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  • Remote Working Works

    Do you assume that remote working is a compromise? Around 5 years ago my team, and much of our software house, decided we could work as effectively from home. Many of us left London and headed to the country, replacing bars and restaurants with poultry keeping and mountain biking. Today we are closer, collaborate more, recruit better people and work more effectively than we ever did.

  • Author Q&A on Programming for Kids

    The book Programming for Kids contains many examples that kids in the age from 9-14 can use to learn the basics of programming, using the programming language Ruby. It also shows them how they can use the command line on a Mac computer. Parents can sit beside their kids and follow along. InfoQ did an interview with the author Peter Armstrong about how kids learn computer programming.

  • Author Q&A – The Lean Mindset by Tom and Mary Poppendieck

    The Lean Mindset is a collection of research results and case studies from companies applying lean in product development and delivery. A lean mindset according to Mary and Tom Poppendieck is about “developing the expertise to ask the right questions, solve the right problems, and do the right thing in the situation at hand”.

  • Solving the Gordian Knot of Chronic Overcommittment in Development Organizations

    Why do we promise more than we can deliver? Why do we say yes when we are already too busy? Chronic Overcommitment is a pervasive problem in the IT industry. In this article we take a look at the behaviors that drive over commitment and the dynamics at play in your organization the make it a difficult problem to solve. Finally, we offer some advice to those who suffer from this affliction.

  • Interview with Jan de Baere about the Rise and Fall of an Agile Company

    What happens when a director of a consulting company decides to drastically change the culture? At the Agile Tour Brussels conference Jan de Baere presented the why and how of a company that adopted agile, the journey that they went through, and how it came to a sudden end. InfoQ interviewed him about the agile change approach, culture and trust, and the lessons learned from an agile journey.

  • How to use Workshops to Boost Creativity, Team Commitment and Motivation

    Creativity is a powerful motivator for individuals and teams and it can be taught, trained, and enhanced. These are techniques for enhancing creativity to be used your team’s workshops, and they include brainstorming, playing with puns, role plays and opposites games. These activities get people moving and on their toes, making workshops far more effective than traditional meetings.

  • Interview with Ole Jepsen on Leadership in Agile

    Good leaders create an environment where self-organizing teams can thrive and create great products and services to delight their customers: that is what Ole Jepsen explains in this interview. At the XP Days Benelux conference he talked about truly leading people and the subtle but important differences between taking and giving control.

  • Interview and Book Review Change Artistry

    The book change artistry is a collection of essays from Esther Derby, Don Gray, Johanna Rothman and Gerald M. Weinberg. The essays cover a variety of topics to support professionals in developing their organizational change skills.

  • The Sustainability Agenda in Kanban

    This first article in the series on the Kanban “nine values, three agendas” model, explores the sustainability agenda: a common approach to Kanban adoption at the level of individuals and teams, often motivated by the need for relief from unsustainable practices and workloads. This sustainability agenda draws on the Kanban values transparency, balance, and collaboration.

  • I’d Rather Be Coding – Writing Things Down

    For lots of reasons, most developers hate writing down anything that isn’t code. The Agile Manifesto deemphasizes documentation, but there are times on a project when a little documentation can go a long way. In this article, we will explore why collaboration over comprehensive documentation shouldn’t mean “NO” documentation – and when you should stop coding and start writing things down.

  • Retrospectives Applied as “PROspectives"

    We can view situations in our work as opportunities from which to learn how to better handle similar situations in future, by looking back and asking “How will I deal with future situations like this to improve my results?” PROspectives help us to reflect more often, independently of acute, unexpected problems and without time pressure, to uncover ideas for future improvements.

  • Agile Walls

    BVCs, TOWs and POWs are very important tools in the agile world but what exactly are they? BVCs are Big Visible Charts, TOWs are Things on Walls and POWs are Plain Old Whiteboards – information radiators all. Using the right wallware and the information they provide can make or break an agile team.

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