Derk-Jan de Grood

Santos, Consolaro, and Di Gioia's Agile Technical Practices offers a deep dive into core agile practices like pair programming and test-driven development. It's a valuable resource for developers seeking to improve code quality and maintainability. While focused on a limited set, exploring other agile techniques can further enhance development practices. As the article points out, skilled developers are crucial for organizations aiming to deliver value effectively.

Agile teams often benefit from stability, but this isn't always the best approach. While stable teams enhance collaboration and productivity, they can also lead to isolated work and knowledge hoarding. Restructuring teams can offer advantages like employee growth, improved knowledge sharing, and better alignment with organizational goals. Ultimately, the decision to keep teams stable or shuffle members depends on specific project needs and desired outcomes.

Agile teams aim for autonomy to deliver end-to-end solutions quickly. However, most organizations rely on interdependent teams, creating delays and bottlenecks. This article explores five types of dependencies: chain, stack, shared people, shared resources, and shared codebase. Each dependency type comes with its own challenges that impact delivery speed and quality.

While watching For All Mankind, an American science fiction series on AppleTV+, Derk-Jan has recognized 3 take-aways that will assist with agile collaboration and communication.

Within the test scene there is a vivid discussion about the necessity and use of a certification model for the test experts. The population of testers can be roughly divided into two groups: Firstly, a group that states that it will not do a better job when certified, because the current certifications like ISTQB and ISEB focus on methods and terminology, but fail to look at the practical testing skills of the tester [Bolton, 2008]. Secondly, a group who is pro certification and regards the testing industry as a young yet not fully grown profession that lacks certification models that other professions have been using for ages [Windsor 2007]. Meanwhile, voices are heard that the test profession is accepted in the IT industry and that it has actually grown into a mature profession. The website of the last EuroSTAR conference stated that a mature profession has clearly-defined standards, codes of conduct, and a number of levels of professional competence. Having all those, we might conclude that the testing profession has indeed earned its place among the IT-professions.