agile

Better Software Magazine Articles

A Change Would Do You Good

Visit any bookstore these days, and you will be faced with shelves of books whose titles claim they can make everything—from cooking to exercise—more interesting. In our industry, boredom is a problem that can affect your ability to solve complex technical problems. Discover how change can spice up your software processes.

Jonathan Kohl's picture Jonathan Kohl
Incremental and Iterative Development

People get wrapped around the axle trying to understand the difference between incremental and iterative development. The Unified Process authors in the 1990s didn't help by indiscriminately calling everything iterative development. The two are different and must be managed differently. Successful teams do both at the same time, usually without thinking about it. Then someone starts thinking about it and does one without the other. Bad news follows.

Alistair Cockburn's picture Alistair Cockburn
The Hawthorne Effect

Ever wondered what productivity experiments on factory workers in the early twentieth century have in common with today's adoption of agile practices? Lee sheds some light on the "process of process" and the importance of retrospectives as catalysts for change.

Lee Copeland's picture Lee Copeland
A Story About User Stories and Test-Driven Development: Into the Field

Drawing on real events from the authors' combined experience, this story picks up where it left off in the November 2007 issue and follows a fictional team as it encounters some of the pitfalls of using test-driven development.

Gertrud Bjørnvig Neil Harrison
Twelve Ways Agile Adoptions Fail

Agile methodologies have taken some heat when they appear to have failed to deliver expected benefits to an organization. In my travels as an agile coach, I have found that agile practices don't fail—rather the variations on agile adoption fail. Here are my top twelve failure modes. See which ones may be painfully familiar to you:

Note: This article was originally published on StickyMinds.com as "11 Ways Agile Adoptions Fail."This updated version includes additional information that explains why some agile adoptions that appear to have failed may never have been truly agile to begin with.

Jean Tabaka's picture Jean Tabaka
A Story About User Stories and Test-Driven Development: The Setup

While "testing" is part of its name, many TDD pundits insist TDD is not a testing technique, but rather a technique that helps to focus one's design thinking. Drawing on real events from the authors' combined experience, this story follows a fictional team as it encounters some of the pitfalls of using test-driven development.

The Measure of a Management System

Traditional management systems were designed to measure conformance to plan, not adaptability. So in order to achieve truly agile, innovative organizations, a change in our approach to performance management systems is necessary. Find out why a switch to an adaptive performance management system can unleash the full potential of agile methods.

Jim Highsmith
Enough Is Enough: What Does Agile Software Development Mean?

Agile software delivery is about doing sufficient up-front analysis, design, and planning—and then deferring decisions to the appropriate time. But what does “enough” really mean? And why has the term "agile" become a cliché in development circles? Terms like "post-agile" or "pragmatic agile" have emerged as a response to this, but this is only a short-term fix.

Dan North's picture Dan North
Agile Addendums

Six years after the writing of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development, agile is being used more often and more ambitiously. Looking back, there are two things Brian Marick would like to have added to the manifesto: habitability and joy.

Brian Marick
The Plight of the Servant Leader

A ScrumMaster's accomplishments often are overshadowed by the success of his team. But like every human, these leaders have a need for esteem and self-fulfillment. Learn ways you can help to increase your ScrumMaster's job satisfaction.

Stacia Broderick

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