InfoQ Homepage Leadership Content on InfoQ
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Retrospective of Retrospectives
Once all your teams use Agile and are busy implementing local improvements, what happens to the larger organization formerly called "IT" or "Systems Development"? A coach with a large Agile program shared the strategy they designed to let the larger community spot trends and benefit from all this learning. Paulo Caroli calls it "Retrospective of Retrospectives".
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DeMarco Reflects on 40 Years of Software Engineering Evolution
40 years after the NATO Conference on Software Engineering, Tom DeMarco paused to reflect on the discipline's evolution, wondering whether the metrics orientation he championed has distracted from the real point of computing: "transformation, creating software that changes the world." Is his earlier advice valid, though? "No", he said, in Software Engineering: An Idea Whose Time Has Come and Gone?
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Interview with Robin Dymond at Agile 2008
Robin Dymond gives an overview of Lean, how it can help take Agile to the 'next level' and why organizations that fail to change will not have successful Agile teams. Robin describes an organizational mismatch between traditional hierarchies and team structures. He believes that organizations will need to reorganize around teams to get the most out of Agile.
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Interview with Pollyanna Pixton at Agile 2008
Pollyanna Pixton tells us that within a culture of trust leaders must stand back and if they don't then they are hampering and restricting the productivity and the creativity and the innovation of teams. She discusses how leaders can foster a culture of trust and what they must do to get the most out of Agile teams.
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The Qualities of a Software Architect
The software/enterprise architect job is an important one. The duties of an architect are numerous and require specific leadership, communication and technical skills to be fulfilled.
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Panel: BayAPLN Agile Expert Panel
During QCon San Francisco 2008, InfoQ and BayAPLN, a local group of Agile Project Leadership Network (APLN), organized a panel comprised of Agile experts which answered questions from the audience. The panelists were: David Chilcott, Moderator, Polyanna Pixton, David Hussman, Sue Mckinney, Pat Reed.
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Handling Your Team's "Rotten Apple"
Recently there has been an active discussion in the Scrum Development Yahoo Group about handling an "under-performing" team member. In the 130+ response thread, "Rotten apple in Scrum team", talk ranged from advice for the primary question, to talk of team morale and who manages it, to the classic debate of measuring individuals, to distinguishing whether a team is really a "team", and more.
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JCP Panel: The Community Demands More Openness and Easier Participation
QCon San Francisco 2008 panel on Open Standards Development hosted Patrick Curran, JCP Chair and distinguished members of the community that shared experiences both on open standards and open source development. Almost from the beginning it became evident that there were two major issues that would dominate the discussion: Openness and Ease of entry level participation to the JCP.
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Interview: Pressure and Performance – The CTO's Dilemma
In this interview made by Deborah Hartmann during Agile 2008, Diana Larsen and Jim Shore talk about patterns observed in CTOs' activity. CTOs emerge as real people caring for other people in their organization, and are put under a lot of pressure and constraints.
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Questioning Servant Leadership
Is the role of an agile manager only that of servant leader? Should they ever use traditional command and control tools? Should the agile manager ever wield authority and make demands of the team? Should they ever make changes in the membership?
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Annual Update to the Agile Alliance Board of Directors
The Agile Alliance membership recently elected new members to its Board of Directors. Votes were cast via email and in person, and announced during the Agile2008 conference. Johanna Rothman was elected Conference Chair for Agile2009.
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Setting up COE for SOA
As SOA continues to mature, the importance of SOA governance, helping to improve organizational support for SOA and ensure disciplined approach to SOA implementation, keeps growing. One of the ways to start and implement SOA governance is through establishing a SOA center of excellence.
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Beginner's Mind - An Approach to Listening
Beginner's Mind is the idea of approaching things without preconceptions, pre-conceived ideas or prior judgements. This approach is useful to agile practitioners and coaches, inviting us to enter situations and observe what is really happening before we act.
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Interview: Linda Rising on "Fearless Change" Patterns
In this interview by Floyd Marinescu, co-founder of InfoQ, Linda Rising talks about the book "Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas" and offers examples of how the patterns presented in the book can ease Agile adoption.
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Touchy Feely Impediments to Agile Adoption
Struggling with Agile Adoption? Amr Elssamadisy ran a session on what makes adopting Agile processes difficult. He provided the audience with three models for understanding the problems seen during adoption.