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  • Scrum In Schools

    Scrum is gaining traction outside of information technology. The Scrum in Schools project is a grassroots effort to bring a free, age-appropriate Scrum curriculum to educators throughout the world.

  • Testing Techniques for Applications With Zero Tests

    Agile techniques recommend having adequate unit and acceptance tests to build a robust test harness around the application. However, in the real world, not all applications are fortunate enough to have a test harness. In an interesting discussion on the Agile Testing group, members suggested ways to test applications which do not have any automated tests.

  • Learning from the creative industries - consistency to build trust

    This is the first in a series of discussions looking at factors that enable teams to be successful. This post reports on a recent Wired magazine article that looks at the creative process in use at Pixar Animation Studios and how their process encourages team formation, long-term relationships and trust in a “safe to fail” environment.

  • The "Oath of Non-Allegiance"

    The Agile community of full of smart people, smart ideas, opinions, positions-- and differences. Substantial differences can lead to learning, but more often than not, differences can lead directly into heated conflict. Now an original signatory of the Agile Manifesto is offering an all-new declaration-- the 'Oath of Non-Allegiance'.

  • Do Story Points Relate to Complexity or Time?

    Many Agile teams use the terms Story points and Complexity points interchangeably. Agile teams believe that they are better than hours just because they are based on complexity and relative size. Mike Cohn suggested that it is wrong to use story points to depict the complexity of developing a feature, they are all about the effort.

  • Open Space Technology Goes Mainstream

    Just a few short years ago, "open space" and similiar formats like the "un-conference" and "bar camp" were considered edgy-- and mostly unknown to the average person attending technology conferences. All that has changed. Open space events are now commonplace, and the most progressive companies-- and some companies in a crisis-- are using Open Space for direction-setting and decision-making.

  • Remote Customer, Remote Developers and a Project in Crisis

    Though collocation is one of the prime recommendations of Agile, more and more projects are executed in a manner in which the teams are distributed. Safari Asad started an interesting discussion on the Scrum Development group to discuss about a project in crisis, which not only had a remote customer but also had remote developers.

  • Computing Careers: the future is bright

    Contrary to myth, the number of computing career opportunities in the US is increasing - far exceeding the supply. An indirect result of the imbalance is rising salaries in the IT field. This news article summarizes a report done by Joel Adams, a professor at Calvin College in Michigan.

  • What does it mean to be Agile - survey results

    The Agile Manifesto was written almost ten years ago in February of 2001. Since then the environment has continued to change and thousands of people across the world have tried to apply the twelve agile principles to their daily work life. Laurie Williams has been conducting research to understand how well the Agile Principles have stood the test of time and use? She discusses some early results.

  • Agile Users Groups in the USA: Communities of Practice

    One area of the Agile ecosystem that is gaining traction these days is Agile user groups. This year, established groups are growing, and new groups are forming. Established groups are taking shots at larger conference-style events. The Scrum Alliance has a new user-group community liaison. It appears that user groups are starting to play in influential role in the worldwide Agile community.

  • Do ScrumMasters need to be Technical?

    Does a ScrumMaster need a technical background? Do they need to be able to read code and coach developers on their day to day work?

  • Eclipse Helios Simultaneous Release

    The Eclipse foundation today announced the release of Eclipse Helios, bringing 39 different projects to the same station for the seventh annual release train. The Eclipse projects are managed in an agile fashion, releasing seven milestone builds throughout the year and then a number of release candidates in the weeks leading up to June each year.

  • The Rugged Software Manifesto

    Security, is often either an oversight or an afterthought for most software projects. Most development teams would rather focus on getting more functionality on the table than spend time to evade a possible security breach. In order to help developers realize the importance of rugged software Joshua Corman, David Rice and Jeff Williams founded the Rugged Software Manifesto.

  • Agile Development Conference Delivers the Goods

    The Agile Development Practices conference was held this past June 6-11 in Las Vegas. Hosted inside the Caesar's Palace Conference Center, this event showcased excellent sessions, speakers and content. Several good sessions on testing, a keynote by Johanna Rothman on people and culture, and some fine presentations on Scrum and Kanban made for an excellent conference.

  • Naresh Jain Discusses "Simple Design & Testing" And The Conference Dedicated To It

    "Simplicity" is a core agile tenet, particularly when it comes to software design and testing. Since 2006, Naresh Jain has been running a worldwide conference, the Simple Design & Testing Conference, for practitioners to collectively push the boundaries on the topic. Naresh tells InfoQ what's going on behind this small, but well-known conference and why he is so passionate about the topic.

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