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Using Product Portfolio Management to Improve the Efficiency of Teams[article] Product portfolio management has become an essential discipline for all development organizations that want to achieve enterprise agility. The repeated process of selecting, sizing, and prioritizing the work to be done ensures that their development teams are delivering the most valuable products and enhancements for the business’ clients. This is required for both external clients in the case of product companies and for internal clients in the case of IT organizations. However, the subject of this paper is another, possibly even more important, reason: avoiding the overloading of the organization’s development teams which greatly lowers their efficiency. |
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Agile Project Management: Part 2 of 2[article] Estimating Projects give people the fits. On one hand, you have to know when things are going to get done and how much they are going to cost. On the other hand, estimating projects looks a lot like magic from the outside. I've been successfully estimating and teaching people how to estimate projects for a long time, and if you’ve read Part 1 in this series, you're ready for some tips and tricks of estimating. |
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Things about Release Management Every Programmer Should Know[article] I was privileged to contribute to the book 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts. Here are link to a some of the posts I found particularly interesting. |
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Book Review: Modular Java[article] I recently read Craig Walls' book Modular Java: Creating Flexible Applications with Osgi and Spring (Pragmatic Programmers). This book is a very detailed tutorial that walks you through setting up an application using OSGI and Spring with the help of Maven as a build tool. |
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So, You Want to Be a Consultant?[magazine] Many practitioners see becoming a consultant as their ultimate career goal. But what does it mean to be "a consultant"? In this email to an aspiring consultant, Fiona Charles (a consultant for more than fifteen years) discusses different consulting approaches and describes how working for a consulting firm can help you get there. |
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Are You Agile Enough?[article] Being agile is a means to an end; your goal is to develop better software more effectively, not to be able to wear a "We are Agile" badge. If you're considering adopting agile, you are probably doing do because your current approach isn't getting you where you need to be so it's worth giving the 'by the book' technique a shot before you try to adapt an agile method to your circumstances. |
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Catch Them Doing It Right[magazine] Rewards can be powerful management tools, but only if you implement them effectively. In this installment of the Management Chronicles, discover how the right timing and getting to know your employees better can improve the impact of your recognition method. |
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Agile 2009 - Bob Martin - The Software Craftsmanship Movement[article]
Podcast
Bob Martin and Bob Payne sit down for another great conversation in this podcast that delves into the difference between a software build and true software craftsmanship. This podcast was recorded after the Agile 2009 conference. |
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Rocks into Gold: Part 4[article] This short book by Clarke Ching is a "biztech" parable for software developers who want to survive—and then thrive—through the credit crunch. We have republished the book in a four-part-series. In part four, our characters pitch Bob's plan to MegaCorp. But will business politics get in the way of a good idea? Follow the story as our characters fight to keep their jobs by implementing creative business ideas and management skills taken from agile development. |
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Leap IT: Lean Accelerators for Productivity improvement in IT[article] “Expectations from IT just keep increasing every single day “– this is a point of view echoed by several CIOs across the organizations all over the globe. Newer developments in IT like Social Networking, Green IT, Virtualization, and Business analytics are changing the way businesses are run. |
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The Checklist Manifesto as Agile Primer[article] Agile software development methods often have very few explicit processes. However, these processes are essential and require discipline to execute well. We're often tempted to skip steps, either because we think that the step doesn't apply in a particular situation or we forget to do it. |
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Quality Management - Testing in the World of Scrum and Agile Product Development [article] Does Quality Management have a place in agile product (system-software) development and delivery?
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What’s a Tester without a QA Team?[article] When a tester joins an agile team, she leaves her Test or QA team behind. Often, her old QA team is disbanded altogether. Without the support of a QA team, she might feel abandoned, especially if she now reports to a development manager. She’s in danger of becoming isolated, having lost the phased and gated process that guided her old team. She may feel pushed to the sidelines and like she’s lost any control over quality. |
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Getting the Product Backlog Ready for Sprint Planning[article] Most sprint planning meetings I have attended were fun. The ones that weren’t involved a poorly groomed product backlog, whose high-priority items were not workable, not ready to be pulled into the sprint. When the backlog hasn’t been prepared prior to the meeting, the product owner and team often carry out impromptu grooming activities. These consume valuable planning time and usually result in poor requirements and weak commitments. Plus, everyone is fed up and exhausted by the end of the meeting. As a consequence, the product backlog items that are likely to be worked on in the next sprint have to be prepared prior to each sprint planning meeting. Although it is the product owner’s job to make sure that the work gets done, preparing the product backlog should be teamwork involving the product owner, ScrumMaster and team. We begin the preparation work by choosing a sprint goal.
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Software QA vs. Software Testing on Agile Development Projects[article] Bob Small and Janet Gregory share their thoughts and experiences relating to the difference between software QA (quality assurance) and software testing on agile software development teams. |
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