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InfoQ Homepage Introducing Agile Content on InfoQ

  • Sharing What's Worked: Patterns for Adopting Agile Practices

    Organizations adopting Agile naturally ask these questions; "Where do I start?", "What specific practices should I adopt?", "How can I adopt incrementally?" and "Where can I expect pitfalls?" In this article, Amr Elssamadisy gives a glimpse into an ongoing effort to document Agile practice adoption patterns: Participants at XPday Montreal took a stab at "Simple Design" and "Pair Programming."

  • How does Agile Development Shape Up in 2006? The VersionOne Survey

    VersionOne Software this autumn conducted a global "State of Agile Development" survey, showing that changing requirements and priorities, and time-to-market are drivers in the move to Agile adoption. Companies of all sizes were represented, up to the large global corporations, and every industry vertical, from financial services, health care, and education to video games, government, and defense.

  • Managing Agile Projects - How Hard Can It Be?

    Agile projects emphasize self-organizing teams and tight IT/customer collaboration, but does this relieve managers of their role? Liz Barnett, editor-in-chief at AgileJournal.com believes it does not... that the manager role remains critical, though Agile does change it. Her recent article on managing Agile projects recommends some practices to focus on when switching to Agile management.

  • Practical Advice for Implementing Scrum

    As Scrum continues to gain momentum, it's not surprising to hear the call for practical help for these many novice teams. Mike Vizdos, a Certified Scrum Trainer and Agile coach with experience in both small and large enterprises, has responded with a site called "Implementing Scrum", using cartoons and straight talk to lay out the basics.

  • Dangers of Agile Adoption

    Siddharta Govindaraj has been noticing what happens as Agile is adopted by more mainstream enterprises. He outlines five points that companies need to watch for when adopting agile processes - and what to do about them.

  • New Book on Lean Software Offers Practical Advice

    In 2003 Mary and Tom Poppendieck adapted the revolutionary principles of Lean manufacturing for software development. Their new book offers a blend of history, theory, and practice, drawing on their experience optimizing the software "value stream". They present the right questions to ask, the key issues to focus on, and techniques proven to work for those implementing a lean software process.

  • Selling Your Good Ideas

    In this month's edition of StickyMinds, communications consultant Naomi Karten has written a short article "Developing Sales Savvy" which may help your new ideas reach the ear of a resistant colleague. She notes that, while sometimes you just get lucky, there are other times when *how* you sell can be as critical to your success as what you sell.

  • Agile Coach = Agile Secret Police?

    Software engineer Paul Tyma, in a recent blog entry, tells us "I don't get this new craze of a job called 'Agile Coach'. I mean, everything I've read about Agile and XP seems dead simple." Though not a proponent of Agile, Tyma has done XP, so perhaps there's a basis for his view that an Agile Coach is not so much a 'coach' as "a hall monitor or a secret police officer."

  • Opinion: Inability to Adopt Agile May Signal Bigger Problems

    Peter Coffee, IT industry veteran, blogged on the recent Digital Focus survey of the state of Agile practice, noting that obstacles to Agile adoption are also general danger signs of development dysfunction.

  • Interview: Real-World Agile for .NET Developers

    Kathleen Richards interviews Robert C. Martin about his new book, co-authored with his son Micah: "Agile Principles, Patterns and Practices in C#," which puts Agile practices to work in a .NET environment,

  • Survey: The State of Agile in Practice

    In March Scott Ambler surveyed over 4,200 people to discover the actual rate of Agile process adoption and effectiveness. His conclusion: Agile is not only growing in popularity, it's working so well that adopting an Agile approach appears to be an incredibly low-risk choice. Ambler recently published not only his conclusions but also the raw data he collected.

  • Does Agile Dispense with Project Managers?

    Agile does away with many of the tasks by which Project Managers formerly measured their own performance. The Product Owner and Dev Team take on these activities, leaving PMs confused and wondering: "Am I redundant?" Agile coach Michele Sliger offers some reassurance, mapping PMI PMBOK practice areas to new Agile practices in her whitepaper "A Project Manager's Survival Guide to Going Agile".

  • Mary and Tom Poppendieck Discuss Their Next Book

    Bob Payne interviewed Mary and Tom Poppendieck at Agile2006 about their next Lean book, which focuses even more on software than the last. Mary summarizes it as "So you think Agile is a good idea: now what?" saying it will help people get started with Lean, going beyond the recipes of the first book to provide practical information and case studies to help teams do their own process experiments.

  • InfoQ Article: Agile - The SOA Hangover Cure

    Carl Ververs, an expert on SOA Integration writes about the application of "Agile" development philosophies and methodologies in order to build a sustainable and valuable SOA system.

  • Agile Delivery at British Telecom

    Methods and Tools has a 3-part article by Ian Evans of British Telecom outlining the challenges of software development at BT and the approach they took to switch to an Agile approach. Going from a well-established waterfall-based delivery approach to Agile takes patience and time, as well as a lot of commitment. But despite the challenges, few at BT would go back to their old ways.

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