collaboration

Articles

The Independent Tester

Has the agile world’s insistence on collaboration blown away the need for testers to be independent? What do we mean by “independence,” anyway? Consultant Fiona Charles argues that tester independence is essential, but that it is a state of mind that can thrive only when the whole organizational culture supports it.

Livestock Improvement Goes Agile

Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC) is one of the largest integrated herd-improvement organizations in the world. This is the story of how LIC transitioned from a successful, traditional development process to one with hyper-productive agile teams that produce software faster, better, and cheaper.

Agile Teamwork: Three Ways to Minimize Handoffs

Rather than rely on large handoffs between specialties, high-performing Scrum teams learn to do a little bit of everything all the time during a sprint. To do this effectively, teams must make three changes: shift from writing about requirements to talking about them, reduce the size of handoffs and make them more frequently, and pay more attention to the size of the product backlog items that they bring into their sprints.

Specification by Example: Collaborating on a Scope without High-Level Control

Understanding what the business users are trying to achieve can significantly help you focus the project on things that really matter. In this excerpt from Gojko Adzic's book Specification by Example, the author offers some tips for effectively collaborating on the project scope when you don’t have high-level control of the project.

Better Software Magazine

Creative Agility

Many new products being developed require the contribution of artists and other such "creatives," but artists often view the creative process as an organic thing that cannot be analyzed, dissected, or reduced to a set of defined practices without killing it. This article explores barriers such as these to the introduction of agile methods and how these barriers can be overcome.

The Three Amigos

Analysts determine what needs to be created. Programmers create it. Testers find the holes in the work of both. That's one way to do it, but all three can collaborate to do these things better, and more easily, too.

Bridging the Gap Between Disciplines

Two industry experts from very different worlds walk you through a Eureka! moment. Get their thoughts on how to build a strong, successful collaborative effort between two distinct disciplines.

Asking the Right Questions and Asking Them Right

Naomi Karten shares how to ask the questions that ensure you and your customer are on the same page. Her tips include: 1) guard against conflicting interpretations; 2) don't jump to conclusions; 3) gather feedback early and often; 4) examine your rules for commenting; 5) conduct congruent questioning; and 6) find out what's important to your customers.

Interviews

The 2013 Software Development Lab: An Interview with Johanna Rothman

Video

Johanna Rothman details the upcoming "Software Manager's Lab" being held at the 2013 Agile Development Conference West in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Wednesday, June 5th. Communication skills will be focused on along with a peer-to-peer feedback model that can be used between all employee levels.

Taking a Holistic View of Collaboration: An Interview with Bob Hartman

Bob Hartman uses more than three decades of experience in software, working in nearly every position imaginable, to express the need for team members to value all coworkers equally. In this quick interview, Bob explains his "holistic" approach to accomplishing effective and enjoyable collaboration.

Why the BA Is Essential to Agile Development: An Interview with Steve Adolph

Video

Steve Adolph explains why the BA's role on an agile project cannot be overvalued, due to their immense communication and collaboration skills. Steve describes the best BA's as "boundary spanners" who know the importance of keeping everyone sitting together, and most importantly—talking.

My Life as a Virtual Team Member: An Interview with Nanda Lankalapalli

Inspired by the Better Software magazine article, "Make Your Tele-team Work," I spoke in more detail with Nanda Lankalapalli about what it's like to be a virtual team member and what it took to create a "Virtual Nanda."