A challenge awaits any IT group switching from a waterfall process to agile software development. It is often overlooked. It has to do with the mindset of the company’s business community and how they perceive IT. The business stakeholders and end users have historically complained about issues like the following: It’s difficult to get IT […]
Month: June 2012
Retrospectives Work When They Are Impersonal and Impartial
Retrospectives are a terrific way to continuously improve any software development process. As long as the organization is committed to improving itself, rather than protecting the status quo, there is nothing better than regular retrospectives. So why are project retrospectives often ignored or under used? There are many articles across the Web describing how to […]
What Are the Characteristics of Successful Software Projects?
We spend a lot of time examining software project failures but it’s equally important to understand why some projects succeed. Here’s a short list. Commitment. The business stakeholders and the technologists are committed to the project — not just at the outset but throughout. This takes intense collaboration. There is also an executive sponsor or […]
As a Product Owner, I Want to Avoid Writing Stories So That I Can Do My Job
Writing user stories for agile software development can be a challenge for any Product Owner. Stories are supposed to deliver business value. What’s that? Stories are supposed to be vertical slices. Slices of what exactly? At times, we get overly bogged down in words and their definitions. We take things too literally and get stuck. […]
10 Tips for Enhancing Waterfall Software Development
So your company uses a waterfall approach to software development and you’re stuck with it. Your management doesn’t understand agile development and doesn’t want to. They like how work gets done even if projects often take longer than they’d like. Now what? Other than finding another job, your options are limited. Here are ten suggestions […]
This Test Will Help You Determine How Agile You Really Are
We sometimes talk (or write) as if agile software development and waterfall software development are two completely separate and different ways of building software. Yet, in reality they have much in common and it can be hard to slap a label on the process followed by any particular team. With that in mind, here are […]
There Are Only Five Software Risks Worth Considering
Agile software development teams face many types of risks but only a few really matter. There are countless risk possibilities to consider on any software development project. Everything from under-estimating the project scope to the local nuclear power plant suffering a meltdown. It can be mind-boggling. I think many teams don’t even bother to assess […]
The Future Is Here and Living in Your Smartphone
Apple sent out a few loud and clear messages at their Worldwide Developers Conference this week. They announced some great new products and the media is fixated on them. But the products are not the message. The capabilities of those products and the future direction they establish are what’s interesting. Here’s my interpretation of the […]
Agile Development Teams Follow This Simple Principle
Have you ever heard of the principle known as Occam’s Razor (or Ockham’s Razor)? I like to think of it as the law of simplicity — simpler explanations are better — all things being equal. Another way to think about it is that you should always start with what you know in trying to understand […]
Failure to Collaborate Threatens All Large Software Projects
There’s a famous quotation from the classic movie Cool Hand Luke that applies to many business situations; “What we’ve got here, is failure to communicate.” In many post-mortem evaluations of failed projects, inadequate communication is cited as a primary reason for team turmoil. Companies have responded by making it easier to communicate. Many of us […]
Waterfall Development Is Prescriptive; Agile Development Is Adaptive
The single biggest mistake companies make when adopting an agile development approach like Scrum, Kanban, XP or Lean, is establishing too many rules. This tendency results from their prescriptive cultures. They like to define lots of rules and want to make agile development fit in. It won’t. A prescriptive culture is one where there are […]
Estimates Are Worthless But Estimating Is Priceless
Seems contradictory, right? We spend a lot of time preparing software development estimates. Yet, I claim that the end result has no value. None. I also claim that the effort required to prepare estimates is time well-spent. That doesn’t make any sense! Or does it? Everyone wants to know how long the project will take […]