agile transition

Articles

Balanced scale Relieving Agile Tension: How to Write Small Stories That Still Have Value

There are two practical goals for user stories: Each story should be beneficial to the business, and each story should represent a small piece of work. However, there is tension between these rules, and they often push in opposite directions. This article discusses how to keep stories small and tasks manageable, while ensuring they retain business value.

Allan Kelly's picture Allan Kelly
Stacked rocks: work not done The Art of Maximizing Work Not Done

One of the twelve principles behind the Agile Manifesto is “Simplicity—the art of maximizing the amount of work not done—is essential.” Why is this principle called an art, while the others aren’t? And why should we maximize the amount of work "not" done? This article analyzes the importance of simplicity in agile projects.

Ledalla Madhavi's picture Ledalla Madhavi
Two birds: pair programming The Benefits of Pair Programming

This article details a team’s experience in implementing pair programming as a way to get work done as part of its agile transformation. It delves into the many positive results from the pairing experiment, as well as some of the negatives that were encountered, and weighs whether developers think pair programming is a worthwhile endeavor.

Tim Groven's picture Tim Groven
Agile Noise Turn Up Your Agile Noise

Usually noise has a negative connotation, but in this sense, noise means something that increases the team progress (i.e., velocity) and output (i.e., quality). Chaos is the negative side of noise and decreases velocity. Teams should know the importance of agile noise and handle the chaos in a right way at the time of transformation. Let’s explore agile noise and its benefits.

Trinadh Bonam's picture Trinadh Bonam
Agile Magic Why Adopting Agile Won’t Magically Reduce Your IT Budget

Of course, all companies would like to reduce their budgets. But cutting back in the IT department can have unintended consequences. This article looks at two of the more well-adopted cost-cutting approaches, the software factory and distributed teams, and goes into how they can help and hurt your company.

Mario Lucero's picture Mario Lucero
Team Velocity Help Your Team Understand Its Velocity

Teams should be working toward a target velocity that is based on historical evidence. There may be times when this figure needs to be adjusted, but teams that understand their velocity know that it is a good indicator of what they are capable of achieving in a sustainable way, and this will increase confidence for the teams and stakeholders.

Dave Browett's picture Dave Browett
Project Management Framework Common Misconceptions about Agile: Agile Is Just a Project Management Framework

When it comes to transitioning to agile, if a team only goes off what it's heard from other teams and doesn't take a class or read any books about the process, misconceptions can abound. And that leads to problems. Read on to have three common agile myths debunked and to learn why agile is a cultural change, not just a project management framework.

Johanna Rothman's picture Johanna Rothman
Common Misconceptions about Agile Common Misconceptions about Agile: There Is Only One Approach

Many teams think they're agile. They might work in iterations and have a ranked backlog, but they don’t see the value they could be seeing. Usually that means they have a number of false impressions about agile. Read on to have three common misconceptions debunked and to learn what you need to do to make your agile transition successful.

Johanna Rothman's picture Johanna Rothman
Struggling with a Transformation Struggling with a Transformation? Try Serving Stone Soup

The fable of stone soup is often told as a lesson about cooperation in times of scarcity. Mike Edwards has used an approach based on this allegory to help teams make steps toward improving themselves and the way they work, especially when it comes to shifting to new methodologies such as agile and Scrum.

Mike Edwards's picture Mike Edwards
Traceable Tests Guide Your Agile Development with Traceable Tests

Testing professionals who are learning about agile often want to know how they can provide traceability among automated tests, features, and bugs and report on their testing progress. Here, Lisa Crispin gives an example of how her previous team worked together to integrate testing with coding and helped everyone see testing progress at a glance.

Lisa Crispin's picture Lisa Crispin

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