InfoQ Homepage Agile Content on InfoQ
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Without a Defined Process, How Will We Know Who To Blame?
"A fundamental premise of the 'train-wreck' approach to management is that the primary cause of problems is 'dereliction of duty'" said Peter Scholtes in his 2003 book on leadership. Mary Poppendieck's recent article on process, people and systems asked: "Which is more important - process or people?" and showed how Lean is an alternative to certified process improvement programs like ISO 9000.
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Selenium Grid: Web Testing in Parallel
Pervasive user-interface/acceptance testing can be a drag on test and therefore build speed. Selenium Grid offers the ability to run Selenium tests in parallel on one machine or on a farm of machines in a reliable, easy-to-use way. InfoQ speaks with the Selenium Grid team.
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The Right Phrase at the Right Time: Priceless
Saying the right thing at the right time can transform an interaction. But it's difficult! In a recent StickyMinds article, Michele Sliger suggested a handful of phrases to help keep the conversation going in the right direction.
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xUnit.net - Next Generation of Unit Testing Frameworks?
Jim Newkirk, creator of NUnit, has announced a new Unit Testing Framework called xUnit.net. The proclaimed successor to NUnit is supposed to get rid of NUnit's mistakes and shortcomings and add some best practices and extensibility to the framework.
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Kent Beck, Martin Fowler, Speaking at QCon SF Nov 7-9
Kent Beck & Martin Fowler will be keynoting & delivering tutorials at the QCon San Francisco Nov 7-9th conference. Also, the schedule has been finalized with a new complete track covering security from a development perspective, and also a panel on the future of Java development including Joshua Bloch, JRuby's Charles Nutter, Spring's Rod Johnson, and .NET's Erik Meijer.
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InfoQ Interview: Per Kroll on EPF, an Open Source Process Initiative
The PM of the Eclipse Process Framework project explained in this presentation how IBM's Eclipse-based process tools allow teams to select the practices they want, to create a customised methodology that works for them. With a wiki and hooks to insert custom in-house documentation and practices, it provides a framework to configure the approach you want, or to grow into the approach you need.
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Jean Tabaka's Agile Odyssey
In this amusing presentation from Agile2006, Jean Tabaka compares impediments and obstacles encountered by an Agile mentor with those detailed in Homer's classic. In this 73 minutes presentation, discover who plays which classical roles in Agile adoption: Cyclops, the Sirens, Poseidon, Circe, Cicones, the Lotus-Eaters, and even the good-and-faithful dog Argus.
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Test Driven Code Reuse
Code reuse has been the holy grail of software development for a long time. Historically we've tried to achieve code reuse through abstractions and frameworks, which came with their own technical debt. There is now a novel approach that leverages the power of search tools and automated developer tests to search open-source code for matches against interface and behavior.
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Agile Bibliography Wiki
George Dinwiddie announces the Agile Bibliography Wiki to track readings on the subject of agile, particularly those that are useful to back up a point, or which are useful references, and invites the community to help fill out the reading list.
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As Agile Memes Spread, Does Software Development Improve?
Philippe Kruchten reflected upon the culture of Agility. He used the concept of a meme, a replicating chunk of culture, to describe different Agile ideas/practices and suggested that the culture of Agility is a collection of memes – a memeplex. Kruchten claimed the Agility culture is very adept at spreading regardless of whether it helps an organization or not.
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InfoQ Book Review: The Responsibility Virus
Agile teams can use a regular learning cycle to shift gradually and organically into a more collaborative mode. But the rest of the business may not be equally well equipped. Deborah Hartmann proposes that the Responsibility Virus is an important book for the change agent's library, suggesting that it may provide a tool to help other parts of the organization also grow into greater collaboration.
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Opinion: Do Agile Development Practices Always Help?
Are our efforts in Agile development really helping the organizations we work for? What does it mean to ‘help’ our organization anyway? That depends on our organization's goals – if what we are doing moves our organization towards its goals, then the answer is “yes”, otherwise the answer is “absolutely not”, we may even be inadvertently hurting the organization.
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Are Automated Agile Tools Tactile Enough?
Can the bonding that takes place when a developer picks a story card off the task board and takes it over to her desk ever be replicated in a system? InfoQ delves into social informatics, and addresses the effects it has on the Agile way.
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Why do Agile Adoptions Fail?
Although agilists focus much of their energy on helping their agile projects succeed, it is helpful to periodically stop and consider what causes some agile projects and agile adoptions to fail. Armed with this knowledge, perhaps one can avoid these same pitfalls.
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Making Agile Methods and Enterprise Architecture Play Nice
A report from the Cutter Consortium asks Are Agile Methods and Enterprise Architecture Compatible? and answers "Yes, with Effort." The authors recommended specific techniques to allow Agile Methods and Enterprise Architecture to be mutually beneficial. Moreover, their observations, analysis, and recommendations are directly applicable to the meshing of AM and SOA.