The team, running Scrum by-the-book for three months, was continually failing to meet its delivery dates. As a result, trust between the business managers and the team degraded almost to a point-of-no-return. The team, which held bi-weekly retrospectives, could not pinpoint the problems causing its inability to ship. Mitch Lacey was asked to assist the team in finding the root cause of its problems. He analyzed multiple aspects of the project-from individual work items to planning meetings. While multiple issues were identified, one thing stood out above all others--the estimation process used had caused the team to miss its deadlines. Mitch discusses the estimation problems the team was having, how they were discovered and fixed, and the resulting improvement in financial and customer satisfaction.

Gone are the religious wars of plan-driven vs. agile software development methodologies and practices. Recent surveys indicate agile practices are being adopted in many software development organizations, with others seriously contemplating making the switch. The question from most organizations now has turned from plan-driven vs. agile to which agile practices they should use in their development process to most improve their business results. The experiences of other organizations that have adopted agile practices help answer this question. Based on her empirical studies of Extreme Programming teams and other agile practices, Laurie Williams shares her views on which agile methods have been most beneficial to industrial teams practicing agile development. Armed with real data, you can implement changes with more confidence that they will add value in your organization.

Over the course of many STAR conferences, Ed Weller has collected a list of your biggest challenges in testing-lack of time, unrealistic deadlines, lack of resources, inadequate requirements, last minute changes, knowing when to stop testing, and poor quality code from development. Using this list and Victor Basili's "Goal, Question, Metric" approach to measurement, Ed identifies the measurements and metrics that will help test managers and engineers objectively evaluate and analyze their biggest problems. By doing so, you can map out improvement options and make a strong business case for the resources and funding you need. By providing management with objective evidence rather than subjective opinions, which they call "whining," you will improve your chances for success. Just as importantly, you will be able to use these measurements to guide and communicate your progress with meaningful data.

Letting good estimates made by smart people be overwhelmed by the strong desires of powerful people is a cardinal sin of project management. Accurate estimates are the foundation of all the critical project decisions regarding staffing, functionality, delivery date, and budget. How do we properly estimate in a world where tradition declares that the deadline is set before the requirements are even known? Tim Lister offers practical advice on dealing with this thorny issue. He presents strategies and tactics for project estimating and describes his favorite estimating metric, the Estimating Quality Factor(EQF). By thinking of your project this way-goals are important and so are good estimates-you will be on the road to better quality and better projects. If you can learn to start the project and estimate continuously as events unfold, your goals and estimates will eventually converge.