InfoQ Homepage Customers & Requirements Content on InfoQ
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Can architecture create a gap between developers and software they build?
Many software project management and architecture approaches tend to parcel out work on a project in a way to create hierarchical layers. This helps simplify both developers’ work and management. However, the underlying information shielding among layers can potentially create a gap between developers and the software they are building, if their tasks are totally taken out of functional context.
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Agile Contracts Require Trust
Contracts are the seam that tie together different organizations. Traditional contracts are based on mistrust and a CYA philosophy. Fixed price contracts don't take into consider the uncertainty of software development. Time-for-money projects are not based on value delivered - a team can work for a long time and not have much to show for. The Agile community is looking for something better.
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Multiple Projects, One Agile Team
It's not uncommon for an organization to have one group of developers who need to complete multiple projects. In those situations, how should the group be structured, and how should their work be planned and allocated?
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Is Quality Negotiable?
If a customer tells you that they are not interested in software quality, that they have a specific scope that must be completed by a specific date - what do you do? Do you listen to the customer and compromise quality? (By the way, what is quality?)
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An Agile PM Walks a Mile in a Customer's Shoes
Last year Ternary COO Alexia Bowers walked a mile in a project customer's shoes, and told us how it felt in this Agile2006 Leadership Summit presentation. She stressed the need to meet deadlines through creative solutions, instead of simply cutting scope.
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RSpec Adds Eagerly-Awaited RBehave Functionality for Integration Testing
RSpec is a Behaviour-Driven Development acceptance testing framework for Ruby or Java that enables developers to turn acceptance specifications from the business into executable examples of expected behaviour. Dan North built a separate extension, RBehave, to express story-level integration tests with RSpec. David Chelimsky has now incorporated RBehave-like functionality into the RSpec trunk.
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Next-Generation Functional Testing
What should the next generation of functional testing tools offer? The Agile Alliance is holding a workshop to envision the next-generation of functional testing tools, from October 11th to 12th. What do you think needs the most attention?
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Ted Neward's thoughts on Architecture Roles & Responsibilites
Ted Neward shares his thoughts on the roles and responsibilities of the Software Architect, discussing what an architect does, how to approach the role, and if architects are still relevant.
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Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Agile compatibility
Design in the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) world involves working with the user to understand the problem and come up with a user interface – typically on paper - of the entire system before turning it over, in Big Design Upfront (BDUF) manner, to the rest of the development team to build. So how can Robert Biddle claim that HCI has home-grown practices that are very similar to those of Agile?
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The Dire Consequences of Fixed Price Projects
In a recent newsletter, Scott Ambler looked at why fixed price projects tend to overrun and often fail to solve the business problems they set out to conquer. Scott named the key problems in fixed price projects, identified the bad habits they encourage for customers and developers, and ended with a call to revisit how we fund our IT projects, offering an alternative.
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Jeff De Luca, on FDD: Modeling, Code Ownership, Choosing an Agile Method
In an interview with Stefan Roock, Jeff De Luca, who created and documented Feature Driven Development, discussed developing an overall model, code ownership, choosing an agile method, and more.
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InfoQ Interview: David Hussman on Coaching Agile Adoption
Agile coach and practitioner David Hussman talked to InfoQ about his approach to helping teams and organizations adopting Agile, including his ideas about customizing it without compromising the common denominators required to make Agile really work. He talked about "story tests", addressing manager fears as their team self-organizes, and building a vibrant development community.
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Reminder: You are Not Your User
David S. Platt presented a keynote called "Why Software Sucks" at SD West recently, illustrating something we should already know: designing for ourselves is risky business. "Unless you're writing programs for a bunch of burned out computer geeks, your user isn't you."
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Agile UI Development: What's the User Experience?
While Agile approaches generally shun up-front analysis and design, the emerging practice of User-Centered Design relies on a detailed user research and modeling phase before development begins. Which is right? In his InfoQ article, Dave Churchville explores how these disciplines can be used together for an effective UI development process.
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User-Centric Development Approaches: What's Next?
On her Creating Passionate Users blog, Kathy Sierra recently envisioned software that's not just usable, but transparent, helping users achieve "flow" in their work without intrusive distractions, delays or constraints. Perhaps end-user "flow" is the next big differentiator - and if so, what will the development processes look like that support the creation of such software?