There are many groups who claim they are using Scrum, Kanban, XP or another variation on agile approaches but really aren’t. When you look closely, you find that they haven’t adopted all of the practices that make the approach work. For example, they’ll adopt Scrum but fail to include QA on the development team. Or […]
Category: Principle
To Be More Agile, Use More Common Sense
Too often we get so caught up in the people, process and technology issues that we forget to use simple common sense. When trying to solve a complex problem, we ask questions like: How do John and Jane feel about it? What is the company policy? Is it compatible with our existing widgets? The answers […]
Agile Is Better, But Not Faster
Companies often turn to agile software development in an effort to reduce time to market. Short iterations, frequent deliveries, integrated testing — sounds nimble and fast — right? Not quite. Agile development,when done properly, has a relentless focus on the customer, teamwork, quality and continuous improvement. There is no goal to deliver a final product […]
Agile Is Widely Misunderstood
Agile software development offers great promise. Agile techniques are simple, team-oriented and low-overhead. Too good to pass up, right? Not so fast. Software development is risky business. There are no panaceas and no guarantees. In an enterprise environment, you will still need project managers to control chaos, manage risk, deflect interruptions, and resolve issues. So […]
Successful Agile Teams Are Focused
Completing any software project successfully is not easy, regardless of the methodology you follow. One critical success factor is focus. The team must be able to answer the following questions without hesitation: What is the goal of the project? Who is the target audience? What is out of scope? Simple questions? It may seem so […]