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  • Outsourcing Gone Bad - Another Reason to Consider Agile

    Proponents of Agile methods suggest they can spare organizations some outsourcing nightmares, by helping in-house teams produce ROI comparable to outsourced solutions. Stories from Sprint and Sears provide incentive to at least give them a hearing.

  • Agile Fixed Price Contracting

    On the high-volume ScrumDevelopment newsgroup, an interesting question has appeared, once again: "Is it possible to run SCRUM with fixed price contracts especially custom projects?". Ron Jeffries, Mike Beedle and others offer replies from experience.

  • Minimalism: Creating Manuals People Can Use

    Yes, documentation is not "working software". That being said, a certain amount of documentation is often necessary. But where do we start, to lighten up our documentation processes? JoAnn Hackos' workshop on July 11/12 teaches a disiplined minimalism, allowing teams to leverage structured writing, etc. to create just enough documentation - the right documentation. Almost sounds agile :-)

  • A More Holistic View of Organizational Change

    Change in the workplace affects more than just our nine-to-five lives. We sometimes feel it at a very deep level, and it's a good bet we'll take that stress home. On the Future Of Work blog, Charlie Grantham has proposed that we lose valuable opportunities to facilitate change when we ignore the deeply personal, or spiritual, aspects of workplace change.

  • Vacations: Creative Work Requires Rest

    Summer has traditionally been a time for vacations and get-aways, a time to clear the mind and "recreate" oneself. Yet, according to a recent study, one third of people expect to take work with them on their holidays this year. Is this healthy? Can it be changed?

  • Article: Reducing Legacy Code Woes

    Incremental Test Driven Development is fine for new code... but few get to start from scratch. Jared Richardson, author of "Ship It!", shows how to handle the legacy code that everyone eventually inherits. Use his Build, Automate, Test approach to create a safety net that helps you identify and eliminate unintended side effects, to ensure your code continues to work the way you want it to.

  • Collaborative Technologies Conference, Boston, June 19-22

    How much technology is really needed in the Agile world of "do the simplest thing that could possibly work"? For those needing improved technological support for their collaborative teams, the Collaborative Technologies Conference features thought leaders and technology innovators, including Google and 37 Signals, who will explore both the power of collaboration and its potential pitfalls.

  • Benefits and Challenges of Open Source for Agile Teams

    Open source technologies have had a positive impact on both the development and runtime environments of software applications - teams find they are better able to deliver expected functionality within timeframes acceptable to stakeholders. But open source is different, and Jeff Hodson has written about how an architecture-centric approach can help address some valid developer concerns.

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