agile transition

Better Software Magazine Articles

My Team Is Agile, but My Organization Is Not! What Can I Do?

In this FAQ column, Sanjiv Augustine advises how to upgrade your organization's portfolio management by addressing inefficient, outdated, and value-killing portfolio management processes.

Sanjiv Augustine's picture Sanjiv Augustine
What's a Professional?

For years we've all heard how software development and IT are a mixture of art and science. As our industry matures and becomes more mainstream, Johanna wants to upset the apple cart by suggesting that there's a  missing and sorely needed ingredient—professionalism.

Johanna Rothman's picture Johanna Rothman
How DevOps Drives the Agile ALM

One of the most effective approaches to DevOps involves moving the automation of the application build, package, and deployment upstream to the beginning stages of the software development lifecycle—an industry best practice long before DevOps became as popular as it is today.

Bob Aiello's picture Bob Aiello Leslie Sachs
A Real Sprint in the Life of a ScrumMaster

You read so many books and articles that present how perfectly a Scrum project goes; yet in practice, that is rarely the case. Natalie shares ten lessons that she learned the hard way when she started out as a ScrumMaster. Special attention is given to ways you can avoid those same mistakes.

Natalie Warnert's picture Natalie Warnert
Why Agile Works: Focus on the Details of Software Development

It's easy to overlook details when your focus is on the big picture. But, if you adjust your perspective, you may find new value in understanding why things work the way they do. Learn why agile works and how it can apply to both complex and simple projects.

Don Gray's picture Don Gray
The Roles of the Project Management Office in Scrum

Successfully adopting Scrum entails understanding and perhaps adjusting the role of the project management office (PMO), whose workers are often resistant to the lighter-weight process. But, they can become a critical part of agile success. Discover how an agile PMO works.

Mike Cohn's picture Mike Cohn
Putting the Kart before the Horse?

Go-karting is where most of the current Formula One racing drivers first learned the basics of race-craft. Antony Marcano, a former kart racer himself, recounts a father-and-son racing experience that helps him explain what goes wrong for many organizations that adopt Scrum as their first attempt to "go agile."

Antony Marcano's picture Antony Marcano
Twelve Ways Agile Adoptions Fail

Agile methodologies have taken some heat when they appear to have failed to deliver expected benefits to an organization. In my travels as an agile coach, I have found that agile practices don't fail—rather the variations on agile adoption fail. Here are my top twelve failure modes. See which ones may be painfully familiar to you:

Note: This article was originally published on StickyMinds.com as "11 Ways Agile Adoptions Fail."This updated version includes additional information that explains why some agile adoptions that appear to have failed may never have been truly agile to begin with.

Jean Tabaka's picture Jean Tabaka
Enough Is Enough: What Does Agile Software Development Mean?

Agile software delivery is about doing sufficient up-front analysis, design, and planning—and then deferring decisions to the appropriate time. But what does “enough” really mean? And why has the term "agile" become a cliché in development circles? Terms like "post-agile" or "pragmatic agile" have emerged as a response to this, but this is only a short-term fix.

Dan North's picture Dan North

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