InfoQ Homepage Management Content on InfoQ
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Is Leading Self-Organisation like Conducting an Orchestra?
Traditional management models don't tell leaders how to support their Agile teams without undermining their emerging self-organisation. Allusions to musical performance and "conducting the orchestra" abound - but not all are in agreement. Is the "conductor" model a good practice or an anti-pattern? In his TED talk, conductor Itay Talman shows that it may depend on what we think a conductor does.
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Agile's "One Essential Ingredient"
There has been plenty of debate on what skills a developer needs, or what practices an organization must adopt for agile to be successful. But while undeniably important, is this really what's at the heart of agile success? Mark Schumann suggests that agile's "one essential ingredient" is not ground-level agile technique, but rather is the agile mindset within management ranks.
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Management Strategies For SOA
Mike Kavis, wrote an article for the SOA institute in which he characterizes the success of any SOA implementation into four factors people, process, technology, and business. He believes that a good management strategy is to create and communicate a roadmap that plots out key deliverables in each of these areas.
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Leading Lean & Agile – it’s all about people
Mary and Tom Poppendieck have published a new book titled "Leading Lean Software Development: Results Are Not the Point" in which they examine the importance of leadership in Lean/Agile transformations and provide guidance for organisations making the transformation.
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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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Agile Project Sponsorship – A Light Hand for Effective Results
Organisations embracing Agile methods need to reassess their approach to project governance and sponsorship. Project decisions need to be made rapidly, responding to changes in the organisational ecosystem while keeping a clear eye on the project’s and organisation’s goals. Advice from commentators on project sponsorship and important metrics to keep projects on track.
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Article: The Economics of Service Orientation
This article explores the structural economic changes brought about by service orientation and how the concept of services and reuse at the service level promises to relieve the enormous pressure arising from increasing costs and flat budgets. Service orientation is compared to other strategies for keeping costs in check.
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Cost Justifying an Agile Migration
Show me the money - cost justification of Agile migration is a thorny issue. Agile approaches are more successful, deliver value sooner and produce better quality products, but how do we prove it? This article discusses measurements and presents results that help to justify adopting Agile methods.
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Managers in Scrum
This presentation explores how the role of managers changes in Scrum. It helps managers to lead the introduction of Scrum acting as role models. It presents leadership principles that provide concrete guidance such as servant-leadership, empirical management, empowerment and respect, quality-first and continuous improvement.
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Agile Risk Management
Risk management is an activity directed towards the assessing, mitigating and monitoring of risks. Agilists suggest ways to effectively manage risk and use it to make better commitments to the stakeholders.
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Engine Yard Releases Cloud Management Framework Vertebra
Vertebra, announced at RailsConf 2008, has finally been released. Vertebra is a platform to develop and manage cloud applications. We talked to Engine Yard founder and architect Jayson Vantuyl about what Vertebra and its use of XMPP bring to the table.
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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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Presentation: Manager's Introduction to Test-Driven Development
In this presentation filmed during Agile 2008, Dave Nicolette and Karl Scotland try to introduce non-technical managers to one of the most popular Agile development techniques: Test-Driven Development (TDD). The presentation intends to be a primer for managers who want to understand the value of TDD, and of Agile in general, in software development.
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Presentation: Jim McCarthy and 11 Commitments For a Shared Vision
In this presentation filmed during Agile 2008, Jim McCarthy talks about 11 commitments team members should adhere to if they want to achieve a state of shared vision. Such a state empowers a team to reach their full potential and ultimately attain greatness.