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  • I’d Rather Be Coding – Writing Things Down

    For lots of reasons, most developers hate writing down anything that isn’t code. The Agile Manifesto deemphasizes documentation, but there are times on a project when a little documentation can go a long way. In this article, we will explore why collaboration over comprehensive documentation shouldn’t mean “NO” documentation – and when you should stop coding and start writing things down.

  • Virtual Panel: Specification by Example, Executable Specifications, Scenarios and Feature Injection

    In the last couple of years terms like Specification by Example, Executable Specifications and Feature Injection have showed up quite frequently in the community, often in relation to Behaviour Driven Development (BDD) or tools like Cucumber or SpecFlow. InfoQ have talked to some of the leading experts in this domain about what these practices are and how they relate to BDD.

  • New book - Individuals and Interactions: An Agile Guide

    Ken Howard and Barry Rogers have written a book that focuses on the first value from the Agile Manifesto. They provide advice, tools and techniques to help teams and individuals improve their communications and interpersonal interactions. The book presents a set of tools that work together more effectively. They provide guidelines for a workshop to put the techniques into practice.

  • Book Excerpt: Coaching Agile Teams by Lyssa Adkins

    Very little in our education or experience properly prepares a ScrumMaster or project manager for the role of agile coach. This leaves most wondering, "What is my role in a self-organized team? How do I help the team yet stay hands-off?" This chapter, excerpted from the book Coaching Agile Teams, shows you how to activate the journey toward high performance in both provocative and practical ways.

  • Learnings from Five Years as a Skype Architect

    Too often in our work as architects and designers we focus on the task at hand, seldom reflecting on the past. We should really know better, how else do we improve? This article by Andres Kutt summarizes six learnings from 55 months as an architecture team lead at Skype. Some of them are technical while some focus upon the softer aspects of an architect's work.

  • "Flirting" With Your Customers

    All over the world, there are classes that teach people how to flirt. A German university even requires their IT engineers take a flirting class—not to attract a partner, but to learn how to interact more effectively in the workplace. Flirting means connecting with others, and connecting is the key to good communication. That is what the first principal of the Agile Manifesto is all about.

  • Book Review: Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision Making

    One of the responsibilities of self-organizing teams is to take decisions that respect everyone’s opinion. This book has some great examples in coaching the team to navigate through difficult discussions so they can maintain their speed without endangering their success by suspending or ignoring critical issues.

  • Tips for Effective Software Reuse

    Vijay Narayananoffers 10 practival tips on succeeding with systematic reuse of software components, based on his experience with multiple projects. The collection of tips is not intended to be exhaustive but will help developers and team leaders to appreciate the variety of strategies that one has to undertake in order to succeed with systematic reuse.

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