Articles

Lines of code Project Teams Need to Overcome Their Fear of Coding

Many organizations appear to suffer anxiety at the thought of programming. They want to get everyone but the programmers in a room to discuss a project down to the minute and the dollar, without a full understanding of the coding required. But a few hours of code experimentation generates far more understanding than days of debate by architects and analysts. Don't be scared of programming.

Allan Kelly's picture Allan Kelly
The Secrets of High- Performance Software Teams The Secrets of High-Performance Software Teams

Of all issues that impact getting quality products out on time, the team should never focus on simply managing costs. To minimize the risk of perpetual product delivery delays, define what “done” really means.

Steve Mezak's picture Steve Mezak
The Space Shuttle Challenger launch Prevent Disaster by Righting Cultural Dysfunction on Your Team

The space shuttles Challenger and Columbia were two of NASA's biggest disasters. Investigations into these accidents discovered the engineering issues responsible, but management practices and cultural barriers also were found to be contributing factors. Does your organization have a healthy culture that lets you safely voice concerns? It could help you prevent tragedy.

Payson Hall's picture Payson Hall
A pile of documents Slim Down Your Test Plan Documentation

Test plans are essential for communicating intent and requirements for testing efforts, but excessive documentation creates confusion—or just goes unread. Try the 5W2H method. The name comes from the seven questions you ask: why, what, where, when, who, how, and how much. That's all you need to provide valuable feedback and develop a sufficient plan of action.

László Szegedi's picture László Szegedi
tolerate You Get What You Tolerate

We’ve all worked with a talented developer who can be a frustrating challenge to manage. First-time managers may unknowingly encourage bad behavior. There are several innovative ways to resolve the situation.

Andy Kaufman's picture Andy Kaufman
Achieving Continuous Improvement and Innovation in Software

There is tremendous pressure on software development teams to deliver software faster, better, and cheaper. Quality engineering with a focus on innovation is the answer

Michael Sowers's picture Michael Sowers
Man surrounded by sticky notes Streamline Your Agile Requirements by Avoiding Bloated Backlogs

In agile development, a bloated backlog results from teams accumulating huge lists of requirements, usually in the form of user stories. Retaining every possible story for building the product weighs down the backlog while squeezing (or obscuring) the highest-value stories. The best way to help minimize this risk is to optimize the time spent defining and refining the product priorities.

Michelina DiNunno's picture Michelina DiNunno
Become Agile 10 Things You Must Do to Become Truly Agile

Agile is not a state of doing; it’s a state of being. Adopting business models on value and learning how to make teams autonomous are both necessary steps to reap the benefit of agility.

James Schiel's picture James Schiel
Model airplane Build One before Building Many: Learning from Agile Feedback

When you're working on a project and are presented with a big story or requirement, resist the urge to treat it as a single piece of work. One of the principles of the Agile Manifesto is to deliver working software frequently. This allows you to learn from what you built and make adjustments. See if you can break down the request and find a small piece of work within the big.

Allan Kelly's picture Allan Kelly
Agile DevOps Is Your Project Doomed from the Start?
Slideshow

When we think of planning, we often think about requirements planning. We get the initial features and functions down, and then see where agile takes us. Lisa Calkins claims that less than a third of software development projects are successful. Regarding this lack of success, process...

Lisa Calkins

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