InfoQ Homepage Culture & Methods Content on InfoQ
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Agile adoption changes organizations policies and facilities
A number of organizations have recently acknowledged the impact that adopting Agile techniques has had beyond the software development areas. This news item examines the impact on two very different organisations - SAP in the design of their new cloud computing development facility and Valve Software Corporation's employment policies.
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That's How You're Using Story Points? No Way.
Story points are about estimating relative effort, gauging how difficult it will be to complete one feature relative to another. They are an abstraction of the cost, effort, and labor needed to produce that feature. Simple enough concept right? Wrong. Some teams are using story points to rank features rather than estimate effort. Hard to believe? Read on.
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The Management View of Agile - Unaware or Unwilling?
A series of recent articles by Steve Denning on Forbes have highlighted the challenges that the Agile community faces to get acceptance by mainstream management.
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The Exact Science of Communication Patterns
Alex "Sandy" Pentland, professor of MIT, talks about his experiments with sociometric badges in context of teams productivity in his interview for Harvard Business Review. His research can help in defining optimal communication patters that will make you and your team members more efficient and more satisfied at work.
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Scrum Extensions Update - 1st Quarter 2012
What's happened with scrum extensions since our 4th quarter 2011 update? We asked Alex Armstrong, VP Business Development and Director of Programs at Scrum.org. This article summarizes our interview and discussion with Alex and gives the latest proposed scrum extensions.
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Product Owner should deliver Enabling Specifications
Scrum community leaders recommend Product Owners to deliver an Enabling Specification as a part of a User Story to improve the efficiency of the development team.
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Drilling Down Into Agile Success Factors
Scott W. Ambler provides some analysis on the latest Agile State of the Art survey. InfoQ follows up with some other insights and questions.
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Microsoft’s Branching and Merging Guidelines
Microsoft has released a draft of their new Branching and Merging Guide. While ostensibly meant for TFS users, much of the advice is applicable no matter which source control provider you choose.
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QCon New York Update: New HTML5, Mobile, JavaScript Sessions Published
In addition to dedicated conference tracks on Java, Agile, Cloud Computing, Concurrency, Big Data & NoSQL, Architectural Case Studies and others, QCon New York will feature a wide range of sessions and tutorials covering cross-platform mobile development. The first annual QCon New York 2012 which will take place at the New York Marriott on June 18-22, 2012. Save $450 if you register by Apr 27th.
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Looking Back at Looking Ahead, Gloom for Agile in 2012?
Many predictions for agile in 2012 were gloomy, with themes including adoptions by organizations that don’t know how, resulting in a lack of addressing management impact across teams and engineering practices in teams. With nearly four months of hindsight, readers can make their own judgments while remaining diligent so that 2012 won’t end gloomy.
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The Most Influential People in Agile
A recent post by Paul Dolman-Darrall on the Value, Flow, Quality blog proposed a list of the 20 most influential people in the Agile community.
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The Daily Standup/Scrum is not for the Scrum Master
Mike Cohn recently suggested that the Daily Standup (or Scrum) is not a status meeting for the Scrum Master, but a forum where team members are synchronising their work. Techniques such as breaking eye contact are helpful for Scrum Masters to fix this anti pattern in their teams.
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Agile 2012 Keynote Speakers Announced
The Agile Alliance has anounced the keynote speakers for the Agile 2012 conference being held in Dallas, Texas, on 13017 August 2012.
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Achieving More By Doing One Thing at A Time
A recent Harvard Business Review article highlights the importance of finishing one task at a time and hence getting more work done. Some of the core Agile practices help minimize context switching and bring a similar task focus while building software.
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PMI Announces Softening of Requirements for New PMI-ACP Certification
The Project Management Institute is softening the eligibility requirements to qualify for their new PMI ACP (Agile Certified Professional) certification test. Previously individuals needed 1,500 hours of experience working on an agile project, with those hours accrued over the last two years. Now the requirement is 1,500 hours of experience on an agile project accrued over the last three years.