A widely accepted agile practice is the daily standup meeting, in which each team member shares:
Mike Cohn recently examined variations that shed additional light on the progress being made toward completing each user story. I wrote about it for InfoQ, and you can find the story here.
Cheers,
Agile: Principles to Practice
If you are involved in agile software development, regardless of your role, Agile Open California has something for you. Spend two days sharing best practices, discussing concerns, and learning about agile, from principles to practice.
The results of Version One’s 3rd annual ‘State of Agile’ survey are in. According to the survey, agile practices are being used more widely and with impressive results. More than half of the respondents indicated that 90 – 100% of their organization’s agile projects have been successful, and 93% indicated that agile practices had enhanced their ability to respond to changing priorities.
Read the full article here on InfoQ.
Cheers,
In a recent blog post, Martin Fowler explains how the question “Should I use Lean software development instead of Agile?” is based on a false premise. Agile and lean are so deeply interwoven that if you are doing agile you are doing lean, and vice-versa. It inspired me to write this article for InfoQ.
I just had the pleasure of leading a half-day Agile/Scrum workshop for Autodesk. The goal was to do some education and get some ideas generated as to how this company might adopt agile practices. The group was smart, curious, and very engaged.
Several years ago I read The Autodesk File, a book about how this company was founded, and how it grew to be a major software company. It was neat to walk around the offices, knowing how it all began.
Talk about a great way to spend the morning. 🙂
Cheers,
Agile evangelists claim that extensive written requirements and specifications can be dispensed with in favor of lighter-weight ‘stories’. It sounds easier, certainly, but can it really be as good? Won’t all of the important details get lost? Join the Engineering Managers Support Group as we stage a participatory showdown between traditional and agile specs. May the best specs win! Of course, we will also feature our usual round-table discussion of your pressing engineering and leadership issues.
Greetings from Agile2008 in Toronto! To say that I have been overwhelmed by the conference would be an understatement. With 1600+ agile folks here, I am constantly running into old friends, people that I met at previous conferences, and my agile heros. The sheer volume of knowledge and expertise that is being shared is beyond my ability to describe. Wow!
For me, the final session of Dr. Dobb’s Architecture and Design World was ‘SOA Challenges: An Open Source Case Study’ by Sonya Lowry and Evan Deaubl. Evan talked about the technical challenges. Sonya talked about the leadership challenges on the project, and how she used agile methods to over come them. Sonya shared these:
“It’s agile, not ad-hoc!”
“You need to make agile fit your team, not make your team fit an agile book.”
Indeed.
Cheers,
Monday evening more that 40 people turned up at a ‘Birds of a Feather’ gathering to consider “What makes agile projects succeed (or Fail)?” as part of Dr. Dobb’s Architecture and Design World in Chicago. In 90 minutes the group generated, discussed, and ranked about 40 different answers to this question, while enjoying some pizza and beverages.
Below, I’m listing all of the ideas as ranked by the group. I’ll elaborate on a few of the ideas that the group focused on. I’ll also provide links to the results from other groups who have considered the same question.
The traditional roles on a scrum team are: Product Owner, Developer, and Scrum Master. Noticeably absent is the role of Team Leader; the team is expected to self-organize. Similarly, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra has dispensed entirely with the role of conductor in favor of a process where leadership is shared and decisions are made by the team. The result has been to create one of the world’s most renowned chamber orchestras. Along the way, they have learned lessons and ways of working together that any Scrum team can benefit from.
Read the full story here.
Cheers,