InfoQ Homepage Agile Techniques Content on InfoQ
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Debunking Common Refactoring Misconceptions
In comparison to Java, an emphasis on continuous refactoring is still relatively new in .NET. Besides having few ardent proponents, many myths linger around what refactoring really is and how it applies to the development process in general. Danijel Arsenovski, author of Professional Refactoring in Visual Basic, attempts to dispel some of these myths.
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User Story Estimation Techniques
One of the great things about working as a consultant is the ability to try out many different ideas and adapting your personal favorite process to include things that work. This article gives the details about user story estimation techniques that Jay Fields has found effective.
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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.
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The Secret Sauce of Highly Productive Software Development
When Agile teams get stuck in the just-average Norming stage, rather than continuting to the exciting, high Performing stage of teamwork, sometimes they're suffering from an invisible "learning bottleneck" that stunts team performance. Agile practices require us to take time to reflect and learn - and a team that learns quickly succeeds.
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Book Excerpt: Continuous Integration means Continuous Testing
Continuous Integration, a basic XP practice, has now become an accepted development best practice. InfoQ presents Chapter 6: Continuous Testing, with advice and examples for writing good tests to ensure system quality, from the book "Continuous Integration: Improving Software Quality and Reducing Risk," which aims help teams make CI a transparent "non-event".
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Implementing Automated Governance for Coding Standards
Most development organizations of a significant size have some form of coding standards and best practices. Simply documenting these standards and keeping them up to date can be a significant challenge and enforcing them even harder. Our organization has found that enforcing coding standards and best practices in an automated fashion through our build process has been highly effective.
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Eric Newcomer on the future of OSGi
Eric Newcomer, co-chair of the OSGi Enterprise work group, talks about the evolution of OSGi and it's relationship to SOA and ESB. He discusses how he thinks OSGi will evolve over the coming years and whether or not it makes sense for Sun to adopt OSGi as the container model of choice."
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How To: Live and Learn with Retrospectives
Traditional SDLCs say how interactions within a team and between teams should happen; a prescription that doesn't always fit or isn't followed consistently. Rachel Davies explains how retrospectives allow teams to improve their processes by reviewing past events and brainstorming new ideas, and shows how to facilitate a retrospective for your team.
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SOA and Agile: Friends or Foes?
SOA aims at making the entire enterprise agile by using services as the building blocks for applications. Agile software development aims at making organizations agile by introducing practices that increase communication and feedback. Which is right? Which is better? Are we comparing apples and oranges? Can they be used together, and if so, how? Join us in the discussion!