InfoQ Homepage Culture & Methods Content on InfoQ
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QConSF 2013 in 3 Weeks (Nov 11-15): Conference Schedule Published; Training Days; Facebook Keynote
Why do well-tuned, bad systems usually outperform less mature, better systems? Facebook's Keith Adams answers this question in his keynote at the 7th annual QCon San Francisco (Nov 11-15). The full conference schedule is now live with registrations 40% ahead of last year. With only three weeks left before the event, there is still time to save $400 if you register before Oct 25th.
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Adopting Agile When Your Management Style is Mostly Command and Control
Agile adoption in organizations where command and control is the most dominant management style can be tricky. There have been situations where an agile transition didn’t deliver the expected improvements, or even failed and was stopped. Several authors suggested ways to adopt agile in organizations with a command and control management style. How did you deal with it when transitioning to agile?
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A Look Back at the Linux Kernel Backdoor
With all of the recent concern over the US government’s National Security Agency (NSA) some of the attention has turn to the possibility of backdoors. Back in 2003 someone attempted to insert a backdoor into the Linux kernel. Though caught, it illustrates how seemingly innocuous changes can introduce vulnerabilities and the importance of tractability in source control.
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Agile Singapore Speakers & Schedule Announced
The first Agile Singapore conference will be held in November 2013 and the organisers have announced the speakers and talks for the first two tracks.
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Using Retrospectives for Personal Improvement
Agile retrospectives are used by teams to improve their performance, by reflecting on the way of working and defining improvement actions. But retrospectives can also be used for personal improvement, additional to or as a replacement of performance appraisals. Such retrospectives can be done as a one-on-one by a manager and an employee, individually by an employee, or in a team.
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The First GOTO Berlin Conference Coming in October
The first GOTO conference in Berlin is due in two weeks, with two days of conference on October 17-18, preceded by two days with training on the 15-16. The program is titled "by developers, for developers" with emphasis placed on presenting the latest developments as they become relevant and interesting for the software development community.
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NDepend 5 Can Chart Code Trends
Patrick Smacchia has recently announced NDepend 5.0, the latest version of his .NET code analyzer coming with a number of enhancements: support for VS 2013, trend monitoring, new dashboard and a major UI facelift.
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Decisions Taking Techniques for Agile
The way that agile teams and organizations take decisions impacts the value that they can get from agile ways of working. To become agile, it can help to learn different decision making techniques, and pick the one which is most suitable for a situation.
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Causes of UK Agile Mega-Project Failure Examined
A UK National Audit Office report and a leaked Universal Credit Programme internal survey blame the programme's failures on poor leadership and practices. The Universal Credit Programme being developed under the Department for Work and Pensions, integrates the benefit payments for millions of UK claimants. It was mandated to use Agile methods, however the implementation has been flawed.
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Using Lessons Learned as a Dungeon Master on Roleplaying and Games in Agile Coaching
Guillaume Duquesnay uses his experience with games and roleplaying in his work as an agile coach. At the Agile Tour Brussels he talked about leadership, facilitation and management styles where no authority was involved. InfoQ interviewed Guillaume on his coaching, facilitation and leadership skills, and asked him if playing games gives happiness and fun to people, and make them more productive?
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Behaviour Driven Development Tool Cucumber Questioned
The Behaviour Driven Development, BDD, tool Cucumber is popular in Ruby’s TDD community. It offers a way to write tests that anybody can understand, but is any of the benefits of Cucumber really that beneficial, Kevin Liddle asks in a case against Cucumber. Jon Frisby and Matt Polito has each written a response somewhat arguing against Kevin’s ideas, both seeing benefits in using Cucumber.
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Sound of Silence: A workshop for Improving Understanding and Listening
At the Agile Tour Brussels conference, Luc Taesch facilitated a workshop about understanding and listening. He applied "cognitive science" or "neuroscience" for IT Professionals, and provided solutions to help them dealing with interrupting thoughts and feelings.
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Stories of Using Real Options to Take Decisions
Projects and product development is one long series of difficult decisions, says Pascal Van Cauwenberghe. Real Options can help you to take the right decision at the right time, even under difficult circumstances. At the Agile Tour Brussels conference, Pascal presented stories of his experiences with using real options in decision taking.
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Understanding the Cynefin Framework by Playing with Lego
Maurizio Pedriale & Alan Hortz facilitated a workshop at the Agile Tour Brussels conference where multiple teams played 4 exercises with Lego. The purpose of the exercises is to get a first understanding of the Cynefin framework, and discuss how to use it agile coaching situations.
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Using Feedback Techniques for the gov.uk Website
Jake Benilov will give a talk on September 27 at Agile Tour Brussels about feedback techniques used for making gov.uk. InfoQ did an interview with Jake about using the feedback techniques and how the team applies lean startup with minimum viable products to do user research.