InfoQ Homepage Agile Content on InfoQ
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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.
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QCon San Francisco November 14-18 - tracks announced & registration open
QCon San Francisco 2011, taking place November 14-18, is now open for registration ($700 savings until June 22nd). QCon is an enterprise software development conference for team leads, architects, and project managers covering architecture & design, Java, Mobile, functional programming, Lean and Kanban, Cloud Computing, Big Data & NoSQL, emerging languages, and other timely topics.
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Learning from History - or not
Consultant and author Gerald M. Weinberg has been in the computer industry for over 50 years; he raises concerns about the seemingly inevitable hype cycle associated with new techniques and how the industry so seldom seems to learn from previous cycles. In a similar vein Elisabeth Hendrickson recently blogged about the impact of "fake agile". They also provide some advice on how to improve.
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The Buzz Around the Lean Software & Systems Conference 2011 (LSSC11)
The Lean Software and Systems Consortium conference 2011 was held May 3-6 in Long Beach, California. This year, there seemed to be a strong focus on visualization, leadership, and real world solutions.
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PMI Agile Certified Professional Body of Knowledge
There is no single central reference for those seeking to prepare for the new Project Management Institute - Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) test; instead the PMI provides a list of test areas, and reference books, which taken together constitute the body of knowledge for the certification.
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Do We Need an Iteration Zero?
There are usually multiple things which need to be done before the start of a project. Teams usually use 'Iteration Zero' to put all necessary systems in place in order to start delivering business value in subsequent iterations. Is this the right way?
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Building Trust with Your Team
Wanjun Zhuang asked the members of the LinkedIn Agile Coaching group about earning trust with his new Agile team. His team members consider him a manager and are not open with sharing because they consider him someone who is checking up on them. There has been a significant amount of diverse advice that is potentially very useful to any (software) team.
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Lean Startups
The lean startup movement is growing and all over the world local user groups are meeting to discuss, learn, and build successful businesses. But what is a lean startup? Is it two hackers in a garage, or is it more?
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Agile 2011 Program Announced
The program and structure for Agile 2011 has been announced. The conference runs in Salt Lake City on 8-12 August. There are over 200 sessions across 17 stages, in addition to the keynotes and special events. For the first time there is an Executive Forum running in parallel with the conference, aimed at senior executives helping organizations adopt and scale Agile methodologies.
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Testing in the Cloud
Cloud testing is a testing approach in which the power of the cloud is harnessed. This is mostly done either to decrease the amount of time taken to test or to simulate real world traffic for an application. Moreover, in order to meet the scalability demands of high traffic web applications, tests need to scale as well.
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Kanban Boards from Sys Admin to Sales
Mattias Skarin, co-author of InfoQ's popular mini-book on Kanban and Scrum, shares a set of kanban boards that can be used to visually manage anything from system administration, to development teams with multiple clients, to sales.
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PMI Agile Certification Pilot Starting
Early adopters who want to be among the first to earn the new PMI-Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) designation can apply starting May 23rd for the PMI Agile Certification pilot. Those selected for the pilot will need to take and pass a multiple choice exam on Agile fundamentals to receive the PMI-ACP certification.