Agile

Articles

Lean Metrics for Agile Software Configuration Management

Taking an lean-agile slant on metrics for configuration management, the authors focus on ways to measure the value CM and SCM adds to the project and product and how to measure flow and waste.

The Agile-V Balanced Scorecard Metrics

Much has been written about the balanced scorecard methodology. Its goal is to measure desired outcomes and predict drivers of those outcomes. For a properly implemented agile team, this line-of-site measurement happens naturally and is controlled daily. This article suggests a simple and natural scorecard that provides accurate daily visibility of drivers and outcomes for an agile team focused on delivering business value to its clients.

Guy Beaver's picture Guy Beaver
Why You Need to Be Specific about Agile Practice Adoption

Amr Elssamadisy presents one way to share our knowledge that is more specific than full methodologies and processes, more general than war stories, and will help new agile adopters get beyond the mantra "It depends!"

Amr Elssamadisy's picture Amr Elssamadisy
Formality and Agility

In this article, Jose Silva addresses managers involved in the maintenance of software development processes. The information provided should help readers make more conscious decisions on what and how to include agile practices in a formal software development process. The author also provides a real case example and the practical results that came from this experience.

The Whole Product

It's easy to split user-experience experts and software architects into different categories and still grant them equal importance; the former deals with the façade of the software while the latter deals with the workings beneath the surface. This separate, but equal attitude changed for Jeff Patton after attending a workshop in which his eyes opened to an epiphany of holism in software development. From this enlightened moment, Jeff realized a way software development could change for the better.

Jeff Patton's picture Jeff Patton
Write a Blockbuster Using User Scenarios

Big projects require many little user stories. But if these scenarios don't add up to one good story, then you're probably missing out on the big picture. In this week's column, Jeff Patton describes how his team weaves many small tales into a single strong report by identifying key characters and themes.

Jeff Patton's picture Jeff Patton
Feature-Driven Development: An Agile Alternative to Extreme Programming

Feature-driven development (FDD) has the more traditional progression of a systems-engineering life cycle mode as compared to agile methods. It uses distinct phases in its iterations while still being highly iterative and collaborative. FDD does conduct up-front planning, design and documentation and relies very heavily upon domain modeling.

Brad Appleton's picture Brad Appleton
Using Mocks to Verify Interactions

In the March 2006 issue of Better Software magazine, Dan North began a discussion of the evolution of behavior-driven development from test-driven development. Here, North continues the conversation with closer look at "mocks," utility classes that, for testing purposes, pretend to be some component or service with which your object will interact.

Dan North's picture Dan North
Cases Against Applying Schedule Pressure

Do you think that by removing deadlines from a project a team will have enough time to create perfect software? Theoretically, it's possible, but in this column Mike Cohn explains that this theory might not hold against ingrained behavior. He recalls how several teams reacted when deadlines were lifted from the projects they were working on. Their only goal: to produce perfect software. But that goal inadvertently brought something to the surface, that old habits die hard.

Mike Cohn's picture Mike Cohn
Paving Cow Paths

In the IT world, "paving cow paths" means automating a business process as is, without thinking too much about whether or not that process is effective or efficient. Often business process automation initiatives require figuring out entirely new ways of doing business processes–impossible prior to automation (for example, work flow automation and digital image processing)–defining more effective and efficient process highways. In this week's column, Jim Highsmith warns that when we pave the cow paths and ignore the highways, we do a disservice to our customers.

Jim Highsmith

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