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Eclipse "Callisto" an Agile Success Story
Today will mark the "Callisto" release of 10 Eclipse toolsets simultaneously, remarkable in that it provides a synchronized set of releases to facilitate implementation of Eclipse for developers building their own tools and applications on top of it. A large, complex and risky undertaking, Callisto was reportedly delivered by open source developers using Agile methods.
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An Experiment in Clear Communication
Rather than keeping customers and developers apart (to avoid "misunderstandings"), Agilists intentionally bring them together. Communication tends to improve faster than one might expect, and soon everyone is interacting constructively. But in a team or between teams, there is always room for improvement: Cory Foy blogged what happened when he tried a new idea in "The Dreyfus Model Experiment".
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"Agile People Do Get It" -- Uncle Bob
Last week, Cedric Beust ranted against the way Agile test practices, particularly TDD, are evangelised in "Agile People Still Don't Get It". He complained about "Agilists' dishonesty ... They offer you all these nice ideas, but they never - ever - disclose the risks and the downsides". He raises a valid point. This week Jeff Langr (the Agile culprit), Bob Martin and others blogged responses.
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Series: Churchill, the Agile PM
Mark Kozak-Holland is the author of the book "Churchill's Adaptive Enterprise: Lessons for Business Today". In his Gannthead.com series, he studies Churchill's history and habits, and draws parallels between events in World War II and today's business challenges. In episode 2, Mr. Churchill inherits his "project" from hell...
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Big Turnout for Ruby Meetup in San Francisco
Close to one hundred people attended last night's Ruby meetup at C|Net offices in San Francisco.
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Dangling the Right "Carrot" in Changing Times
For organizations heavily dependent on software development, the shift to Agile affects core aspects of the business. Eventually there will be ripples felt in the HR domain of incentives, performance and remuneration. Wharton University brings us an article on Employee Incentive Systems: Why, and When, They Are So Hard to Change. Examples are cited from Kodak, Accenture, Microsoft.
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SirsiDynix Case Study: Jeff Sutherland on Highly Productive Distributed Scrum
Scrum co-creator Jeff Sutherland has just finished a paper on the SirsiDynix project, which he calls the most productive large Java project ever documented. The project used Distributed Scrum and some XP practices. Although distributed teams are often expected to experience reduced productivity, this team's productivity level matched that measured by Cohn on a co-located team!
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Rolling Rocks Downhill - in Installments
Clarke Ching has just published more chapters of Rolling Rocks Downhill, his "business novel" in the tradition of Goldratt and Lencioni. He's writing in an online "fishbowl", looking for reader feedback: a rather Agile thing to do. In chapter 21 Steve contemplates working iteratively from the start of the project - just like they do in product development. But he's got one niggling doubt ...
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Detailed JavaOne Coverage Published
Every year, the most detailed coverage of what happened at JavaOne is usually published in really long and detailed day by day coverage articles published on TheServerSide.com. The last of their 4 days of coverage have just been posted.
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Fun: The Truth about Scrum Revealed
High Moon Studios, perhaps best known for their DarkWatch console game, uses the Scrum methodology to get things done. They've put out a passionate (if violent) 90-second video that tells the truth (and a little fiction) about working the Agile way.
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Worth Repeating: The BigBook Technique
Mark Hedlund has a favourite story: he tells of the BigBook Technique, a simple ploy engineers once used to communicate with their CEO about a death-march project. With yet another big-project implosion in the news, Hedlund felt the need to roll out this simple remedy, again. In effect: nine women simply cannot deliver a baby in one month. If that sounds familiar, this story may be of use to you.
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Interview with SAP CEO Henning Kagermann
In an interview at their annual user conference, SAP's CEO Henning Kagermann talks about the role SOA plays in SAP's application strategy.
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Meeting the Challenge of Collective Code Ownership
The challenge: find the balance between pure practice and local compromise. Martin Fowler has brought us a story of a team in trouble, which took a step back to improve coding discipline and brush up on the basic practices that support collective ownership. In addition to the short-term gains of increased velocity and improved morale, the overall quality of the team's output improved as well.
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Amazon CTO Werner Vogels on SOA in Practice
In an interview conducted by Jim Gray, Amazon.com CTO Werner Vogels provides background information on Amazon.com's service-oriented technology platform.
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Is the Feedback Loop Worth the Time?
John Brothers, on Indefinite Articles, blogged an interesting conversation last week between Mary Poppendieck and Robert Bogue. Drawn from the Agile Project Management newsgroup, it pointed out two different stances on the relative cost and value of "frequent feedback", a key component of Agile methodologies.