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Do the Pre-Flight Check so Your Code Doesn't Crash and Burn After Takeoff

Agile development and continuous integration challenges.  To travel by air, you get to the airport, check in, with any luck get on a plane, and get to your destination. Perhaps you do not arrive precisely on time, but close enough that you make that important meeting or family event. Like jumbo jet pilots, software development teams and project managers have a lot more to worry about than the final consumers of the software or the passengers on the plane. Pilots have to go through a rigorous pre-flight check routine to ensure the plane is in top condition, the correct amount of fuel is on board, hydraulics and electrical systems are all working properly, the flight plan and latest weather is reviewed - and it's all done on the same jet that is being flown. The pilot wouldn't do their pre-flight check on their private Cessna then jump on board the corporate Gulfstream, or a Boeing 767, would they?

Anders  Wallgren's picture Anders Wallgren
Top 9 challenges of adopting Scrum: Learn, Trust, and Quick Fixes

Introducing Scrum can be fun, but can also be quite a challenge. There are numerous hurdles to overcome, new practices to master and problems to solve. In this article, we will present some of the mistakes we have seen made, or made ourselves when introducing Scrum at various companies. In this first article, we will discuss organizational learning, creating an environment of trust, and why Scrim should not be used as a quick fix.

TechWell Contributor's picture TechWell Contributor
Agile2008 - Segundo Velasquez - Mano a Mano -LiveAid
Podcast

Bob speaks with Segundo Velasquez about Mano a Mano and Live Aid at the Agile 2008 conference.

Bob Payne's picture Bob Payne
Test Managers-Start Managing!

Some things in life, like death and taxes, are a given. Software development teams face their own givens: Project schedules will always change and certain teams will suffer because of these changes. If that's to be expected, then why haven't most managers done anything to save their teams from undue stress and abuse? In this column, Dion Johnson explains that we've got to take care of our teams, or else we'll never see the end of team abuse.

Dion Johnson's picture Dion Johnson
Preparing for Resource-Constrained Times

The economy, like the weather, is a complex system that cycles through good times and bad. Dark economic clouds are brewing on the horizon. Predictions of inflation, stagnant growth, crushing debt, tightening credit are in the forecast. Payson Hall tells us how to weather the storm.

Payson Hall's picture Payson Hall
Agile and the Seven Deadly Sins of Project Management
Video

Agile approaches to software development promise many advantages: shorter schedules, more productive teams, products that better meet customer expectations, higher quality, and more. In this talk, Mike Cohn explains how agile teams achieve these goals by avoiding the seven deadly sins of project management. Covered will be sins such as gluttony, sloth, lust, opaqueness, and more.

Mike Cohn's picture Mike Cohn
Applying Configuration Management to Agile Teams

A variety of agile software development methods and practices have now been around for a solid ten years and existed for at least another ten years prior. Configuration management (CM) for agile development has now been discussed since the turn of the century. So what are the core principles of CM and how can CM help agile teams?

Mario  Moreira's picture Mario Moreira
A Christmas Carol: The Software Tester's Version
Video

Grab some hot cocoa, sit back, and watch this software tester's take on A Christmas Carol by the Grove Players.

TechWell Staff
Real-World Math

Math is often not easy to learn, even for those of us who enjoy it. And if you don't use your mathematical knowledge, you just might forget how to use it. Danny Faught likes math and has found ways of using basic math like algebra, the modulo function, expected values, and logarithms in testing. It's kept his mind fresh on mathematical concepts and formulas, and he hopes it will do the same for you. In this week's column, he explains how to use math to improve testing.

Danny R. Faught's picture Danny R. Faught
When 'General Agile' Isn't Enough - Why Scrum Wins in the Enterprise

Each week, I find myself using Jenga, Hasbro's wooden building block game, as an analogy for introducing agile into the enterprise. Few topics are more hotly debated throughout the software development community than how to apply the simple values of agile to big business. Many approaches favor knocking down the entire Jenga tower to start from scratch with an entirely new foundation of values and practices. Others opt for the comfort of traditional management processes, with some agile practices — like pair programming and stand-up meetings — sprinkled on top.

 

TechWell Contributor's picture TechWell Contributor

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