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The "Consulting" Contract

Coach Michael Spayd tells us that both contractors and permanent employees can play a "consultant" role, and should think about developing consulting contracts or "designed partnerships" with their clients - not about the exchange of money, but to help create stellar results for the client while working in a manner that adheres to their own values and preferences.

Michael K. Spayd
on Dec 30, 2007
The Seven Fallacies of Business Process Execution

After 8+ years of intense research, the promises of BPM have not materialized: we are still far from having the ability to use the business process models designed by business analysts to create complete executable solutions. Some argue that we need to re-engineer BPM standards. In this paper we explore a new architecture blueprint for BPMSs that offers a cleaner alignment between SOA and BPM.

Jean-Jacques Dubray
on Dec 04, 2007
A Leaner Start: Reducing Team Setup Times

How long does it take a newcomer to become an effective member of your team? Learning integral to agile methodologies, but the learning needs of the newcomer are different from established team members: in a standup meeting, "I did (unintelligible) yesterday" offers them more questions than answers. Pat Kua suggests some practices that specifically reduce the "setup time" for new team members.

Pat Kua
on Nov 22, 2007
AgileEVM: Measuring Cost Efficiency Across the Product Lifecycle

In this InfoQ article, Tamara Suleiman explains AgileEVM, an adaptation of traditional Earned Value Management (EVM) metrics, designed to fit a Scrum project management framework. Compatible with traditional EVM metrics, it allows both Agile and traditional projects to be tracked within a single program, giving important early warnings of trends across the entire product life cycle.

Tamara Sulaiman
on Oct 05, 2007
Steve Sloan on BizTalk Server 2006 R2

InfoQ talked to Steve Sloan, Senior Product Manager, about the BizTalk Server 2006 R2 in the context of SOA.

Jean-Jacques Dubray
on Oct 04, 2007
Book Review: The Responsibility Virus Helps Fear Undermine Collaboration

Do "empowered" organizations outperform their command-and-control competitors? Business school dean Roger Martin saw this promising approach fail too frequently. His diagnosis: he calls it the Responsibility Virus, and offers tools to help those who would treat the Virus in their own workplace. Reviewer Deborah Hartmann found this book a good explanation of why process is not enough.

Deborah Hartmann Preuss
on Sep 10, 2007
SOA Governance - Long-Term SOA Implementation and Management

In this article, Wolfgang Keller explores the challenges in SOA adoption and discusses the commonalities and differences of SOA governance to overall IT governance. He discusses why SOA initiatives frequently get bogged down, and how the anchoring of SOA in an IT governance can help make SOA a success.

Wolfgang Keller
on Sep 10, 2007
An Introduction to Apache ODE

In this new InfoQ article, Paul Brown introduces Apache ODE, an open source implementation of the WS-BPEL 2.0 standard. ODE differs from other BPEL engines in that it is delivered as a component rather than a framework for developers looking to add orchestration functionality to their systems. Paul introduces ODE's features by showing how to deploy and execute a simple process.

Paul Brown
on Sep 03, 2007
Visualizing Agile Projects using Kanban Boards

In the spirit of "information radiators and “big visible charts” Kenji Hiranabe proposes using Kanban Boards to organize three viewpoints (Time, Task, and Team) so the whole team understands the current status of the project and can work in an autonomous, motivated and collaborative manner.

Kenji Hiranabe
on Aug 27, 2007
Service Composition

In this article, Boris Lublinsky discusses the main approaches to service composition, both from design and implementation point of view, and outlines the benefits of using orchestration. Topics covered include hierarchical vs. conversational composition, composition topologies, and the pros and cons of difference implementation approaches.

Boris Lublinsky
on Jul 26, 2007
Culture & Methods

Designing Collaborative Spaces for Productivity

The typical Agile team may work in a common "teamroom", but personal space is also needed. Teams find out fast enough that some of the creature comforts left behind in their former traditional spaces were there for good reasons. This article shares the collected wisdom of dozens of teams who created their own work spaces, as collected by several experienced Agile coaches.

Deborah Hartmann Preuss
on Jul 24, 2007
"Real Options" Underlie Agile Practices

Whether we realise it or not, "freedom to choose" is a principle underlying many Agile practices. By avoiding early commitments, we gain flexibility in the choices we make later. In this article, Chris Matts and Olav Maassen propose that an understanding of "Real Options" allows us to develop and refine new agile practices and take agile in directions it hasn't gone before.

Chris Matts Olav Maassen
on Jun 08, 2007

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