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Choose Feature Teams over Component Teams for Agility

Feature teams, common enough in small groups, are all too rare in large product development - but they can be a key to scaling with agility. This article analyses how feature teams resolve weaknesses of component teams, and points out key issues to address when transitioning. It is an excerpt from "Scaling Lean and Agile Development," by Craig Larman and Bas Vodde, to be published later this year.

Craig Larman Bas Vodde
on Jul 15, 2008
Culture & Methods

Distributed Version Control Systems: A Not-So-Quick Guide Through

Since Linus Torvalds presentation at Google about git in May 2007, the adoption and interest for Distributed Version Control Systems has been constantly rising. We will introduce the concept of Distributed Version Control, see when to use it, why it can be better, and have a look at three actors in the area: git, Mercurial and Bazaar.

Sebastien Auvray
on May 07, 2008
Software Development Lessons Learned from Poker

There is no silver bullet. We know it, but don't act like it. Your language, tool or process is better, right? Jay Fields says: "It depends". The right choices varies with context, people, and more. This article touches upon how a lot of things must impact a choice; learning culture, skill levels, teamwork, incomplete information, metrics - and context.

Jay Fields
on Apr 26, 2008
Development

Key Takeaway Points and Lessons Learned from QCon London 2008

This article presents the main takeway points as seen by the many attendees who blogged about QCon. Comments are organized by tracks and sessions: Keynotes, Architectures you've always wondered about, The Cloud as the New Middleware Platform, SOA, REST and the Web, Evolving Java, Banking, Agile in Practice, Programming Languages of Tomorrow, Effective Design, .NET, The Rise of Ruby.

Ryan Slobojan
on Apr 09, 2008
Help Your Teams Trade Cubicles for Communication Skills

The Agile “self organising team” paradigm demands new skills of team members – including the people skills for which they may once have depended upon their Project Managers. Far from being redundant, management can now play an important role in helping teams learn new ways to communicate and collaborate. This article proposes some strategies for imparting new skills and suggests some resources.

Deborah Hartmann Preuss
on Mar 24, 2008
Better Best Practices

Organizations often introduce Best Practices as part of a change program or quality initiative. These can take a number of forms, from cheat sheets to full-blown consultant-led methodologies, complete with the requisite auditing and accreditation. In this article, Dan North shows how best practices can not only fail to help, but even have a severe negative impact on your top performers.

Dan North
on Mar 11, 2008
The "Consulting" Contract

Coach Michael Spayd tells us that both contractors and permanent employees can play a "consultant" role, and should think about developing consulting contracts or "designed partnerships" with their clients - not about the exchange of money, but to help create stellar results for the client while working in a manner that adheres to their own values and preferences.

Michael K. Spayd
on Dec 30, 2007
Don't Let Miscommunication Spiral Out Of Control

We miscommunicate every day, with results ranging from trivial to catastrophic. In this seasonally themed article, J. B. Rainsberger shares one of his secret weapons - the Satir Communication Model. It's a thinking tool to help us analyze troubling conversations, and to more deeply understand the people around us, building trust, the first step towards building an effective team.

Joe Rainsberger
on Dec 23, 2007
Offer People Reasons to Love Your Remote Meetings

With an increasingly global workforce, face-to-face meetings are becoming rarer these days. In their place, we more frequently conduct business with a very different experience using a teleconference line supported by desktop sharing tools. Tips and tricks effectively facilitating these interactions, an emerging and important skill, are covered in this article.

Pete Johnson
on Dec 10, 2007
Key Takeaway Points and Lessons Learned from QCon San Francisco 2007

This article presents the main takeway points as seen by the many attendees who blogged about QCon. Comments are organized by tracks and sessions: Keynotes, Architectures you've always wondered about, Architecture Quality, How much REST do we need?, Java in Action, Architecting for Performance & Scalability, Java Emerging Technologies, Challenges in Agile, Bleeding Edge .NET, The Rise of Ruby.

Ryan Slobojan
on Nov 27, 2007
Book Review: The Responsibility Virus Helps Fear Undermine Collaboration

Do "empowered" organizations outperform their command-and-control competitors? Business school dean Roger Martin saw this promising approach fail too frequently. His diagnosis: he calls it the Responsibility Virus, and offers tools to help those who would treat the Virus in their own workplace. Reviewer Deborah Hartmann found this book a good explanation of why process is not enough.

Deborah Hartmann Preuss
on Sep 10, 2007
Visualizing Agile Projects using Kanban Boards

In the spirit of "information radiators and “big visible charts” Kenji Hiranabe proposes using Kanban Boards to organize three viewpoints (Time, Task, and Team) so the whole team understands the current status of the project and can work in an autonomous, motivated and collaborative manner.

Kenji Hiranabe
on Aug 27, 2007

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