dozens of stories about the various testing-related issues faced and resolved.

Janet Gregory Lisa Crispin
on Mar 24, 2009
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.

Ryan Cooper
on Jul 21, 2008
An Introduction to Lean Thinking for Software

For Agile developers only familiar with Scrum or XP, it may be unclear how Lean relates to what they do. This article introduces Lean Thinking and how it enhances software development. Ning Lu of ThoughtWorks China identified the biggest obstacle to Lean or Agile as the mind-set developed during the period of large-scale manufacturing.

Jacky Li
on Jun 23, 2008
Using Numbers to Communicate - in the Spirit of Agile

It's an old story. Techies cave in to the business guys because they don't know how to push back. The problem? Developers use numbers primarily for computation, but the business uses numbers to make decisions. In this story the "Spirit of Agile" encourages a developer to turn non-computational problems and issues into number language.

Barbara Chauvin Linda Rising
on Jun 13, 2008
Creating Product Owner Success

The role of the Scrum Product Owner is powerful, but challenging to implement. Success can bring a new and healthy relationship between customers/product management and development, even competitive advantage, but it comes at a price: organizational change is often required. In this article Roman Pichler looks at what it takes to succeed as a Product Owner.

Roman Pichler
on May 14, 2008
The Three M's - The Lean Triad

The discussion of applying lean principles to software development has largely focused on identifying and eliminating waste (in Japanese: muda). Lean Thinking equally aims to remove overburden (muri) and unnecessary variation (mura). Roman Pichler discusses the relationship of the "three M's" and proposes to eliminate overburden as the first step toward a leaner process.

Roman Pichler
on Feb 27, 2008
Book Excerpt and Review: Release It!

'Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software' by Michael Nygard, which is nominated for a 2008 Jolt Award, discusses what it takes to make production-ready software and explains how this differs from feature-complete software. InfoQ spoke with Nygard about the areas that the book covers and some questions around how the book's philosophy fits in with concepts such as Agile.

Ryan Slobojan
on Dec 20, 2007
AgileEVM: Measuring Cost Efficiency Across the Product Lifecycle

In this InfoQ article, Tamara Suleiman explains AgileEVM, an adaptation of traditional Earned Value Management (EVM) metrics, designed to fit a Scrum project management framework. Compatible with traditional EVM metrics, it allows both Agile and traditional projects to be tracked within a single program, giving important early warnings of trends across the entire product life cycle.

Tamara Sulaiman
on Oct 05, 2007

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