agile

Better Software Magazine Articles

Agile Teamwork: Three Ways to Minimize Handoffs

Rather than rely on large handoffs between specialties, high-performing Scrum teams learn to do a little bit of everything all the time during a sprint. To do this effectively, teams must make three changes: shift from writing about requirements to talking about them, reduce the size of handoffs and make them more frequently, and pay more attention to the size of the product backlog items that they bring into their sprints.

Mike Cohn's picture Mike Cohn
Regulation, Compliance, and Delivery

Regulatory compliance may seem daunting, and penalties for non-compliance can be severe. What is the QA professional’s role in making it work?

Paul Fratellone's picture Paul Fratellone
Building Highly Productive Teams Using a Commitment-to-Progress Ratio: Work Committed vs. Done

This article explains methods to build a team that will embrace "required work" and deliver robust software in a predictable fashion. It proposes a measure that helps calculate the throughput of an agile team by comparing work committed to work actually done.

Aleksander Brancewicz's picture Aleksander Brancewicz
FAQ: Do I Need to Program to be a Tester on an Agile Team?

In this installment of FAQ, SQE Trainer Janet Gregory answers one of the questions students ask her most often.

Janet Gregory's picture Janet Gregory
Does Agile Change the Way a Tester Works?

In this installment of FAQ, SQE Trainer Jeffery Payne answers one of the questions students ask him most often.

Jeffery Payne's picture Jeffery Payne
Agile Code for Agile Teams

What makes a team agile? Is it in the way it plans projects or how it engineers its products? In this article, Steve Berczuk explains how agile code and technical practices can help a team stay agile across the product lifecycle.

Steve Berczuk's picture Steve Berczuk
Creative Agility

Many new products being developed require the contribution of artists and other such "creatives," but artists often view the creative process as an organic thing that cannot be analyzed, dissected, or reduced to a set of defined practices without killing it. This article explores barriers such as these to the introduction of agile methods and how these barriers can be overcome.

Clinton  Keith 's picture Clinton Keith
Learning For Agile Testers, Part 2

In part one of our Learning for Agile Testers series, we addressed general "thinking" skills that go beyond technical competence and how learning these enhances the value you contribute. In part two, we discuss some specific technical skills that benefit testers and how to acquire them.

Lisa Crispin's picture Lisa Crispin Janet Gregory
The Three Amigos: All for One and One for All

Analysts determine what needs to be created. Programmers create it. Testers find the holes in the work of both. That's one way to do it, but all three can collaborate to do these things better, and more easily, too.

George Dinwiddie's picture George Dinwiddie
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.

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