Better Software Magazine

Better Software Magazine Articles

Raising The Bar For Configuration Management

Configuration management (CM) has matured into a "must-have" discipline. But, many CM experts have failed to keep up with what's required to implement CM best practices. Find out what needs to be done to raise the bar for CM.

Bob Aiello's picture Bob Aiello
When Software Smells Bad

Most software needs to be "maintainable" and have high "internal quality." But what does that mean in practical terms? Code smells form a vocabulary for discussing code quality and how well suited code might be to change. The smells also provide good indications as to what to refactor and how.

Designing an Agile Portfolio and Program Coordination System

Scaling Agile to the enterprise can be challenging once you start looking at the Program and Portfolio level. How do you design an effective coordination system that encourages collaboration, communication, transparency and is flexible, easy to implement and rapidly evolvable? We will explore key aspects of creating a simple but effective agile-ready coordination system for managing such initiatives, based upon the authors' observations and experiences across widely differing companies.

Arlen Bankston's picture Arlen Bankston Bob Payne
Imaginary Friends: Creating Software with Personas

We all want to satisfy our users, but tailoring software to customers is easier said than done. Personas—a method to synthesize your primary users into abstract entities—facilitates understanding of goals and experiences.

Shmuel Gershon
Ask To See His ...

Most managers would consider management far too complicated to script. But the five key components of management—planning, staffing, organizing, directing, and controlling—are practiced just as often in testing. So, let's see some of those management scripts.

Lee Copeland's picture Lee Copeland
Testing Under Pressure

A cast-in-concrete delivery date looms on your project’s horizon. You have precious little time remaining, and the development team keeps delivering incomplete builds of unstable code. Is this a "death march" project, or can the testing team actually do something useful, or perhaps even save the day?

Robert Sabourin's picture Robert Sabourin
Managing in Fluid Environments

Most management and change management methodologies assume a traditional environment—one in which the time between changes is much greater than the time required to adapt to each change. In fluid environments, the next change event happens before we can finish adapting to the last one, and sometimes even the one before that.

Rick Brenner's picture Rick Brenner
The Third Age Of Requirements

During the First Age of Requirements, programmers ruled the Earth. Today, programmers again lead the way but the possibilities for software development are unimaginable. You'd better be prepa

Lee Copeland's picture Lee Copeland
Works as Designed

How many times have you heard the phrase "works as designed" used to describe software that is flawed and in some cases not fit for use? While "works as designed" has become an acceptable response for some, for real professionals, it's not.

Lee Copeland's picture Lee Copeland
Business Analysis Career Paths

Five or ten years ago, the common career advice to business analysts was that to be promoted, you should become a project manager. Today, business analysis professionals have myriad career options.

Laura Brandenburg's picture Laura Brandenburg

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