Agile Zone | Software Methodologies for Development Managers

Ian Mitchell04/25/13
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Scrum Master: Servant Leadership in Practice

There seems to be one particular role that is common to most agile teams - the Scrum Master. Why do XP and Lean Kanban teams often claim to have them...not just Scrum? Are these Scrum Masters for real?

Martin Fowler04/25/13
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Broad-Stack Tests

A broad-stack test is a test that exercises most of the parts of a large application. It's often referred to as an end-to-end test or full-stack test. It lies in contrast to a ComponentTest, which only exercises a well-defined part of a system.

Johannes Brodwall04/25/13
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Scrum as an Impediment to Agility

As I’m working with smaller and more agile projects, I’m increasingly seeing the classic way that Scrum is executed as more of an impediment to agility than a helper.

Mike Cottmeyer04/24/13
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A Few Thoughts on the Economics of Software Product Development

Some of you probably already get this… some of you might even disagree… but unless you are building software as a hobby… chances are, you building software for money. In other words, someone is paying you to write software for them.

Allan Kelly04/24/13
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To Estimate, or Not to Estimate. That is the Question.

I’d like to think we can draw the estimation war to an end and focus on the real question: How do we produce meaningful estimates and when is it worth doing so?

Mitch Pronschinske04/24/13
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Links You Don't Want To Miss (4/25)

Ngnix gets a new major release while TechEmpower continues their epic web framework performance benchmarks. Plus, Google's mobile web performance checklist and a tool for rapid drag-and-drop prototyping with twitter bootstrap.

Giorgio Sironi04/24/13
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What's in a constructor?

The constructor of an object contains a declaration of its dependencies, in hardwired or injected form. There are a few exceptions, such as creating new objects all over the place inside other methods (with no regard for Dependency Injection), accepting objects as method parameters or with setters; however, constructor injection remains one of the simplest and more powerful ways to build a web of collaborating objects.

Martin Fowler04/24/13
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Martin Fowler: User Stories

User Stories are chunks of desired behavior of a software system. They are widely used in agile software approaches to divide up a large amount of functionality into smaller pieces for planning purposes.

Scott Leberknight04/24/13
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Pair Programming and a Grass-Roots Movement

I wanted to take a few minutes to share some thoughts and experiences about pair programming. I think there's a grass-roots movement for doing more pair-programming in the open source community.

Michael Norton04/23/13
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Being a Boss

In some manner or another, I've served in roles frequently referred to as "boss" for over 20 years. In many more instances, I held some rank that granted me authority over the work-lives of others. I've learned a great deal over the years. And I am definitely still learning.

Oscar Berg04/23/13
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My 7 Work Mantras

This morning I decided to share my "work matras" with my followers on Twitter. Right now I keep them in a note in Notes, but I would really like to put them on a wall or have them as my background on my devices.

Anders Abel04/23/13
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Can You Handle An Elite Performer?

Employers ask for elite performers, but they should be careful – they could get what they ask for… If they find an elite performer, do they have the elite organization required to match the new hire?

Lorna Mitchell04/23/13
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The Economics of Developer Recruitment and Training

This isn't a rant about salaries, the skills of new graduates, or the trials of dealing with recruiters, although each of those is worth a post in itself. It's about the mathematics of providing your organization with the talent it needs at the time that it needs it.

Steve Rogalsky04/23/13
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Facilitating a retrospective with 50 people in an hour

We had just under an hour to eat lunch and complete the retrospective. Second, there are about 50 volunteers - allowing everyone to have a voice in such a short time frame would be a challenge.

Ian Mitchell04/22/13
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An Agile Health Check: The Daily Stand-Up in Practice

The rules of a stand-up are simple. Every day the team should assemble for a maximum of 15 minutes so that they can assess progress towards the Sprint Goal, and self-organize in order to overcome any impediments. In this article we look at how to use the daily stand-up as a "health check" for gauging an agile team's well-being.