Articles

Person taking a sticky note with testing activities on it off a backlog wall Tackling Testing Challenges in an Agile Transition

Even though jumping onto the agile bandwagon is tempting for businesses, it is not always easy, and a transition to agile is likely to come with a slew of challenges for testing in particular. In order for agile to enable delivery of quality products at speed, testing has to begin much earlier in the process than ever before. Enabling certain practices will help your organization achieve a more successful transition to agile testing.

Hemanth Yamjala's picture Hemanth Yamjala
Distributed teams pointing out their locations on a map Leveraging Agile in a Nearshore Software Development Environment

Nearshore software development—or working with teams in similar time zones—have different challenges from teams that are collocated. They might find it easier to work in a traditional, hierarchical structure, but agile practices are actually still an ideal way to work through these challenges. Here's how an agile mindset can help nearshore development teams improve communication, organization, and processes.

Marcelo Lopez's picture Marcelo Lopez
Software professional identifying risks along a project lifecycle How Agile Reduces Product Risk

With traditional software development methods, you are betting that end-of-lifecycle testing will let your team correct all risks, but experience has taught us that this seldom happens. With agile, you are incrementally reducing risk with every iteration and release you do, mitigating risks as you go. This article examines each of the value statements from the Agile Manifesto to illustrate how agile ultimately helps us reduce product risk.

Leanne Howard's picture Leanne Howard
Cars speeding down a highway Accelerated Quality Using Agile

One of the huge benefits of agile is improved or increased quality. However, many newly agile teams report their product quality decreasing at the rate at which delivery is increasing. Leanne Howard has some solutions for these teams, including making quality everyone's responsibility and embracing a shift-left mentality. To get accelerated quality in your agile initiatives, you have to truly be agile.

Leanne Howard's picture Leanne Howard
Two agile team members standing beside a large globe Distributed Agile Approaches Optimize for the Team over Individuals

Consider how your team currently organizes: for resource efficiency, optimizing for the individual; or for flow efficiency, optimizing for the team? Successful agile teams—distributed or not—should collaborate to optimize the flow of work through the team. This approach lets you understand your capacity, learn together, and deliver more effectively.

An orange with a blue painted outside Redefining the Project Manager Role in Scrum

Scrum teams are meant to become self-sustaining, so it’s natural for project managers to wonder how they will fit into this new environment. But they still have important skills. Their new role may—and probably will—look different from the traditional project manager role they’ve been used to, but there are still plenty of opportunities to provide real value to their new Scrum team.

Pratik Kothari's picture Pratik Kothari
Coach guiding a team Empower Your Agile Team in 4 STEPs

New agile teams often start projects after some brief training on the Agile Manifesto and agile frameworks. But without additional coaching, these teams will struggle to deliver continuous value to their clients. Teams should be coached on how to tackle unexpected Situations, use appropriate Tools, conduct agile Events, and adopt appropriate agile Practices—four agile STEPs.

Ajeet Singh's picture Ajeet Singh
Woman holding trophy with "2018" Top 10 AgileConnection Articles of 2018

Agile isn't something you can adopt through tooling; you have to adhere to the agile principles every step of the way. The top articles from 2018 show that people were looking to improve and refine their agile practices, with popular topics including how to enhance your daily standups, retrospectives, and planning. Check out this roundup for ways to enhance your agile operations.

Beth Romanik's picture Beth Romanik
Scrum team participating in a daily standup meeting 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.

Ajeet Singh's picture Ajeet Singh
Person solving a Rubik's cube 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.

Johanna Rothman's picture Johanna Rothman John Le Drew

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