InfoQ Homepage Culture & Methods Content on InfoQ
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Can Agile Development Work in Hardware Projects?
With the take up of Agile approaches in the software world, some commentators in the hardware space have been asking how these techniques can be applied and used in the development of hardware-intensive systems. Two recent articles provide advice and guidance on possible ways to gain the benefits of Agile development in the hardware realm.
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Known vs Unknown
Whether to use waterfall or agile methods should be determined by how well known the problem and solution are. That is the assessment from David J Blant, owner of Scrumology.
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Stop Thinking During Refactoring
Refactoring is a technique for changing the internal structure of the program without changing its external behavior. On the face of it, refactoring seems to involve a good amount of thinking, however, too much thinking could be detrimental as well.
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Sustainable Pace – What’s it mean and how to achieve it?
The Agile Leaders newsgroup recently had a discussion on establishing and maintaining a sustainable pace of work, often in the face of organizational pressure for teams and individuals to work longer and longer hours. The contributors provided some concrete ideas and specific advice, as well as discussing why this situation occurs.
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Individuals and Interactions are Important, but so are Processes and Tools
There has been a lot of discussion recently about the tension inherent in the Agile Manifesto value "individuals and interactions over processes and tools". This item examines some of the points that have been made.
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Is it Time to Stop Estimating User Stories?
Most new Agile teams transition from hours based estimates to relative estimation using story points, but do we even need estimates at all?
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Tasktop Sync Supports Application Lifecycle Management Synchronization
The new release of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tool Tasktop supports an ALM synchronization solution that addresses the visibility and traceability needs of the software development teams. Tasktop team announced the release of Tasktop Sync 1.0 version last month. They also recently released Tasktop Dev 2.1 version which builds on Eclipse Indigo release of Mylyn 3.6.
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How Long Would it Take to Build the Product?
This is one the frequent questions asked by the customer. It is a question that makes an Agile team uncomfortable. On one hand, estimating an entire product functionality without actually starting work is ridden with flaws, however in many circumstances, it is a practical question which teams cannot ignore.
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Lean Startup or Agile or Lean Startup and Agile?
A recent post by Joshua Kerievsky contrasting Lean Startup with Agile approaches resonated with some commentators and raised the ire of others. Do Lean Startup principles replace and supersede Agile approaches or are they complementary.
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Sonatype Offers Insight Into Enterprise Open Source Usage
Sonatype, the main company which drives Maven development, has joined a growing list of companies which aim to help organisations understand and audit their open source software usage, with the announcement of the Sonatype Insight software suite.
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Count Bug Fixes Towards Velocity? Depends …
There have been numerous arguments and debates in the past on whether bug fixes should be counted towards velocity. There does not seem to be a 'one' right answer. However, Agilists have some recommendations describing situations in which they should be added, how they should be added and where they could be avoided.
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Application Lifecycle Management in Team Foundation Server 11
Team Foundation Server 11 has added many features in the area of Application Lifecycle Management. Some of the highlights include support for code reviews, iterations/sprints, resource allocation, third part testing frameworks, and a much more capable dependency graph.
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Latest Release of Zachman Framework Highlights Its Role as an Ontology
John Zachman, considered one of the fathers of the Enterprise Architecture discipline, recently released the third edition of his popular framework. This version included some minor text updates, improved graphics and a subtle effort to re-classify this artifact as an ontology instead of a framework.
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Steve Denning on Customer Delight at Agile 2011
Steve Denning gave two talks at the Agile 2011 conference in Salt Lake City, both focusing on moving organisations to "21st Century Management" and showing how Agile principles support and enable this change. He maintains that management is in need of an overhaul and that the takeup of Agile approaches helps organisations to make these changes, but Agile alone is not enough.
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The Future of UI/UX in Agile
Many people who are new to Agile are confused about the place of UI and UX design on Agile teams. Previously many teams have tried keeping the work separate from the team or having the work done one sprint ahead. Recently, there has been more talk about welcoming UI and UX into Agile teams and Lean UX has been at the forefront.