InfoQ Homepage Agile Content on InfoQ
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The Legacy of Eli Goldratt
On June 11th 2011, Dr. Eli Goldratt, inventor of the Theory of Constraints (TOC), passed away. Eli’s first, and most famous book was the "The Goal", it defined the TOC. His legacy will continue to indirectly influence the agile by the embodiment of his ideas in techniques we apply every day.
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Is Technical Debt Still a Useful Metaphor?
A discussion has been taking place on the LinkedIn Agile Alliance group questioning if "technical debt" is still a valid metaphor in today's global software development world. This discussion has surfaced a strong support for the effectiveness of the metaphor even after 20 years.
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The Manifesto Overload
By definition a Manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions which describes the motives, reasoning and demands of a group. One of the more popular manifestos is the Agile Manifesto but there has been quite and epidemic since then.
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Nurturing Self-organizing Teams
Rashina Hoda achieved her doctorate researching self-organizing Agile teams. She recently spoke to InfoQ about the work she's been doing and the results of her research. She discusses some of the factors that enable self-organization, looks at some of the risks and pitfalls that self-organizing teams face and provides some advice on how to create a culture that nurtures self-organization.
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Scrum Alliance Strengthens CSP Certification, Announces Beta
The Scrum Alliance announced plans to strengthen the Certified Scrum Professional (CSP) designation into "a certification program that meets worldwide standards for structure and testing required for accreditation." The CSP designation, goes beyond the CSM as it requires experience applying agile in the workplace. Details for a beta program will be in the next Scrum Alliance Newsletter.
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Value-based Architectural Decisions in Agile Development
Jeromy Carriere, chief architect at eBay, received the Architecture in Practice award at the recent SATURN 2011 conference. He described how economical accountability and ownership for architectural transformations set the ground for autonomous yet consistent design decision-making by the agile teams.
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All Right It Failed, What Next?
Usually failures result in anger, frustration and playing the blame game. However, failures are wasted if there is no learning from them. How can Agile teams make failures beautiful?
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Happiness and Self Organizing Teams
Does happiness affect our results - both positive and negative - with self organizing teams? Mark Levison shares research in psychology that shows that choice and control are interchangeable: "if people lack power, they clamor for choice, and if they have an abundance of choice they don’t strive as much for power." Does this explain successes and pains of self organization?
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Janova and EdgeCase build Testing Tool in seven Months
The experts of the software company EdgeCase have recently assisted the Enterprise Architecture Company Janova from Ohio in building a Web-based, automated testing tool. The tool is provided as a Cloud-based application that enables users to define the test scripts used for Batch Processing in plain English. For its implementation the developers leveraged the programming language Ruby.
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PowerMockup, A New Tool for Low Fidelity Mockups
Agile teams seeking to deliver a high quality user experience often create mockups of varying fidelity to hone in on an appropriate design prior to coding (e.g. prior to sprint/iteration planning). PowerMockup is a new product for those seeking to create low fidelity mockups using a tool they are already familiar with, PowerPoint.
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Nailing Down Non-Functional Requirements
Non-Functional requirements are often associated with the state of the system and not with the functionality that the system has to offer. General 'ilities' of the system such as scalability, interoperability, maintainability, portability, performance and security fall under this umbrella. Agile teams usually struggle with defining and estimating the non-functional requirements in their projects.
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Commercial Interests Censoring Failures
Philippe Kruchten described the Agile movement as "The agile movement is in some ways a bit like a teenager: very self-conscious, checking constantly its appearance in a mirror, accepting few criticisms..." and shared a list of twenty elephants in the room - uncomfortable issues that are ignored on purpose. The first of these unmentionables is that commercial interests are censoring failures.
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Can Earned Value Leverage Agile Methods?
The debate over the value of Earned Value Management (EVM) and integrating it into agile rages heavy as agile penetrates into more large scale IT projects that require EVM. Opinions vary but some believe that not only can agile projects apply EVM; EVM with agile is better than EVM without agile.
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Agile and Architecture Conflict
There is a constant tussle between following Agile techniques and still managing to do enterprise architecture. While Agile development focuses on adjusting the design as more insight is gained, architecture establishes the technology stack and addresses quality attributes. Combination of the two is successful when agile techniques are leveraged to drive towards the desired architecture.
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Questioning Team Accountability
Glen Alleman describes the business management process they use and describes his discomfort with the idea of team accountability instead of having one person be accountable. He questions the effectiveness of having a team accountable and what that means when there is no single point that is responsible for success or failure.