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Revisiting Refactoring

Refactoring is one of the cornerstones of the technical agile development practices. It is the mechanism that allows the design and architecture of a system to evolve over time. It is one third of the red-green-refactor loop and the core of test-driven development (TDD). But does it really deliver on its promises?

TechWell Contributor's picture TechWell Contributor
Collaboration: It's More than Facilitated Meetings

Esther Derby has noticed something lately, namely that when people write about collaboration, they discuss facilitated meetings. Well-run meetings that encourage participation and building consensus are certainly valuable, but there's more to collaboration than just well-run meetings. Esther explains that true collaboration assumes shared responsibility and shared ownership and boosts creativity and learning.

Esther Derby's picture Esther Derby
Sixty Steps in the Right Direction

Michele Sliger uses a simple exercise to exemplify the changes self-organized teams cause in any company, especially with the project manager. In this column, Michele explains how to conduct this exercise and how to review and use the results to improve work relationships and communication. Above all, this exercise should help your whole organization understand how everyone's knowledge of a project's initiatives and goals affects the project's success.

Michele Sliger's picture Michele Sliger
Hidden Messages

A defect management system contains data such as how many defects have been raised, the priority and severity of individual defects, and even who is raising them. This information is regularly used by program and test management to guide decision making. In this article, Dan Minkin proves that an experienced test manager can gather useful information by looking at more than just the defect management system's data.

Dan Minkin
table differentiate analysis results from design results How Early Interface Analysis Reduces Risk

Analyzing a project's interface requirements often starts late and focuses--sometimes exclusively—on creating a snazzy user interface. But failing to conduct interface analysis in a early increases the risk of project delays, overruns, and even failure. In this column, Mary Gorman makes the case for investing in interface analysis by explaining what it is and how it reduces the risk in software projects.

Mary Gorman's picture Mary Gorman
Agile 2007- Jochen Krebs - Agile Certification

We invite you to listen in on this podcast conversation between Bob Payne and Jochen Krebs. Jochen brings a great deal of knowledge about agile certification and the two found a lot of great points to talk about while attending Agile 2007.

Bob Payne's picture Bob Payne
Business Case-Driven Decision Making

Decision making should be approached just like a software project: You have to map out what you want and how you're going to get it. Payson Hall tells the story of a team that set out to find the perfect product—without an official plan. Learn how to avoid the mistakes they made.

Payson Hall's picture Payson Hall
Agile Techniques for Meeting Customer Commitments

Agile teams struggle with successfully applying agile approaches to project planning and delivery. In particular, an area that needs to be explored is negotiating customer commitments within an agile process. In this article, I will explain the key steps, and practices within each step, that will assist in making and delivering on customer commitments in an agile fashion.

TechWell Contributor's picture TechWell Contributor
Why Agile Development Teams Need Business Analysts

Unfortunately for the business analyst (BA), much of the literature regarding agile development focuses on the perspective of the developer, largely ignoring the role of the business analyst. BAs play a key role capturing requirements on large, software-intensive projects. Teams are co-located where programmers and their "customers" interact directly as a means of eliciting requirements. Organizations that are moving toward agile development may wonder if a has a role in agile software development. The answer, as addressed by this paper, is a resounding "Yes."

Charles Suscheck's picture Charles Suscheck
How to Quickly Build Trust

You can't get far in your career if people don't trust you. Yet trust is such an elusive concept. It's not tangible. It's not concrete. It's not something you can point to and say, "That's what it looks like." In this column, Naomi Karten ruminates about the concept of trust and offers some ideas about what you can and cannot control in earning the trust of others.

Naomi Karten's picture Naomi Karten

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