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  • Microsoft Counting On Scrum and XP

    When Microsoft launched SQL Server 2005 last fall, ending a five-year wait for major revisions, Steve Ballmer acknowledged "It's been a bit long in the making, we're committed to a much closer cycle time."eWeek reports that they will do this using agile development methodologies, such as XP and Scrum. Yet they won't mandate methodology, stressing product quality instead to encourage improvement

  • Reviews Mixed on Google's New Project Hosting Service

    Last week Google announced a new hosting service for open-source projects. Developer comments around the web have been mixed. Some developers have been impressed with the service while others feel underwhelmed.

  • InfoQ Article: Agile - The SOA Hangover Cure

    Carl Ververs, an expert on SOA Integration writes about the application of "Agile" development philosophies and methodologies in order to build a sustainable and valuable SOA system.

  • Agile Alliance Announces Leadership Changes for 2007

    On Friday, following the close of the Agile2006 conference, the Agile Alliance announced their new leaders for the 2006-2007 program year. At the annual conference, Agile Alliance members voted seven new members to its board from the slate of candidates mailed out earlier this year, increasing board membership by two members to its maximum of 12.

  • Changing of the Guard at the APLN

    The Agile Project Leadership Network (APLN) held their first Leadership Summit in parallel to this week's Agile2006 conference. The day ended with Jim Highsmith receiving the "Superhero of Agile Process" award, as a thank-you for two years of leadership in creating and developing the APLN. Agile2006 chairperson Todd Little steps up to the challenge. Update: view the list of 2007 board members.

  • Jim Highsmith Proposes An Adaptive Performance Management System

    Jim Highsmith, Director of Cutter Consortium's Agile Project Management Practice told the APLN Leadership Summit audience yesterday: "...to achieve truly agile, innovative organizations, a change in our approach to performance management systems is necessary... 'Conforming to plan' while delivering scant business value will seriously impede agility, whether in projects or the entire enterprise.

  • Recognition Awards Presented at Agile2006

    The 2006 Gordon Pask Awards for recent contributions to Agile Practice were presented this evening at the Agile2006 conference closing banquet in Minneapolis, recognizing three outstanding contributors to the Agile Community. In addition, a special award was given to Todd Little, outgoing Conference Chair, for his many contributions to the Agile Alliance and the APLN.

  • New Release of V1: Agile Enterprise Development Suite

    This new release from VersionOne allows all project stakeholders -- project managers, executives, developers, product managers, customers, and testers -- to collaborate and coordinate plans and progress much more effectively. With extended support for the Agile life cycle, this tool offers better visibility into the entire software development process.

  • Digital Focus Unveils Market Survey Results at Agile2006

    The survey finds Agile Software Development gaining momentum: interest in Agile methods is growing across the IT landscape with 81 percent of those surveyed either actively using Agile development within their organization or looking for opportunities to do so. Launched at the Agile 2005 Conference to assess the state of agile adoption, this year 136 execs in 128 organizations responded.

  • STIQ Simplifies Story Tests for Web Apps

    SolutionsIQ launched their latest product this week at Agile2006. A mashup of the popular open-source acceptance test tools FitNesse and Selenium, STIQ is used for writing acceptance tests while developing web applications. It features a simple command language, wiki-based editing and pluggable features.

  • Ken Schwaber: Sacrificing Quality should be an Executive Management Decision

    At Agile2006, Co-founder of the Scrum methodology Ken Schwaber argued that as professionals we should not accept business requests to sacrifice quality in order to meet timelines, and if quality does need to be sacrificed such a decision should be made by executive management and reflected in the financial statements of the company.

  • Agile2006 Day One Podcasts

    The Agile2006 Conference got a kick-start from industry veteran Peter Coffee, who challenged a standing-room crowd to reject the idea that broken software is normal, and to "shun mediocre attainments" . Bob Payne has been recording interviews and sessions at the conference, including the entire keynote.

  • InfoQ Article: Exclusive Excerpt from Practices of an Agile Developer

    Andy Hunt, one of the originators of the Agile Manifesto, and Venkat Subramaniam have written a compilation of the habits, ideas, and approaches of successful Agile software developers in "Practices of an Agile Developer". InfoQ brings you a free excerpt on Agile Debugging.

  • Agile Delivery at British Telecom

    Methods and Tools has a 3-part article by Ian Evans of British Telecom outlining the challenges of software development at BT and the approach they took to switch to an Agile approach. Going from a well-established waterfall-based delivery approach to Agile takes patience and time, as well as a lot of commitment. But despite the challenges, few at BT would go back to their old ways.

  • Online Discussion on Scrum Requirements Basics

    The ScrumDevelopment list has seen lively discussion lately on Requirements issues frequently faced by new teams: "Can the ScrumMaster be the Product Owner too?", "How do we prioritize our Product Backlog?" and "QA's role in a SCRUM process". New teams quickly discover that a poor-quality Product Backlog can frustrate and undermine a team that is otherwise raring to start delivering value.

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