Agile Zone | Software Methodologies for Development Managers

Julian Holmes10/11/10
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Howzat! – The new and improved Agile method

Howzat! is a light-hearted perspective on the world of Agile methods.

Mike Cohn10/11/10
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1 replies

Avast Combining the ScrumMaster and Product Owner, Matey!

A common question is whether it’s acceptable to combine the role of product and ScrumMaster and give both sets of responsibilities to a single person. In general, combining these roles is a very bad idea. To see why, let’s look back in history and the...

Lyndsey Clevesy10/11/10
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1 replies

The Agile Manifesto Poster: Vote for your Favorite Design

Ten years ago, in a town far far away (from some of us), in early February of 2001, 17 people met at the Lodge at Snowbird Ski Resort in Utah to hang out, eat great food…and obviously ski. As they relaxed at the ski-lodge, sipping at their Hot Toddies, they...

Dan Pritchett10/11/10
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Learning from Others

Foursquare had a well discussed outage last week. This wasn't good news for Foursquare but it can be for the rest of us. By looking at what happened, we can all learn steps we can take to avoid a similar occurrence. I do want to state emphatically, I am...

Den Delimarsky10/09/10
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Algorithms and Data Structures - The Science of Computing

Algorithms and Data Structures is one of those books that should be present on a developer's desk as reference material, especially if the developer just started working with the fundamental Computer...

Den Delimarsky10/09/10
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2 replies

Web services - do you use/develop them?

In the recent era of web technologies, when pretty much every piece of software and hardware is in some way tied to an online component, it is hard to imagine life without web interactions. Besides web applications, that...

Steven Lott10/08/10
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Technical Debt

Love this from Gartner. "Gartner Estimates Global 'IT Debt' to Be $500 Billion This Year, with Potential to Grow to $1 Trillion by 2015".NetworkWorld ran a quicky version of the story. Gartner: Global 'IT debt' hits $500 billion, on the way to $1...

Matt Stine10/08/10
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7 replies

Build Scripts? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Build Scripts!

Ahh, famous last words of the close-minded programmer.

Jared Richardson10/08/10
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The Agile Tour: Is It Coming to You?

The Agile Tour is in Philadelphia, DC, and RTP this month! There's an international conference known as the The Agile Tour It's had a number of events all over the world, and now it's gaining traction in the United States as well. (If you...

David Bernstein10/07/10
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2 replies

A Prototype is Not a Product

Sometimes I hear developers say that they are scared to build prototypes because their manager will make them ship it as a product. There is a big difference between a prototype and a product. A home builder wouldn’t mock up a house out of cardboard and...

Robert Diana10/07/10
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4 replies

Bad Programmer, Bad Process Or Bad Education

A few articles in the past week prompted some thinking about the industry of software development. In this case, when I say software development, I am talking about developing websites, web applications, commercial software, enterprise software and almost...

David Bernstein10/07/10
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Prototyping Caveat

I am a big believer in prototyping. The quicker I can get functionality to my users the better. I often find that it helps my users visualize how to use the system I am building and often this will lead to useful feedback. However, I do have a caveat when...

Jared Richardson10/06/10
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14 replies

You're a Bad Manager. Embrace It.

You manage developers and you'd like to think you're a good manager... but look at the evidence. Most, if not all, of your projects are late. Your team often delivers products riddled with bugs. Quite a few never ship at all. How can you be a good manager if...

Derek Huether10/06/10
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0 replies

Using Stories on my Personal Kanban

A colleague on Twitter asked how do I break down my stories, acceptance criteria etc? As a reference point, “stories” refer to my use of User Stories on a task board or Kanban. It’s a method of representing requirements or scope. In upcoming...

Giorgio Sironi10/06/10
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14 replies

What you need to know about your version control system

Here's the picture: you have introduced a version control system such as Subversion or Git in your organization, and your programmers store their code in it and integrate the changesets of other in their work, using commands like svn add, svn up and svn...