Better Software Magazine Articles
 |
The Secrets of High-Performance Software Teams Of all issues that impact getting quality products out on time, the team should never focus on simply managing costs. To minimize the risk of perpetual product delivery delays, define what “done” really means. |
|
 |
Prevent Disaster by Righting Cultural Dysfunction on Your Team The space shuttles Challenger and Columbia were two of NASA's biggest disasters. Investigations into these accidents discovered the engineering issues responsible, but management practices and cultural barriers also were found to be contributing factors. Does your organization have a healthy culture that lets you safely voice concerns? It could help you prevent tragedy. |
|
 |
Slim Down Your Test Plan Documentation Test plans are essential for communicating intent and requirements for testing efforts, but excessive documentation creates confusion—or just goes unread. Try the 5W2H method. The name comes from the seven questions you ask: why, what, where, when, who, how, and how much. That's all you need to provide valuable feedback and develop a sufficient plan of action. |
|
 |
You Get What You Tolerate We’ve all worked with a talented developer who can be a frustrating challenge to manage. First-time managers may unknowingly encourage bad behavior. There are several innovative ways to resolve the situation. |
|
 |
Achieving Continuous Improvement and Innovation in Software There is tremendous pressure on software development teams to deliver software faster, better, and cheaper. Quality engineering with a focus on innovation is the answer |
|
 |
Streamline Your Agile Requirements by Avoiding Bloated Backlogs In agile development, a bloated backlog results from teams accumulating huge lists of requirements, usually in the form of user stories. Retaining every possible story for building the product weighs down the backlog while squeezing (or obscuring) the highest-value stories. The best way to help minimize this risk is to optimize the time spent defining and refining the product priorities. |
|
 |
10 Things You Must Do to Become Truly Agile Agile is not a state of doing; it’s a state of being. Adopting business models on value and learning how to make teams autonomous are both necessary steps to reap the benefit of agility. |
|
 |
Build One before Building Many: Learning from Agile Feedback When you're working on a project and are presented with a big story or requirement, resist the urge to treat it as a single piece of work. One of the principles of the Agile Manifesto is to deliver working software frequently. This allows you to learn from what you built and make adjustments. See if you can break down the request and find a small piece of work within the big. |
|
 |
Is Your Project Doomed from the Start?
Slideshow
When we think of planning, we often think about requirements planning. We get the initial features and functions down, and then see where agile takes us. Lisa Calkins claims that less than a third of software development projects are successful. Regarding this lack of success, process... |
Lisa Calkins
|
 |
Visual Management Gone Wild
Slideshow
A visual management system is a low-tech tool with a simple mission—to visually represent the work that the team is doing. When used regularly and correctly, it can be a project acceleration tool. However, teams often go wild with visuals, decorating every inch of free wall space with... |
Nichole Vanderlaan
|
Pages
Recommended Web Seminars
Featured Resources
Visit Our Other Communities
AgileConnection is a TechWell community.
Through conferences, training, consulting, and online resources, TechWell helps you develop and deliver great software every day.