Helping Your Team Weather the Storm Jim is mad at Hal. Sara is complaining to Jason. Hal feels hurt; Susan shows up late. Jason thinks only Sara and he have a clue. Is this team falling apart—or just experiencing a normal part of group development? In this column, Esther Derby describes what their team leader Jenny goes through as she learns about the predictable ups and downs of team formation and the one thing any team member can do to help. |
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Cases Against Applying Schedule Pressure Do you think that by removing deadlines from a project a team will have enough time to create perfect software? Theoretically, it's possible, but in this column Mike Cohn explains that this theory might not hold against ingrained behavior. He recalls how several teams reacted when deadlines were lifted from the projects they were working on. Their only goal: to produce perfect software. But that goal inadvertently brought something to the surface, that old habits die hard. |
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Todd Little - Agile 2005 - APLN and Agile 2005
Podcast
Todd Little, one of the organizers of the Agile conference and a founding member of the APLN, talks during Agile 2005. |
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Fit with Ward Cunningham and Rick Mugridge
Podcast
At the Agile 2005 conference in Denver, Ward Cunningham and Rick Mugridge talk about Fit, an acceptance testing tool that took the conference by storm. |
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How Much Work Can You Do—Developing and Managing Your Project Portfolio Knowing how much work your group can accomplish—and how much it takes to complete that work—is critical to your success as a manager. Johanna Rothman explains how to ascertain your team's potential and how to use that information to define and manage your project portfolio so it doesn't manage you. |
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Take Time to Make Time Scheduling a project can become a comedy of errors if you don't remember to plug in all the necessary pieces. In this week's column, Peter Clark takes us to a project kick-off meeting and shows us how to spot several common mistakes people make when creating project schedules. |
Peter Clark
October 6, 2005 |
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Executor or Engineer Software testers are typically grouped en masse in the world of information technology (IT). Many in the software testing profession, however, know that this should not be the case. In this column, Dion Johnson exposes the dichotomy in testing that has produced two distinct groups—software test engineers and software test executors—and why these groups are embroiled in a struggle to possess the crown as the industry's true software quality professionals. |
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Unearthing Buried Feedback Most managers realize that giving feedback is an important part of their job. But not all managers are skilled at providing feedback. Some make vague comparisons, mistakenly apply labels as feedback, and others just hint and hope you'll get the message. Esther Derby offers advice on how to probe for the information that will help you understand your manager's concerns when he doesn't state them clearly. |
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Nancy Van Schooenderwoert - Embedded Agile- Agile 2005
Podcast
Nancy Van Schooenderwoert talks about her work in the agile embedded software space, the challenges of instrumenting embedded software for automated testing, and the future of a Fit Fixture for the embedded software world. |
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Is the Grass Greener on the Other Side of the Fence? We may be creatures of habit—adhering to and promoting processes we know well—but we also habitually look to other work environments that appear capable of nurturing our ideas once an old environment becomes depleted. Ed Weller believes that searching for greener pastures is unnecessary. You just need to learn how to cultivate your managers in order to create an environment that will harbor your ideas. Ed explains why you'll end up grazing fruitlessly if you can't plant your ideas with management. |
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