The Latest
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Is Agile Breaking Product Management?[magazine] It can be a challenge for a product manager to know how to lead an agile software team. As product managers take on many different roles throughout a project lifecycle, there can be confusion, resulting in the product manager doing what nobody else wants to do. Steve Johnson offers a perspective of the agile product manager that every software developer should know. |
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An Innovation in Scrum Ceremonies: Peer Feedback[article] Traditionally, the project manager or ScrumMaster is responsible for evaluating a team's performance. But peer feedback, when each member of a team picks another member, observes him or her, and then shares thoughts and suggestions about that other team member’s work, can also be very valuable to continuous improvement. |
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Motivating Teams In a Self-Organizing Environment[magazine] A key characteristic of agile is that a team self-organizes to best fit the workload. This, according to Maria Matarelli, can be more difficult than the more traditional approach of a project manager simply telling the team what to do. |
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Always Read the Label: Getting the Most from Your Tools[article] It is possible to find a new, innovative use for a tool, but it’s much more likely that you’ll do better using the tool in the way its creators intended. And whenever you reach for a tool, check that it’s actually going to help solve the challenge you’re facing. This article explains why first and foremost, conversation is more important than a shiny new tool. |
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Quality Assurance Is a Process, Not a Department[magazine] QA is often considered that lonely department of testers whose job is to find defects before the customer does. It's not always glamorous, but QA deserves to be recognized as a key cog in the testing machine. To achieve business goals, it is Susan Bradley's view that the QA process needs to be embraced throughout the entire software development lifecycle. |
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Guide Your Agile Development with Traceable Tests[article] 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. |
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Being Agile, Even if My Organization Isn't[magazine] Many of us work for organizations that claim adherence to agility, yet in practice aren't even close. Agile is definitely here to stay, and if you haven't caught the wave, it is only a matter of time before you do. Brian Rabon presents insightful techniques that can help you become more agile now. |
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Does Agile Work outside Software?[article] People will ask, “Can you use agile outside software development? In real business, not just in software teams?” Most experienced agile practitioners will instinctively want to shout, “Yes! Of course!” But intuition apart, where is the evidence? Allan Kelly found some examples and shares how agile works in environments outside software. |
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Management Myth 36: You Have an Indispensable Employee[article] An employee may become indispensable through arrogance or happenstance. These employees can cause bottlenecks and often prevent others, as well as themselves, from learning and growing professionally. "Firing" these indispensable employees sets your team free to work even when the expert is not available. |
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Scrum or Kanban—Which Is Better?[magazine] In this FAQ column, Arlen Bankston defines the roles of Scrum and kanban and describes how the two agile methodologies can be complementary, each ideal for different situations, or blended to achieve the desired outcome. |
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'Tis the Season for Annual Planning: How to Have a Jollier Experience This Year[article] One of the primary goals of annual planning is to translate aspirational strategic plans into realistic execution plans. Sadly, rather than delivering plans we can all feel good about and believe in, too often it leaves us depressed about the work ahead of us. This article shares five practical principles to remove the emotions associated with annual planning. |
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Testing in the Agile Age: An Interview with Alon Girmonsky[interview]
Podcast
In this interview, BlazeMeter founder and CEO, Alon Girmonsky, digs into why modern businesses must adopt agile methodologies. He talks about the advantages agile has over waterfall as well as how shorter iteration windows within the testing process affect manual hand-offs. |
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Agile Transition and Managing the Testing Process: An Interview with Samir Shah[interview]
Podcast
In this interview, Zephyr founder and CEO, Samir Shah, discusses how to make the agile transition as either a big or small company. He also digs into the changing nature of test management, as well as the times when you really need to automate your testing. |
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Are You Done or Done-Done?[magazine] Probably one of the most frustrating roles a manager has to master is how to know the true status of work being performed. To a developer, completing 80 percent of the work may be good enough, but is it even close to being really done? Masha Nehme shows techniques you can use to verify task completion. |
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Five Common Pitfalls When Organizations Neglect Agile Values[article] As agile development has erupted over the software landscape, its core philosophy often has been neglected as organizations hurry to implement cherry-picked practices in the name of pragmatism. By avoiding these five common pitfalls, companies can better realize the true benefits of agile: high productivity, great software quality, and happy customers. |
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