Better Software Magazine Articles

Reshaping Agile Transformation Reshaping Our View of Agile Transformation

Transforming a software development team to agile may not go as planned. The real change requires a phased approach to earn agile acceptance. That mindset must extend beyond the team to the entire organization.

Jason Little's picture Jason Little
Balance and Flow Continuous Process Improvement Using Balance and Flow

Finding a balance between too much and too little process can be quite a challenge. Tom Wessel shows how to apply lean change management and kaizen principles to achieve continuous process  improvement. Also, Tom suggests the use of simple metrics to verify that improvements are actually taking place.

Thomas Wessel's picture Thomas Wessel
Building a Solid Foundation for Your DevOps Transformation

The ability to deliver quality software with speed requires a huge shift in the way technology is managed throughout any organization. Nicole Forsgren believes that establishing the right culture is vital, especially during DevOps adoption.

Nicole Forsgren's picture Nicole Forsgren
Playing Games to Improve Software

You may not have heard about gamification, but instructional designers are now using game principles to help with retention of learned material in many forms of training. Ross Smith and Rajini Padmanaban believe that developers' UX and app design can benefit from gamification.

Ross Smith's picture Ross Smith Rajini Padmanaban
Leveraging Automated Testing to Improve Product Quality

Improving product quality is often a very difficult task for even the best software development organizations. Rajini says the additional benefits of automation include benchmarking, code scanning analysis, end-to-end test cases, and compatibility validation.

Rajini  Padmanaban's picture Rajini Padmanaban
The Curious Case of Waterfall Sprints

It isn't unusual for a project team to believe that adopting a mix of waterfall and Scrum can deliver the best of both worlds. According to Steve, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, Steve retraces a real project that quickly disintegrated into an absolute disaster.

Alan Turing's picture Alan Turing
How Does Security Testing Fit in My QA Process?

Alan Crouch addresses the question most commonly raised by those who are new to security testing: "How does security testing fit in my QA process?" Alan explains that security testing shouldn't be limited to the QA process, but instead should be applied throughout the entire software development lifecycle. Read this FAQ column for suggestions on how to improve your chances for success in catching security issues.

Alan Crouch's picture Alan Crouch
Process Frameworks, Not Fixed Processes

The software development field has been consumed with process management ranging from inflexible, predictive waterfall all the way to self-governing, adaptable agile approaches. You probably already utilize a specific process methodology on your projects, but have you considered adopting an evolutionary learning cycle process framework instead?

Ryan Olivett's picture Ryan Olivett Bob Payne
Why Am I Always Getting Bad News in the Eleventh Hour?

This article is a departure from previous columns. Kenton and Ryan role play the stress and friction between a typical product manager and an engineering team lead. This article may make you squirm, but it brings out the issues of teams attempting to do the best thing from completely different perspectives.

Kenton Bohn's picture Kenton Bohn Ryan McClish
Avoiding the Prioritization Trap

With incoming priorities being requested by just about everybody, how in the world can you and your team prioritize? Brandon shows you some innovative techniques that you can use to turn chaos into order.  One surprising approach is simply handling priorities on a first-in, first-out basis.

Brandon Carlson's picture Brandon Carlson

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