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Agile Estimates versus #NoEstimates: Bridging the Gap Agile teams can easily get puzzled by the heated debate happening between advocates for estimation and those in the #NoEstimates camp. However, by comparing how they solve these problems, we can identify many common practices between the two groups and see they are not truly at odds—they actually complement each other. Let's bridge the gap.
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Agile Development: Focusing on the Health of Your Code In Scrum, the product owner and the ScrumMaster are supposed to drive sustainable development. But there's a third force missing from the formula: the health of the code itself. We often forget that our code is also a member of our team, and we have to be concerned about its health and well-being as much as any other team member. That means using practices to develop good code from the beginning.
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Picking the Right Branch-Merge Strategy A good branch-merge strategy facilitates processes among multiple developers and is the basis for any well-functioning DevOps pipeline that uses continuous integration. Let’s explore branching strategies, merging strategies, and how you can put them together in a way that’s right for your team in order to bring quality features to production faster.
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3 Elusive Qualities of a Great Product Owner When it comes to guiding the development of a product and ensuring you’re building what the user actually needs, a product owner is the most important hire for the team. There’s just one problem: A good product owner can be really hard to find. The characteristics that make a good product owner are elusive, but here are three qualities you should prioritize in your search.
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5 Ways ScrumMasters Can Enhance Daily Standups Daily standup meetings can turn into a perfunctory chore, with everyone simply going through the motions. It’s the ScrumMaster’s job to make sure that doesn’t happen and the meetings remain useful for everyone. With these five ideas, the ScrumMaster can actively help daily scrums be effective and encourage communication, transparency, and efficient delivery of value.
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Eliminate Fake Certainty and Solve the Real Problem Too often, customers have a “fake certainty” about the problems they want to solve. They might not have defined the real problem, but they have frequently defined the solution anyway. The risk is that we might build the wrong thing. When the product owner works with the customers to define the problem, then works with the team to define the solution, everyone can win.
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Why You Need Continuous Testing in DevOps DevOps is more than adopting the right set of tools; it's a cultural shift that incorporates testing at each stage of the agile project lifecycle. Continuous testing is key to unlocking this culture change because it weaves testing activities into every part of the software design, development, and deployment processes, which helps everyone involved communicate more, collaborate better, and innovate faster.
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The Agile Alphabet, Part 2 The world of agile has many terms for concepts, principles, and practices common in the community. Ben Kopel came up with a list of some of the most important words used when practicing agile and organized them into a glossary with one term for every letter of the alphabet. Here's the second half, with N through Z.
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The Agile Alphabet, Part 1 The world of agile has many terms for concepts, principles, and practices common in the community. Ben Kopel came up with a list of some of the most important words used when practicing agile and organized them into a glossary with one term for every letter of the alphabet. Here's the first half, with A through M.
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Kickoff Meetings Give Your Agile Projects a Running Start Agile projects are ideally a collaborative effort among the team members and with the customers, and the planning process should be a similar endeavor. Everyone should get a clear understanding of the project as well as their respective roles and responsibilities. As the saying goes, well begun is half done. A well-planned kickoff meeting sets the tone for a successful project.
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