InfoQ Homepage Agile Content on InfoQ
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Presentation: The Ethics of Error Prevention
No one wants programming errors. We have many tools to detect and correct errors in code. We also have a number of techniques we can use to prevent the introduction of errors. In this presentation, Michael Feathers t looksat error prevention while posing a number of interesting questions.
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How Do You Get a Hyper-Productive Team?
Some of us have been lucky enough to be on hyper-productive teams, others think this is a myth. Joanna Zweig and Cesar Idrovo have been discussing Group Coherence - a search for hyper productivity with some insightful information for everyone trying to produce a hyper-productive team. Their research gives a possible model of how and why some Agile teams excel and others do not.
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Throw Away Your Bug Tracking System?
Elisabeth Hendrickson, A.K.A "testObsessed", presents a thought-provoking stance on triaging bugs in an agile project. She discusses her feelings that problems found during the iteration are not "bugs", that only the Product Owner has the right to call something "bug", and that a healthy agile team might likely have no need for a bug tracking system.
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Annotated Burn-Down Charts Help During Retrospectives
A sprint burn-down chart tracks the size of the sprint backlog over the course of the sprint. During the sprint retrospective, the burn-down chart can provide valuable data about how the sprint went. Mike Sutton uses annotations to capture more data on the burn-down chart, making it even more useful during the retrospective.
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Interview with Pollyanna Pixton at Agile 2008
Pollyanna Pixton tells us that within a culture of trust leaders must stand back and if they don't then they are hampering and restricting the productivity and the creativity and the innovation of teams. She discusses how leaders can foster a culture of trust and what they must do to get the most out of Agile teams.
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Workspaces for Effective Agility
Author and Agile consultant, Mike Cohn recently wrote a blog entry summarizing a chapter in his new book Succeeding With Agile talking about the ideal Agile workspace. He points to things that need to be visible in the space an Agile team works in to help them be more effective.
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Software Craftsmanship Manifesto: A Call to Arms
A movement to promote Software Craftsmanship has been brewing for a few years. Since Agile 2008 last year they found a focal point with Uncle Bob Martin's claim that the Agile Manifesto needed amending with a new value: "Software Craftsmanship over Crap". Recently a group has created the Software Craftmanship Manifesto.
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3 Pillars Of Executive Support For Agile Adoption
An executives job is not over once they've justified agile to their teams and paid for training. To make a transition successful, its required this executive provide sustained support. Esther Derby takes a moment to describe what she believes to be the 3 most important aspects of this ongoing support.
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Mapping Traditional Software Development Roles to Scrum
Mapping traditional software development roles to just the three roles in Scrum can be challenging. Mike Cottmeyer attempts to provide an effective mapping which would help the teams.
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Beyond Continuous Integration: Continuous Deployment
The sooner that a feature gets into production, the sooner it starts adding value. The quicker a system can change in response to user feedback, the easier it is to keep the users happy. Timothy Fitz and Joe Ludwig have recently published articles that describe practical implementations of continuous deployment, a process that reduces the release cycle from weeks to minutes.
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Presentation: Refactoring Databases
For years the norm for developers was to work in an iterative and incremental manner but for database developers to work in a more serial manner. The predominance of evolutionary development methods make it clear that the two groups need to work in the same manner to be productive as a team. Pramod presents material from "Refactoring Databases " on implementing evolutionary database development.
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Article: Successfully Adopting Pair Programming
Jay Fields presents several concrete strategies to go from "I think pair programming is a good idea" to "our team is successfully practicing pair programming and loving it!" He covers everything from pairing stations (the physical layout of your office space), to coaching tips, to common mistakes that those new to pair programming make.
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Achieving Agility Needed for Business Survival
An increasing number of organizations are embracing Agile development as a survival tactic in these turbulent economic times. This in turn has lead to a number of pundits examining what attitudes and attributes their teams need to be successful. Business agility is important, but how is this agility achieved?
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RFactor: Ruby Refactoring Support for Text Editors
RFactor is a Ruby refactoring tool that aims to bring automated refactoring support to text editors. We talked to its developer Fabio Kung to learn how it works and what's planned for the future.
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Being A Better Product Owner
Anyone who has spent any time on an effectively executed agile project can attest to the fact that the Product Owner's (or, in XP, the "Customer's") collaboration with the development team plays a key role in the success of a team. Peter Stevens offers a bit of advice to help people in these roles do this well.