David Thach and Rick Rene share what they have learned are the most effective and readily adoptable agile processes, as well as a few techniques to integrate hybrid waterfall approaches. Companies adopt an agile software development framework to become more effective and more efficient, not to become a model of purist agile utopia—which, if attempted, ironically can be immensely costly and detrimental to progress, if not disastrous.

Most of the organizations in today's world have some legacy software or systems. With pressures coming from outsourcing and cost-cutting, new applications are constantly being added to existing IT frameworks. In most cases, it is risky to completely replace the existing systems. As a result, most places have complex applications and systems frameworks. In order to achieve a successful coexistence of several applications on different platforms and technology architecture, teams are faced with some major questions, such as "Should we interoperate or integrate?"

As corporate budgets remain tight, most of us are tired of always having to justify additional spending. When security testing pops up on your QA radar, you probably realize that more people and money are needed to make it a reality. But what your boss really wants to see in your plan is a return on investment. In this week's column, Ryan English will help you set up the facts before you try to justify security testing in QA to your manager.

Many companies are under the impression that testing for Web application security simply involves a cursory check for easy-to-guess usernames and passwords. But Ryan English believes application security testing can and should involve more complex checks, such as testing for SQL injection and cross-site scripting. In this column, Ryan explains that management should avoid postponing this sort of review until the Web application is in production, when it is too late to stop a hacker or a malicious program from attacking and much more expensive to remediate the vulnerability. Instead, QA groups should enter the SDLC early to help mitigate risk.