InfoQ Homepage XP Content on InfoQ
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Common misconceptions about paired programming
Paired programming is an agile practice that is the source of much debate. Martin Fowler has posted an article on common misconceptions with paired programming, suggesting that pair programming is not a requirement of XP, it does not halve productivity, and others.
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Experience Report: Unique Work-Study Agile Development Apprenticeship at NMHU
In 2004 a new work-study degree program launched at NMHU, using Agile practices to execute commercial projects. The premise: create a balance of people, software, systems, craft and agility to produce development teams 10 times as productive as their traditional counterparts. InfoQ brings you the story of a unique educational experiment: a challenge to think differently about training developers.
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Case Study: DSDM Bridges the Gap Between PRINCE 2 and XP
PRINCE 2 is a traditional project management method, mandated for government agencies in the UK. Extreme Programming (XP) is considered one of the lightest Agile software development methods, relying on team self-management. In this case study, Barbara Roberts uses one of the more management-oriented Agile methods, DSDM, to get these two approaches working together within a single project.
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Opinion: Take Agile Off Your Resume
Yesterday Steve Yegge blogged about development practices under the title "Good Agile, Bad Agile". He wrote about "Good Agile" at Google, "Bad Agile" almost everywhere else, and offered consultants and job hunters some professional advice: drop the name.
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Presentation: Jeff Sutherland on The Roots of Scrum
Jeff Sutherland, an Agile Manifesto signatory, ran the first Scrum at Easel Corp. in 1993. At JAOO 2005 he covered the history of Scrum from its inception to its impact at Easel, Fuji-Xerox, Honda, WildCard, Lexus, Google. Along the way Sutherland shared interesting stories & looked at Scrum types A, B, and "all at once" type C, reminding listeners that cultural change is the hard part of Scrum.
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Opinion: Time for an Agile Certification Program
Pete Behrens, trainer and organizational Agility consultant, recently blogged about the contentious topic of certification. He noted that both Scrum and FDD have 2-day basic certification programs, while "XP has remained silent on the topic," and called on the Agile community to begin looking at a true Agile Certification Process.
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Opinion: Putting Overtime in Perspective
Agile work, when done in a disciplined, creative way, tends to be very intense, so Agile leaders encourage balanced lives for team members and promote "sustainable pace". Mitch Lacey, a Microsoft Program Manager, recently blogged about his emerging understanding of how to use this XP practice appropriately.
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Put People First in Agile Distributed Testing
Baiju Joseph's new article on StickyMinds argues that, in order to build an effective testing team for distributed Agile, we need to focus on individuals and interactions over processes and tools. Based on the author's experience in setting up distributed agile testing teams, he lists numerous criteria that must be met in order to reach this goal.
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InfoQ Interview: Jim Johnson, Creator of the CHAOS Chronicles
InfoQ editor Deborah Hartmann interviewed the creator of the CHAOS Chronicles, Standish Group founder and chairman Jim Johnson. The Standish Group's statistics on project failure are widely quoted, as they have been since the first survey results came out in 1994. Jim spoke with Deborah about his research, and the role of Agile in changing the IT industry.
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Tech Stories Need to Include People and Technology
Brian Marick, reflecting on conversations heard at Agile2006, blogged about his concern that some of us are telling stories from the purely human or social viewpoint, while other are telling technology-only stories, noting that that XP isn't a story you can tell well without talking about both of these. Marick encourages us to include both when we communicate in and about projects.
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Agile, Orthodoxy and a Message From God
A long and complex thread on the ScrumDevelopment list, set off by the phrase "Agile 2.0," has been exploring the past and future of Agile methodologies (for good or ill) including so-called "next generations" approaches like AUP, MSF Agile, and AMDD. Ron Jeffries, Ken Schwaber and Scott Ambler are just a few of the serious agilists who participated in this lively conversation.
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Microsoft Counting On Scrum and XP
When Microsoft launched SQL Server 2005 last fall, ending a five-year wait for major revisions, Steve Ballmer acknowledged "It's been a bit long in the making, we're committed to a much closer cycle time."eWeek reports that they will do this using agile development methodologies, such as XP and Scrum. Yet they won't mandate methodology, stressing product quality instead to encourage improvement
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Patterns for Daily Stand-up Meetings Published
Jason Yip has published "It's not just standing up", Patterns for Daily Standups on Martin Fowler's Bliki. In the article he discusses the benefits and consequences of common practices for daily stand-ups. The patterns are intended to help direct the experimentation and adjustment of new practitioners as well as provide points of reflection to experienced practitioners.
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"Agile Practice" Patterns Wiki is Up
At XP2006, Amr Elssamadisy announced a new wiki site for collecting Agile Practice Patterns. Well, it's up and ready to go, already loaded with patterns from ChiliPlop 2006 and XP 2006 conferences.
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SirsiDynix Case Study: Jeff Sutherland on Highly Productive Distributed Scrum
Scrum co-creator Jeff Sutherland has just finished a paper on the SirsiDynix project, which he calls the most productive large Java project ever documented. The project used Distributed Scrum and some XP practices. Although distributed teams are often expected to experience reduced productivity, this team's productivity level matched that measured by Cohn on a co-located team!