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The Current Direction of Agile

This article focuses on some of the recent trends within the Agile community by briefly describing some alternatives to today’s well known Agile processes. Particularly focusing on estimation, forecasting deliverables and the increased impact Lean manufacturing has had on the Agile community.

Jon Arild Tørresdal
on Aug 19, 2009
Deployment is the Goal

When we write software, we're very good at getting requirements and turning them into code. To turn that beautiful code into working software we need to deploy and test it. Often, we fail to emphasize the latter as well as the former. Do you have a backlog of "code complete" software waiting to be deployed, tested, signed-off and made live?

Julian Simpson
on Aug 13, 2009
FlexMonkey brings unit testing to Flex user interface developers

This article explores how Gorilla Logic's new, open source Flex user interface automation testing tool, FlexMonkey, can enhance the productivity of both developers and QA testers. FlexMonkey allows developers to incorporate user interface testing into unit test suites and continuous integration environments, and allows QA testers to expand those tests into comprehensive quality tests.

Stuart Stern
on Jul 15, 2009
Pulling Power: A New Software Lifespan

Elizabeth Keogh looks at how Kanban and Feature Injection can play into Behaviour Driven Development, to work together to help identify the most important software, reduce unnecessary artifacts at each stage of development, and produce the minimum necessary to achieve a vision.

Liz Keogh
on May 27, 2009
Where To Now with Build Automation?

Most developers nowadays are familiar with the basic tenets of Continuous Integration, but arguably only a small proportion of these are fully benefiting from an optimized CI set up.This article, discusses taking Continuous Integration beyond merely being a glorified cron job and making it an effective, productivity-enhancing hub for development activity.

John Smart
on May 15, 2009
Virtual Panel: Is the Backlog a Vital Artifact and Practice or Waste?

Mary Poppendieck, Ron Jeffries, Jeff Patton, David West, Steve Freeman, and Jason Yip give us their take on backlogs and their importance to successful Agile teams.

Amr Elssamadisy
on Apr 20, 2009
Book Excerpt: Agile Testing

This book is for testers on an agile team, test and quality assurance managers transitioning to agile development, and agile teams learning how to approach testing. The book introduces agile testing, how it's different from testing on a traditional team, and what makes agile testers different. The book contains dozens of stories about the various testing-related issues faced and resolved.

Lisa Crispin Janet Gregory
on Mar 24, 2009
Successfully Adopting Pair Programming

Jay Fields takes a look at pair programming from an adoption perspective. This article is for you if you already know what pair programming is and guidance on how to get to the point of successfully practicing pair programming. Jay goes over everything from an optimal seating arrangement, to effective coaching techniques, to calling out common mistakes to avoid.

Jay Fields
on Mar 05, 2009
Lean and Agile: Marriage Made in Heaven or Oxymoron?

Scrum and agile methods promote the establishment of a product backlog. Some leaders of the Lean community feel that the product backlog is "waste." This article argues that Lean advocates that see backlogs only as "an inventory" of things to be done are making the classic mistake of viewing software development as a production process. Backlogs are fundamental to Agility.

Dave West
on Feb 13, 2009
Making TDD Stick: Problems and Solutions for Adopters

Mark Levison observed that, after solid classroom training, teams in larger companies still struggle to adopt TDD. To better understand the problem he surveyed team members. In this article he shares the problems he uncovered and his own comprehensive strategy, designed to help anyone introducing TDD into an organization.

Mark Levison
on Jan 05, 2009
A Case For Short Iterations

Dave Nicolette, Agile Coach with Valtech, addresses the question are short iterations better than long. Dave demonstrates that short iterations: allow for more rapid response to change, the opportunity to discover and fix problems more often. He also deals with the concerns that short iterations might lead to burnout and other issues.

Dave Nicolette
on Oct 31, 2008
Book Review: Agile Adoption Patterns, A Roadmap to Organizational Success

Ryan Cooper reviewed Amr Elssamadisy's new book and found it a useful framework for designing customized adoption strategies. Rather than a single recipe of Agile practices for everyone, the reader is offered patterns and tools to help determine which practices will most effectively help them reach their own organization's specific goals.

Ryan Cooper
on Jul 21, 2008