When XDx's Software Group adopted an agile approach to application development, we achieved the fastest development time on any software project in the company's history. While we expected to shorten development time and reduce costs, we discovered that agile provides several hidden benefits. Beyond its value as a software development methodology, our agile platform is a tool that enables and improves communication with our users which has been a key success factor, because user groups have a hard time thinking in the software development terms imposed by the traditional waterfall method of upfront specification. This improved communication has helped everyone to let go of complete up-front specifications and trust the agile process.

Esther Derby has been thinking about trust in the workplace a lot lately, and the absence of trust, too. When she asks people what it's like to work in a group where people trust their managers, they tell her information flows freely, conflict is productive, and that they can tell their managers what they think without fear of retribution. On the other hand, when trust is absent, people hide information, look out for themselves, don't bring up new ideas, and withhold effort.

Back in the day of cross-Atlantic boat travel, luggage that wasn't needed during the long journey was labeled "Not Wanted on the Voyage" and stowed away below decks. In this column, Fiona Charles suggests that testers can also be viewed as heavy baggage and not exactly welcome by some parties during the journey of software development. To understand why others might think this way, Fiona takes a good, hard look at what testers do that could possibly make them undesirable team mates.

When we schedule too many variables, things start to slip and soon the schedule is out the window. Paying attention to your project's constraints can help you set realistic scheduling goals that you will actually be able to stick to.