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Electric Cloud Reaps Rewards of Continuous Integration and Developer Builds

Electric Cloud, a leading provider of software production management tools, has always employed an iterative, agile approach to its software development. But like many fast-paced technology companies, a script-driven, manual approach and once-daily integration builds could not scale effectively to support its growth. Through a mix of tools and best practices, Electric Cloud was able to deploy an end-to-end build and change management system with fully automated continuous integration (CI). This new software production system has reduced the time Electric Cloud engineers spend on software production by more than 30 percent and has saved the company an estimated $700,000 per year.

TechWell Contributor's picture TechWell Contributor
Experiences in Release Planning: Two Days in the Life of an Agile Newbie

Hello, my name is Maurice Sare. (my friends call me Mo). I am a first level tech lead/engineering manager at Gameonics, Inc, a multinational developer of distributed gaming for PCs and now, it seems, "smart phones." I've only been here a few weeks. Before that, I worked for a company that developed operating systems for smart phones, so I know something about the domain, but I've never worked at the applications layer, before. Before this, I hadn't had any formal training in agile development practices.

TechWell Contributor's picture TechWell Contributor
Well-Formed Teams and Agile: An Opportunity to Thrive

Well-formed agile teams can thrive in a direction ideally set by business vision. Unfortunately, many teams are forced into survival by organizations that push work through the team matrix, forcing teams to establish themselves as dependencies. The purpose of this article is to firmly establish the notion of well-formed teams so that guidance patterns for their creation can help organizations to "thrive" instead of "survive."

TechWell Contributor's picture TechWell Contributor
An Uncomfortable Truth about Agile Testing

One characteristic of agile development is continuous involvement from testers throughout the process. Testers have a hard and busy job. Jeff has finally starting to understand why testing in agile development is fundamentally different.

Jeff Patton's picture Jeff Patton
Is Collaboration the Right Way to Work?

Do you manage a team or a group? How can you tell the difference, and is it important to differentiate the two? In this column, Esther Derby explains that identifying your associates as one or the other is paramount to how they should be managed.

Esther Derby's picture Esther Derby
Multi-user, Multi-process Test Automation

There is a saying about how to make software: First you make it work; then you make it good; then you make it fast. If you have working test automation, and if your test automation is finding bugs, then the next step is to make your tests run fast. This article talks about handling two things you will need to address to make that happen: users and processes.

Chris McMahon's picture Chris McMahon
The Agile Project Management Office (Agile PMO)

Traditional program management offices (PMOs) are responsible for providing checks and balances to the development and IT organizations regarding budget and schedule. Oversight and management that comes from the PMO drives certain behaviors in the project managers and, therefore, in the project staff. Similarly, the Agile PMO provides certain checks and balance, but principally focuses on the holistic well-being of the project.

Matt Gelbwaks's picture Matt Gelbwaks
Adopting Agile

Without a universal definition of agile, it can be difficult to separate those who are truly practicing agile, and those who have it wrong. While agile has grown immensely popular over the years, there are still some who have yet to convert. We took a look at each of these groups.

TechWell Contributor's picture TechWell Contributor
Heurists of the World Unite! Merging Agile Methods in Software and Interaction Design

Software development is seen as chronically chaotic and complex to the extent that project management can achieve little control over projects or outcome [1, 2]. Recently, we have come into a new era of hope; hope of getting people - real people, users, both naïve and sophisticated - more involved with, more relevant to, and more visible in software development.

TechWell Contributor's picture TechWell Contributor
How to Make Agile Reviews Effective

In some organizations, reviews are a valuable aspect of the software lifecycle. In others, they are a necessary evil tainted with political bureaucracy and big egos. Suboptimal reviews conducted late in the lifecycle are often misguided due to few objective guidelines that help guide the review process. When used throughout the development lifecycle, code and design quality metrics are valuable inputs to the review process.

Kirk Knoernschild

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