agile

Articles

Developing User Stories The Three Amigos Strategy of Developing User Stories

Developing software correctly is a detail-oriented business. George Dinwiddie writes on how using the Three Amigos strategy can help you develop great user stories. Remember, the goal is to have the work done just in time for planning and development. It should be complete enough to avoid stoppages to build more understanding, but not so far in advance that the details get stale.

George Dinwiddie's picture George Dinwiddie
Business Metrics How Depersonalizing Work and Managing Flow Can Humanize the Workplace

Using metrics such as cumulative flow to monitor throughput and quantitative thinking may not seem very humanistic, but by depersonalizing the work being done, we can focus our energies on solving actual problems instead of conducting a daily witch-hunt and shaming people into high performance.

Adam Yuret's picture Adam Yuret
Development DNA The Evolution of z/OS Development

Kristin Cowhey explains how z/OS development has evolved throughout the years and what that means for developers and tech personnel. With legacy developers leaving the workforce, there’s a dire need to replace the knowledge in order to maintain the mainframe systems and applications that are still in use today. 

Kristin Cowhey's picture Kristin Cowhey
Agile World Typewriter Writing in an Agile World

Sarah Johnson explains the role of writing in an agile world and how to educate your team members. Remember, agile takes into account that each situation is unique, and you need to determine what makes the most sense for your particular Scrum team.

Sarah Johnson's picture Sarah Johnson
 Myth 28: I Can Standardize How Other People Work Management Myth 28: I Can Standardize How Other People Work

Johanna Rothman writes that organization-wide standards don’t help if management imposes them. If people ask for help with standards, then you can provide local help to each team. And if the teams are part of a program where you have one business objective common to multiple projects, make sure the program understands the problem.

Johanna Rothman's picture Johanna Rothman
QA Management: All Bark and No Bite? QA Management: All Bark and No Bite?

Mike Talks shares with us the unlikely story of how his pet German Shepherd inadvertently became his team's QA manager. Talks explains how his German Shepherd was able to gather people together and have them talk to each other, similiar to what a QA manager does—keeping people on task, handing out assignments, and following up with team members.

Mike Talks's picture Mike Talks
Big Agile: Enterprise Savior or Oxymoron? Big Agile: Enterprise Savior or Oxymoron?

Lawrence Putnam explains whether or not big agile is an enterprise savior or an oxymoron. What if agile only works when teams and projects stay relatively small? That’s the question most CIOs want answered before investing scarce time, energy, or resources chasing the big agile paradigm.

Larry Putnam, Jr's picture Larry Putnam, Jr
Agile Development for Enterprise Software Scaling Agile Development for Enterprise Software

Enterprise development organizations are increasingly embracing agile as a concept, if not entirely in practice. That’s because adopting and scaling agile methodologies for large, complex enterprise software projects can seem daunting. Larry Ayres shares some tips for scaling agile development for enterprise software.

Larry Ayres's picture Larry Ayres
Communicating Effectively in Agile Development Projects Communicating Effectively in Agile Development Projects

In today’s fast-paced workplace, software developers and project managers are confronted with a painful paradox. They are faced with continual pressure to accelerate the development process, but this “need for speed” can result in communication failures—and the accompanying project and quality problems.

Payson Hall's picture Payson Hall
The Self-Abuse of Sprint Commitment The Self-Abuse of Sprint Commitment

Adam Yuret explains what can go wrong when teams blindly commit themselves to sprints; collaboration and quality suffer when we pressure people to work themselves to death by forcing them to promise things they cannot yet understand. Investing in systems-thinking approaches to improve the lives of our workers will pay dividends in improved quality, engagement, and creativity.

Adam Yuret's picture Adam Yuret

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