InfoQ Homepage Agile Content on InfoQ
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Agile Architecture - Oxymoron or Sensible Partnership?
A number of commentators have been talking about the perceived dichotomy between Agile techniques and architectural thinking. This post investigates some of the tensions between Big Up Front Design (BDUF) and You Aint Gonna Need It (YAGNI) thinking and looks at how the two approaches can in fact work together in complimentary ways.
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Chris Matts on the Timing of Commitments, Interview Part 2
InfoQ continues its interview with Chris Matts, this week focusing on real options and how this strategy for making decisions.
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Agile Testing Challenge
Gerald Ford International Airport has a parking lot fee calculator and Matt Heusser noticed that it was buggy. So he issued a challenge to testers around the world: Find the bugs in ParcCalc. The respondents included James Bach, Selena Delesie and many others.
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A Roundup On The Lean Software and Systems Conference Buzz
The Lean Software & Systems Conference went down a few weeks ago in Atlanta, and InfoQ has followed much of the buzz since. Check out what we've collected from the vast pool of great blogs, articles, notes, videos, pictures, presentations and more that have surfaced since the event.
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Motivation 3.0: McGregor’s Theory Y Can Work
McGregor’s theory X suggests that employees are inherently lazy and will avoid work if they can and that they inherently dislike work. Thus, they need to be closely supervised. Theory Y suggests that employees may be ambitious and self-motivated and exercise self-control.Most Agile teams would like to be associated with theory Y. Mike Griffiths suggested how this might be easy to achieve.
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What IS Agile? A Useless Theoretical Question or Necessary Clarity for Success?
A quick search on your favorite browser looking for recent articles on 'agile software development' or its derivatives will return a surprisingly diverse set of ideas on what Agile is. Is this good? Is this bad? Or is this writer just filling white-space to get an article out on Monday, May 10th?
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Chris Matts on the Agile Community as a Learning Machine
Chris Matts, known for his work on real options and feature injection, discusses the current state of the Agile Community. He suggests that the community is a learning machine and is currently failing.
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Backlog Grooming: Who, When and How
Backlog grooming as the name suggests is giving regular care and attention to a product backlog so that it does not get ugly and unwieldy like an unattended garden with weeds. Though, it is not a formal process of Scrum, however, Ken Schwaber recommended reserving five percent of every sprint for this activity. A recent discussion on the Scrum Development group discussed and debated the process.
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Soft Skills Are Paramount: A Report From Agile Boston Openspace
Last week the Agile Boston user group held a full day OpenSpace conference. One session was focused on how to affect other groups in an organization that you and/or your team is dependent on. The members of this session shared their different contexts and problems and came up with several strategies in improving their situations, none of which were were Agile practices.
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What Color is your Backlog?
At the recent SDC conference in Wellington Prof Philippe Kruchten delivered a talk titled “What Color is Your Backlog”. The thrust of his talk is about bringing a focus on architecturally significant aspects of software into Agile projects, along with delivering the functional components of the system. He uses a color metaphor to illustrate the importance of addressing four types of work.
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Organizations Going Agile: Tread with Caution
Most organizations hire Agile coaches to carry out an organization wide Agile transformation. The intention is to have a lean and fit organization by the time coaches walk out of the building. However, it is very difficult to achieve transformation that improves the end-to-end delivery process and is sustainable if the transformation just begins at the team level.
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The Lean Software & Systems Conference 2010 Underway In Atlanta
The Lean Software & Systems Conference kicked off Wednesday in Atlanta with a great diversity of exciting activities and talks by Don Reinertsen, Alan Chedalawada, Alan Shalloway, Mary Poppendieck, Joshua Kerievsky, the duo of James Shore and Arlo Belsheee, and many more
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Upgrading InfoQ.com's Database: Mostly Smooth, A Couple of Bumps
Recently, InfoQ.com upgraded the backend database that we've used since launch. However, everything did not go according to plan, and even though the vast majority of the migration was smooth we encountered some unexpected issues along the way (which have now been resolved). This post will discuss what our plan was, what worked and what didn't, and how we detected and recovered from the errors.
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How to Audit an Agile Team
Stakeholders of an Agile project often seek the help of a seasoned Agile coach to gauge the effectiveness of the Agile process and practices that their team is following. The intention is to plug the holes and make the team more effective. Recently, on the Scrum Development group, Scott Killen started a thread on how to do an audit on an Agile team.
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Touch and Intimacy in Agile Teams
If the consolidation and integration of elementary Agile practice is ending, that means something new is starting. Does a new phase of innovation lie just ahead? Where is the edge of the new Agile frontier? InfoQ looked at the research of Michael de la Maza, an agile coach and trainer who is researching controversial topics such as intimacy in teams and organizations, to learn more.