Agile Zone - Software Methodologies for Development Managers

Accounting for Bugs in an Agile World - How we do it

Agilebuddy — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 14:21:37 +0000

Today I'd like to share with you a really important aspect of Agile software development - how to account for bugs in your daily plans. I am frequently asked by teams I consult with how to deal with bugs if you're Agile and using Scrum. Questions like the following come up time and time again: "Should I track hours burned fixing bugs?" "Should the hours burned on fixing bugs count...

Agile Architecture Requires Modularity

kirkk — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:43:56 +0000

A few weeks ago, I presented my view of agile architecture, and followed that up with a post on DZone that presented two aspects of agile architecture. A process aspect, which is temporal, and a structural aspect. Here, I embellish.References Reference: Agile Architecture Requires Modularity ...

Career 2.0: Take Control of Your Life

mstine — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:13:04 +0000

ISBN or ASIN: B00262MTOA Cover Image: 31EHsHI4p6L._SL500_AA240_.jpg Book Author(s): Jared Richardson Matthew Bass Publisher: ...

Test Infecting Your Team

kirkk — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:06:16 +0000

Recently, a simple question was posed to the Yahoo Test Driven Development (TDD) group. I've seen situations where the person on a team you would single out to infect produces a high level of quality of code without unit testing. In this case you have to show the leader that their team could produce more value if they were to adopt unit testing, even when the difference it makes for them is...

The Scrum of Scrums

kswaters — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:42:47 +0000

It is sometimes said that agile software development methods, such as Scrum, are ideal for small projects being delivered by small teams.Personally I would certainly agree that Scrum is ideal for small, multi-disciplined, co-located teams, working on a common purpose.References Reference: Using Scrum on Larger Projects: "The Scrum of...

Tough times out there - Scrum can show you the way out!

Agilebuddy — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:35:15 +0000

"In these tough economic times" I've heard this so many times it's starting to annoy me. Yet, this little proverb is sublimely relevant; it taps into the psyche of consumers and businesses alike who continue to say to themselves "Can we afford this?" Corollary to the fear, budgets shrink, revenues disappear, and company objectives change from thriving to surviving. As the...

Defining Kanban

Henrik.Martensson — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:21:35 +0000

There has been a long thread in the kanbandev group at Yahoo about how to define what a kanban system is, and is not. Defining kanban is important because without an unambiguous definition it is difficult to discuss kanban.A kanban system is a system for process control. Kanban was invented by Taichi Ohno at Toyota more than fifty years ago. There are many types of kanban systems, for production...

Three Levels of Control (Example)

jurgenappelo — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:07:48 +0000

In my last post I told you about the three levels of control for managers. I didn't have much time to go into details then, and it was no surprise to see several readers asking for specific examples. I am glad to oblige now, because like you I'm also trying to figure out how these ideas would apply to my daily business. Let's review the three levels again:References Reference: ...

The Product Owner - Top 10 Responsibilities

Agilebuddy — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:25:45 +0000

Over the course of the past 5 years, I have often been asked about the role the Product Owner plays in an Agile company. More recently in a rather controversial blog post by Adam Bullied he raised the question – Is there such a thing as an Agile Product Manager? From my experience, there is. And this role in Scrum is defined as the Product Owner. The Product Owner from my experience...

To Estimate or Not - That Is the Question

kswaters — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 15:41:34 +0000

Lean software development shares many of the key principles of agile software development.Although one of the key aspects of lean development is all about identifying and eliminating waste from the development process...References Reference: To Estimate or Not To Estimate? That is the Question! ...

Agile Product Manager in the Enterprise (3): Responsibility-Owning the Vision

deanleffingwell@gmail.com — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:01:35 +0000

Note: this is the third in a series of posts on the changing role of product management as the enterprise transitions to agile development methods. This series in turn, is a continuation of the series on the Role of Product Manager and Product Owner in the Agile Enterprise which can be found in the Product Manager/Product Owner series on this blog as well as a series in the Agile...

Recommended Books on Agile

mcottmeyer — Fri, 29 May 2009 13:09:04 +0000

Quite frequently I am out talking to traditional project managers or new agile teams that want to learn a little bit more about all this agile stuff. Inevitibly I get asked what books I recommend for folks trying to sharpen their agile chops. Thought I would share a few that I recommend the most with a few words on why I think they are important:References Reference: ...

Self-Organization (Part 3)

jurgenappelo — Wed, 27 May 2009 13:58:01 +0000

In part 1 and part 2 of this multi-post article I told you that self-organization does not distinguish between valuable and harmful results. This distinction is only made by humans, because we have learned to assign value to things. And command-and-control was invented to consciously steer self-organization towards that which is valuable. Like health. And gold.References Reference: ...

Introducing Kanban, Flow, and Cadence

kjscotland — Tue, 26 May 2009 13:15:13 +0000

There has been some noticeable increase in interest in Kanban recently, with a number of people asking for more basic info, and more people writing new blogs and articles. This is my attempt to describe in more detail my take on it all, which I refer to as Kanban, Flow and Cadence.References Reference: Kanban, Flow and Cadence ...

Why have a Product Owner anyway?

Agilebuddy — Mon, 25 May 2009 15:29:16 +0000

I can’t stress enough just how important the role of the Product Owner really is. This job is not for the faint-of-heart. In fact, the Product Owner is probably the most important individual on the Scrum team since he single-handedly is responsible for driving the direction the team is taking. The Product Owner And The Team