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Do Agile Practices Make it an Agile Project?

Use of Agile methodologies is growing, but this comes with its own challenges: including the possibility of dilution as teams copy practices rather than growing them, implementing them without understanding. Perhaps it's time to talk about how failure to teach the basics puts much at risk: the integrity and engagement of team members, and the trust of their customers.

Deborah Hartmann Preuss
on Oct 17, 2006
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.

Pam Rostal Dave West
on Oct 16, 2006
Standish: Why were Project Failures Up and Cost Overruns Down in 1998?

Following InfoQ's August interview with Jim Johnson, creator of the CHAOS Chronicles on project failure, one important question remained: how does the Standish Group explain the amazing change in cost overrun from 189% in 1994 to 69% in 1998? In an excerpt from this month's CHAOS University newsletter, Johnson refers to events in 1996 that changed the complexion of project planning and execution.

Jim Johnson
on Oct 03, 2006
Testing Ajax Applications with Selenium

The Selenium develompent team briefly introduces Selenium, a web acceptance testing tool, and shows how to test Ajax applications with waitForXxxx Selenium commands, as well as how to test a simple Ajax effect - an asynchronous text update - with Selenium.

Jeff Xiong Mike Williams Josh Price
on Sep 25, 2006
Book Excerpt: Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash

In 2003 Mary and Tom Poppendieck adapted the revolutionary principles of Lean manufacturing for software development. Their new book offers a blend of history, theory, and practice, drawing on their experience optimizing the software "value stream". They present the right questions to ask, the key issues to focus on, and techniques proven to work for those implementing a lean software process.

Mary Poppendieck Tom Poppendieck
on Sep 18, 2006
Agile Alliance Survey: Are We There Yet?

Diana Larsen, a member of the Agile Alliance Board of Directors, leads a lot of retrospectives... So, it's not surprising that, when she asked herself "Where is Agile going now?" her response was to run a retrospective of her own. She circulated a survey to the other Agile Alliance board members, and has compiled a picture of the trends they're seeing in the Agile world.

Diana Larsen
on Sep 13, 2006
Agile Business Rules

James Taylor looks at the challenge that arises when the new requirements are not really requirements at all, but new or changed business rules. Aren't business rules the same as requirements? Taylor says: no, not really; and looks at how to make an agile development processes work just as well for business rules as they do for other kinds of requirements.

James Taylor
on Sep 04, 2006
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.

Deborah Hartmann Preuss
on Aug 25, 2006
Book Excerpt: Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great

Project retrospectives help teams examine what went right and what went wrong on a project. Traditionally held at the end of a project, they're actually too late to help - no wonder we call them "post-mortems". Agile teams need retrospectives that are iterative and incremental, to find problems and design solutions to help teams improve early on, when improvement yields the most benefit.

Esther Derby Diana Larsen
on Aug 21, 2006
Executive summary - An Adaptive Performance Management System

Traditional thinking has turned budgets into fixed performance contracts forcing managers at all levels to commit to specified financial outcomes, although many of the underlying variables are beyond their control. In this Cutter Executive Summary, Jim Highsmith offers an alternative for the adaptive organization: a project performance management system and a team performance management system.

Jim Highsmith
on Aug 09, 2006
Using Logging Seams for Legacy Code Unit Testing

Using logging seams you can easily create unobtrusive unit tests around legacy classes, without needing to edit class logic as well as avoiding behavior changes.

Ian Roughley
on Aug 01, 2006
Agile: The SOA Hangover Cure

Author Carl Ververs who is an expert on SOA Integration and Distributed Systems writes about the application of "Agile" development philosophies that ensures that organizations can overcome architectural paralysis and get moving on those important SOA projects, while at the same time ensuring that the architecture is sufficiently flexible and adaptable for future growth.

Carl Ververs
on Jul 31, 2006

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