People & Teams

Better Software Magazine Articles

The Power of Persuasion

Twenty years ago, Brian Marick defined a small startup's company process and coding standard in his position as head of quality assurance--and didn't win any popularity points. Looking back, Brian thinks that he and others in charge of process would be more successful using persuasion than using commands.

Brian Marick
japanese "ba" and the Art of Development Environments

The flow of knowledge is more than mental. Better your team and improve your output through an adjustment in physical surroundings. Jean Tabaka describes the Japanese philosophy of "ba" and what it can mean to you and your development team.

Jean Tabaka's picture Jean Tabaka
Geographically Challenged

Office politics are a fact of life in the workplace, but they sometimes spill over and affect employees' lives outside the office as well. In this tale by Leonidas Hepis, office politics endanger a QA team member's work and her family time.

Leonidas Hepis
The Blind Men and the Quality Elephant

Lee Copeland takes a look at quality assessment through the filter of John Godfrey Saxe's poem "The Blind Men and the Elephant" and offers an important lesson: When assessing quality, make sure everyone on your project is looking for the same thing.

Lee Copeland's picture Lee Copeland
QA All-Stars: Building Your Dream Team

A testing team can mean success or failure for a project, but developing a team means more than putting a few people together and telling them to test something. Hans Buwalda shares his teambuilding experiences and gives some tips on how you can build the best team for the job.

Hans Buwalda's picture Hans Buwalda
The Certainty of Uncertainty

All projects begin with a great deal of uncertainty. Mike Cohn takes a look at Alexander Laufer’s concepts of means and end uncertainties and explains why an iterative approach to product development is the best way to be certain your users get what they want.

Mike Cohn's picture Mike Cohn
Bridging the Gap: Agile Projects in the Waterfall Enterprise

Though agile software development has been around for a while, it has received a recent boost in popularity as organizations seek to better compete with their global counterparts. Michele Sliger offers some methodology-spanning principles to help ease agile processes into a traditionally waterfall-oriented organization.

Michele Sliger's picture Michele Sliger
Honesty Is the Best Policy

The Squall team’s product prototype pleases big client Acme. But when the client won’t budge on its strict quality, time, or budgetary requirements, the Squall team leaders determine that the best they can offer Acme is the truth.

Payson Hall's picture Payson Hall
The Declaration of Interdependence

In an effort to extend the Agile Manifesto to non-software products and management, experts at the 2004 Agile Development Conference developed The Declaration of Interdependence. Alistair Cockburn details the DOI’s six principles and how they can benefit your organization.

Alistair Cockburn's picture Alistair Cockburn
Piecing Together an Agile Organization

Implementing agile processes can be like putting together a puzzle. But what happens when the pieces don't fall into the right place? Alicia Yanik tells the story of Daniel, who is wound up about his company's new agile elements, and Meg, who sees things from a more enlightened angle.

Alicia Yanik

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