Agile Development Conference & Better Software Conference West 2010

PRESENTATIONS

A Death Knell for Traditional Test Labs

In this jab at the traditional test lab approach to testing software and Web services, Ken Johnston explains the what, why, and how of the practices and processes for testing in production (TiP). He describes how cloud computing is changing the cost model of developing Web services and testing them efficiently. Learn about the role of system deployment as an enabler of dynamic, timely testing and how to get immediate feedback from some of the best testers anywhere-customers and users.
Ken Johnston, Microsoft
Agile Development Conference & Better Software Conference West 2010: Rightsizing Your Project in a Down Economy

In tough times, both shoes often drop simultaneously. Then, unsustainable "scarcity thinking" takes over. Many times, the tendency is to say "yes" to impossible dates, take on too much, quietly suffer the budget cuts, and pray that heroics will save the day. Resulting dysfunction can wreak havoc on your projects in the form of scope greed, death-march deadlines, and budget cuts. It takes a skillful manager to "right size" critical projects-right team, right scope, right dates-from the beginning.
Michael Mah, QSM Associates, Inc.
Agile Development Conference & Better Software Conference West 2010: Seven Deadly Habits of Ineffective Software Managers

Looking for an insightful-and humorous-review of the management disasters you may have witnessed during your professional software career? Ken Whitaker has collected seven of the most common disasters that he’s encountered in his lifetime of “in the trenches” software leadership roles. One of the habits everyone should appreciate is “Hiring Someone Who is Not Quite Qualified (but Who is Liked by Everyone).” Presented as a series of case studies, Ken explores these all-too-real situations that can be difficult to prevent and handle.
Ken Whitaker, Leading Software Maniacs
Agile Test Automation Development

We can apply agile development practices to test automation like any other software development project. The good news is … using agile practices for test automation projects addresses some of the classic problems of test automation: when and what to build, increasing automation execution to achieve extended return-on-investment, and test automation teams “going dark” for long periods of time.
Monica Luke, IBM Rational
Agile vs. Agility: Doing vs. Being

To be agile or not to be agile … that is not the question anymore; agile adoption is on the rise and there seems no turning back. The real question is whether we are focused on boiling agile down to a list of prescribed practices or are we dedicated to embracing and internalizing the core values and principles of agility. Ahmed Sidky explores why “doing” agile over “being” agile could be the reason some organizations do not produce hyper-performing agile teams.
Ahmed Sidky, Santeon
Are You a Develoment Professional?

The past decade brought the rise of the Agile movement, which split into two parts-Scrum, dominating the project management practices of agile; and XP, dominating its technical practices. Of the two, Scrum has had the greater impact as the industry quickly grasped its team-based benefits. During the rapid adoption of Scrum, technical practices were not being ignored. Programmers were gradually adopting XP and related development practices.
Robert Martin, Object Mentor
Being There: War Stories from Collocated and Distributed Teams

Since the early days of agile, we've known that face-to-face communication is optimal. In fact, one of the twelve principles in the Agile Manifesto is, “Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.” So, what are the real differences between collocated and distributed teams with the advent of “closeness” technologies-Web-based meetings, shared project whiteboards, Skype, Wikis, video conferencing, and more?
Michael Feathers, Object Mentor
Better Software Conference West 2010: Concurrent Testing Games: Developers and Testers Working Together

The best software development teams find ways for programmers and testers to work closely together to build quality into their software. These teams recognize that programmers and testers each bring their own unique strengths and perspectives to the table. Only by building upon this combination can we reach our full potential to consistently deliver quality. To do this, we first have to unlearn the anti-patterns that traditional development taught us.
Abby Fichtner, Microsoft
Better Software Conference West 2010: Making a Long Story Short: Splitting User Stories

When a single user story mixes both high- and low-value functionality or contains too many or unrelated customer needs, the flow of value slows. You must wait for the whole story to be finished before benefiting from its highest value parts. Even worse, it makes higher-value parts of the next story wait on lower-value parts of this one. Large stories can increase project risk because the core part of a story often contains proportionally more of its risk.
Bill Wake, Industrial Logic, Inc.
Boundary, Authority, Role and Task (BART) Analysis

If your Scrum practices-or any agile processes-aren't working as effectively as they might, this class may be just what you need! When teams have trouble executing their work processes, the root cause is often ambiguous definitions of boundary, authority, role, or task-what Dan Mezick calls BART definitions. Although the Scrum framework, effectively implemented, provides excellent BART definitions and structure, sometimes theory and practice don't match.
Dan Mezick, New Technology Solutions

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