InfoQ Homepage Agile Content on InfoQ
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Network Computing Reader Poll: Drop the Buzzwords, Deliver the Goods
Over 700 IT managers responded to the 2007 Network Computing Readers' Survey, many of whom reported frustration with the internal strife and snake-oil salesmanship of technology vendors. Respondents recommended that vendors stop "promising capabilities that aren't there", and "address actual business problems, rather than chasing buzzwords."
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Noted Professor Decries "Macro Management"
Dr. Henry Mintzberg, an outspoken and controversial scholar in business school circles, recently decried the "heroic leadership" stereotype which undermines organizations, propagated by the press and by MBA programs that stress leadership at the expense of practical management skills. He sees a need for more "distributed leadership," whose effectiveness lies in a community itself.
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MS VSTS for Database Pros Set to Enhance DBA Agility
Scott Ambler has been writing about "Agile Database" practices since 2002, but the array of supporting tools has been rather skimpy. Now, integrated "Agile DBA" tools are starting to appear. Case in point: Microsoft's Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) for Database Professionals, set for release at the end of this month, which supports TDD practices against the database.
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Scrum in Five Minutes - Executive Summary
In his latest blog entry, Jeff Sutherland introduces an exceptionally concise overview of the Scrum development process, which may be useful for communicating with management, courtesy of Swedish consulting firm Softhouse.
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Experience Report: Beginners and Experts Using Open Space
As Agile conferences receiving an influx of novice teams and managers, some suggest that new tracks or conferences should be organized for these beginners. InfoQ brings you this experience report from a recent Open Space event, suggesting that mixing up expertise levels creates a valuable conference experience for all.
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Responding to Urgent Requests
In his article "How Two Hours Can Waste Two Weeks," Dmitri Zimine describes the costs associated with changing development priorities after the beginning of an iteration. Joel Spolsky took issue with Dmitri's comments, which in turn were defended and elaborated on by Mishkin Berteig.
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Architecture a Key Factor in Scaling Agile
Scott Ambler's recent article "Scaling Agile Development Via Architecture" summarizes strategies for Agile teams regarding software architecture, and argues that an effective approach to architecture is an important key to successfully scaling Agile software development.
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Announcing QCon: New conference in London, UK, March 12-16, by InfoQ and JAOO
A new enterprise software development conference is starting this year in London, UK, March 12-16th 2007. QCon, the InfoQ and JAOO conference, aims to become an annual event providing a venue for learning, networking, and tracking innovation in the Java, .NET, Ruby, SOA, and Agile communities with additional tracks on architecture & design, Ajax, IT in Finance, and more.
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Jeff Sutherland Recommends Combining Scrum with CMMI Level 5
A paper proposed for the EUROPEAN SEPG 2007 conference, "Scrum and CMMI Level 5: The Magic Potion for Code Warriors," has triggered discussion in Scrum circles. One of its authors is Scrum co-creator Jeff Sutherland, whose blog addressed a common question: since Scrum can already bring an organization's process up to CMMI level 3, is it worth the time & effort to achieve CMMI level 5?
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Drawing Analogies Between Publishing and Agile Development
In a recent blog posting titled "Moving from Software Production to Software Publishing," Gojko Adzic describes how he and his staff applied agile software development techniques to improve the production process at Mikro, the Serbian edition of PC World magazine. He then describes some ways in which the magazine publishing model can be applied to software development.
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Presentation: Ken Schwaber on Code Quality as a Corporate Asset
Scrum co-creator Ken Schwaber spoke at Agile2006 on code quality as a corporate asset. InfoQ presents video of his talk, The Canary in the Coalmine. Schwaber discussed how a degrading core codebase paralyses a team and negates any Agility gained through process improvement. He proposed strategies for management to identify, track and stop this downward spiral.
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Experience Report: UK Identity-Fraud Firm uses Agile to Ship in 9 months
Garlik, a UK based identify-fraud security company shared some of their recent success with Agile in an article on computer weekly. They built their main product, Datapatrol, from concept to completion in just 9 months and attributed their success to Agile practices and having a skilled dev team.
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Mind Maps Foster Thorough Test Design
In Better Software magazine, Robert Sabourin's article "X Marks the Test Case: Using Mind Maps for Software Design" shows how the practice of Mind Mapping helps with test design. The author says: "If you've run through the standard design approaches and still need that killer test case, try mind maps." And he goes on to suggest how to get started.
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Casestudy: Effects of Scrum, 9 months later
Richard Banks tried to introduce Scrum into his oraganization last year, resulting in "anarchy" due to not properly following the Scrum rules. Richard tried again and this time did it right. 9 months later, Richard looks back at how Scrum has changed his organization for the better.
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Sharing What's Worked: Patterns for Adopting Agile Practices
Organizations adopting Agile naturally ask these questions; "Where do I start?", "What specific practices should I adopt?", "How can I adopt incrementally?" and "Where can I expect pitfalls?" In this article, Amr Elssamadisy gives a glimpse into an ongoing effort to document Agile practice adoption patterns: Participants at XPday Montreal took a stab at "Simple Design" and "Pair Programming."