InfoQ Homepage Leadership Content on InfoQ
-
Big Architecture Up Front - A Case of Premature Scalaculation?
Taking a look at the reaction in the blogosphere to the idea of "premature scalaculation". The question is - when designing your application, how much time should you spend on building out for scalability?
-
Teleconferencing: How To Keep 'Em Engaged
While Agile processes recommend to colocate team members for synergy, it's not always possible. More and more projects are utilizing talent from locations all over the world to solve various problems. In these cases leaders and facilitators can contribute significantly to teamwork by mastering the ability to run effective remote meetings.
-
Panel on Agile Leadership: Stories from the Trenches
InfoQ presents video of a panel from the APLN Leadership Summit at Agile2006, where four business leaders spoke about their experiences: Bud Phillips (Capital One Financial), Israel Ganot (BMC Software), Steven Ambrose (DTE Energy), Peter George (Cronos Inc.). Topics included top-down vs. bottom-up adoption, making the leap of faith to enterprise adoption and the value of the PMO.
-
No More Self-Organizing Teams?
Jim Highsmith has suggested that the term self-organizing team "has outlived its usefulness in the agile community and needs to be replaced". He suggests that Light-Touch Leadership is more appropriate. But does this negate the need for self-organizing teams and the focus on individual team members "doing what it takes" to get things done?
-
Leadership is not Obsolete for Self-Organizing Teams!
In this talk, software thought leader Mary Poppendieck reviewed 20th century management theories, including Toyota and Deming, and went on to talk about "the matrix problem", alignment, waste cutting, planning, standards and other topics including the role of measurement: "cash flow thinking" over "balance sheet thinking". InfoQ presents video of this popular talk from the Agile2007 conference.
-
Ready! Set! Getting New Team Members off to a Good Start.
How long does it take a newcomer to become an effective member of your team? Learning is 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.
-
Oracle Mix: First large JRuby on Rails app online
JRuby on Rails powers its first public webapp: Oracle Mix, a social networking app, was announced at OracleWorld. Built in a few weeks by a team of Oracle and ThoughtWorks, it shows that its possible to build a large application using JRuby on Rails and the Oracle software stack.
-
ThoughtWorks Releases Mingle 1.1
Mingle R1.1 is out, just 3 months after after the first release, packed with new functionality driven by user feedback from the launch and beta period. In December R1.2 will be released.
-
Interview: Jay Fields and Zak Tamsen on Domain Specific Languages
Jay Fields and Zak Tamsen talked with InfoQ about Domain Specific Languages (DSLs), and how they have successfully used them in their projects at ThoughtWorks to empower businesses, reduce development time, and increase the agility of projects.
-
Without a Defined Process, How Will We Know Who To Blame?
"A fundamental premise of the 'train-wreck' approach to management is that the primary cause of problems is 'dereliction of duty'" said Peter Scholtes in his 2003 book on leadership. Mary Poppendieck's recent article on process, people and systems asked: "Which is more important - process or people?" and showed how Lean is an alternative to certified process improvement programs like ISO 9000.
-
The Right Phrase at the Right Time: Priceless
Saying the right thing at the right time can transform an interaction. But it's difficult! In a recent StickyMinds article, Michele Sliger suggested a handful of phrases to help keep the conversation going in the right direction.
-
Ted Neward's thoughts on Architecture Roles & Responsibilites
Ted Neward shares his thoughts on the roles and responsibilities of the Software Architect, discussing what an architect does, how to approach the role, and if architects are still relevant.
-
Jean Tabaka's Agile Odyssey
In this amusing presentation from Agile2006, Jean Tabaka compares impediments and obstacles encountered by an Agile mentor with those detailed in Homer's classic. In this 73 minutes presentation, discover who plays which classical roles in Agile adoption: Cyclops, the Sirens, Poseidon, Circe, Cicones, the Lotus-Eaters, and even the good-and-faithful dog Argus.
-
InfoQ Book Review: The Responsibility Virus
Agile teams can use a regular learning cycle to shift gradually and organically into a more collaborative mode. But the rest of the business may not be equally well equipped. Deborah Hartmann proposes that the Responsibility Virus is an important book for the change agent's library, suggesting that it may provide a tool to help other parts of the organization also grow into greater collaboration.
-
Agile Alliance Elects New Directors
After Agile 2007 the Agile Alliance announced the election results of its ballot for board members for the 2007-2008 period.