Agile Development Practices 2009

PRESENTATIONS

Agile Architecture: Patterns and Technology

Despite our wishing it were so, software architecture is not static throughout a project, especially within an agile development environment. Agile architecture is defined by our willingness and ability to embrace and accommodate architectural changes that emerge during the project. Agile architecture issues are both temporal-when to make architectural decisions-and structural, demanding that the architect and architecture remain flexible and able to accommodate change.
Kirk Knoernschild, Burton Group
Agile Brushstrokes: The Art of Choosing an Agile Transition Style

Agile software processes vary in detail, depth, impact and endurance as much as painting styles like graffiti differ from Baroque or Impressionist art. What can artists teach us about successful agile transitions? And what can past agile transitions teach us about styles that endured or faded away? Joshua Kerievsky will map agile transitions to art styles and identify elements that lead to success or failure.
Joshua Kerievsky, Industrial Logic
Agile Development Practices 2009: Rightsizing Your Project in a Down Economy

In tough times, both shoes drop simultaneously and "scarcity thinking" takes over in senior executives, managers, and development teams. In this environment, dysfunction can wreak havoc on your projects in the form of scope greed, death-march deadlines, and budget cuts. Often, the tendency is to say "yes" to impossible dates, take on too much, suffer the budget cuts, and pray that heroics might save the day. This is a disaster waiting to happen.
Michael Mah, QSM Associates, Inc.
Agile Development Practices 2009: Seven Key Factors for Agile Testing Success

Agile development presents unique challenges for testers and test teams. Working in short iterations, often with limited written requirements, agile development teams can leave traditional testers behind. Common testing-related activities-such as user acceptance testing, testing inter-product relationships, and installation testing-require different approaches to work within agile projects.
Lisa Crispin, Ultimate Software
Agile Development Practices 2009: The Agile PMP: Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks

Agile methods emphasize trust, empowerment, and collaboration-moving us away from command and control project management to harness the passion, creativity, and enthusiasm of the team. In established organizations, success with agile practices hinges on how well traditional project managers adopt new ways of thinking about project structure and control.
Michael Cottmeyer, VersionOne, Inc.
Agile Development Practices 2009: The Power of Retrospectives

One principle in the Agile Manifesto states, "At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly." Retrospectives are a powerful, repeatable tool to help your team continuously learn and improve. Linda Rising shares techniques for project retrospectives to help teams discover what they're doing well and identify what should be done differently.
Linda Rising, Independent Consultant
Agile: Resetting and Restarting

The Agile Manifesto-ten years in the making-was published in 2001. Now, with more than eight years of practice, the manifesto has greatly influenced the process of software development. It has influenced the IEEE's software contracting models, the Project Management Institute's view of software project management, the Software Engineering Institute's CMMI™ assessment model, and helped change the development process for thousands of organizations around the world.
Alistair Cockburn, Humans and Technology
Applying Lean Production to Software Development: A Worldview

Lean production has made it possible for many industries to develop products faster and more profitably, building a loyal customer base while lowering business risk. Now, Lean has proven it can do the same for software development-and do so better than any development approach to date. Lean is more than a management system, method, tool, or environment; the areas where software methodologies normally focus. Lean is a worldview-a way of thinking that fundamentally changes and humanizes industry.
James Sutton, Lockheed Martin
Beyond Scope, Schedule, and Cost: Rethinking Performance Measures for Agile Development

A recent Business Week article proclaimed, "There is no more Normal." With businesses in the throes of pervasive change, the traditional emphasis on "following the plan with minimal changes" must be supplanted by "adapting the plan to inevitable changes." If agile development practices are about focusing on and delivering customer value, then how can adherence to traditional scope, schedule, and cost be a good way to measure performance? It can't.
Jim Highsmith, Information Architects, Inc.
CMMI or Agile: Why Not Embrace Both?

Agile development methods and CMMI® best practices are often perceived to be in conflict with each other. Some even argue that the Agile Manifesto was largely a counter response to the original CMM®. Hillel Glazer explores ways that CMMI® and agile champions can work together to derive benefit from both approaches to dramatically improve business performance. Arm yourself with the knowledge to address any Agile-CMMI® rift within your organization and learn ways to benefit from both practices.
Hillel Glazer, Entinex, Inc.

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