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Agile 10 Years On

James Coplien looks from the hacker culture of the 1960s, through objects in the 1980s and forward to the future to put the Agile Mainfesto in context of the 20 year cycle of fashion and change. He argues against mindless adherence to a particular set of rules and tools and for carefully thought out application of good practices that support the production of good quality software products.

James Coplien
on Feb 18, 2011
A Personal Reflection on Agile Ten Years On

Stephen J Mellor was one of the original signatories of the Agile Manifesto. He attended the Snowbird meeting “as a spy” with but found himself agreeing with most of what was being said and became a proponent of Agile techniques and emphasizes the value of modelling in the Agile world. We rarely see the words “agile” and “model” in the same sentence, but they are not at all in conflict.

Stephen J. Mellor
on Feb 11, 2011
Agile Contracts

The traditional Waterfall model fits nicely with the way companies buy things: requirements are drawn up, a supplier quotes a price, and everyone signs a legally binding agreement. Contracts written this way seldom offer the freedom to work using an Agile approach. This article examines four separate models available to suppliers and customers for establishing contracts for Agile work.

Allan Kelly
on Feb 08, 2011
Submissions and Reviews in the Agile2011

Chris Matts who has been part of the Agile Conference submission review team gives advice to submitters of Agile 2011 candidate sessions on how improve their changes of acceptance. Chris also provides advice to session reviewers of Agile 2011, the largest annual Agile event.

Chris Matts
on Feb 01, 2011
IT And Architecture: Inside-Out Perspectives

The software industry is in disarray, costs are escalating, and quality is diminishing. Promises of newer technologies and processes and methodologies in IT are still far from materializing on any significant scale. Bruce Laidlaw and Michael Poulin - each with more than 30 years of experience compared notes on the past and present of IT and provide insights on what IT needs to make progress.

Bruce Laidlaw Michael Poulin
on Jan 03, 2011
Estimation Toolkit

No matter what kind of software you write, or the size company you work for, you probably have to provide estimates to someone. There are many techniques agile teams can use to help guide their estimation efforts. The toolkit described in this article consists of a number of novel approaches to estimating agile software projects that will help you answer the question – “When will we be done?”.

James King
on Dec 28, 2010
Breaking Down Walls, Building Bridges, and Takin’ Out the Trash

Agile Team Rooms can help double the productivity of an Agile Team. Most people are familiar with the Caves and Commons approach where the team has a common area on the inside of the room and private desks on the outside. Some teams dispense with the private spaces in the room, but few go as far as Menlo dispensing with the rooms altogether.

Richard Sheridan Lisamarie Babik
on Dec 22, 2010
Doing Kanban Wrong

Kanban as a tool to support lean software development continues to increase in popularity all the time. However, like countless tools before it, Kanban will be unfairly blamed for many project failures by people who are doing Kanban wrong. This article discusses some ways the author has tried to give Kanban a bad name. Hopefully these examples will keep you from falling into similar traps.

Tim Wingfield
on Dec 22, 2010
Agile at the Office of Personnel Management

In its attempts to modernize retirement claims processing the Office of Personnel Management had several versions of this project cancelled. The most recent of which used "requirements, design, implement, and test cycles to develop the system. During the testing phases, serious issues became evident". In trying again the director said that they weren't going to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Richard Cheng
on Nov 30, 2010
Key Takeaway Points and Lessons Learned from QCon San Francisco 2010

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, Tutorials, Architectures You've Always Wondered About, Java, the Platform, Real Life Cloud Architectures, Agile Evolution, Design at Scale, Dev and Ops: A Single Team, NoSQL, SOA for the REST of Us, and many more!

Abel Avram
on Nov 30, 2010
Book Review: The Leader's Guide to Radical Management

Steve Denning's latest book – The Leader's Guide to Radical Management: Reinventing the Workplace for the 21st Century. He contends that management today is in need of a radical makeover – existing practices are not adequate to meet the needs of the modern high-speed world. He shows how Agile methods are being introduced beyond the software world to deliver benefits to people and organisations.

Shane Hastie
on Nov 11, 2010
Book Review: Making it Big in Software

The focus of this book by Sam Lightstone is helping you become a great software development professional. Career advancement is important, but secondary. Using a mix of interviews, commentary, and advice, this book exposes and explores the principles and values that support professionalism and even craftsmanship.

Dave West
on Oct 28, 2010