On traditional software teams, business analysts define requirements in batches, describe them in big documents, and deliver them to developers and testers. Developers interpret the requirements and start writing code while testers interpret them and start writing tests. Almost always the interpretations differ, and neither precisely matches the analysts’ intentions. The mismatches are often discovered late in the project, after much effort has been expended and when corrections are most costly. Dale Emery describes a better approach-Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD)-in which the entire team collaborates to create acceptance tests as a key part of the requirements definition process. These tests become the team’s shared, precise definition of what each requirement means to the team members and customers.

The concept of software process improvement is not new. Many methods have been defined to conduct and pursue improvement. We never seem to lack for “improvement” ideas, as if they are fresh and exciting-which they often are not. Maybe that's because so much of what has been espoused through the years has not worked. Hillel Glazer examines long-held assumptions about process improvement, proposes plausible flaws, and reveals new levels of understanding that have facilitated breakthroughs in high performance. Hillel looks at what happens when there is too much focus on practices, when the underlying principles aren't honored, and when basic values aren't internalized. We see too much arguing over practices instead of working toward results-too much worrying about compliance to some dogma instead of moving forward with what’s really working.

Over the past decade or so we've seen important new ideas added to the mix of software design practices to help us produce better software. Design Patterns help us capture the design solutions and reveal a rationale for using them. Refactoring allows us to improve system design after the code is written. Agile methods-and in particular, Extreme Programming-provide highly iterative and evolutionary development methods that are particularly well suited to fast changing requirements and rapidly evolving hardware and technology environments. Martin Fowler-a leading voice in understanding, honing, practicing, and promoting these approaches-offers up a suite of short talks on his recent thinking about how these design practices have changed software development. Join Martin to explore what's new on the horizon to support the design and development of new, more complex, interconnected systems than the world has ever known.

Has the digital revolution really made it possible to do almost anything collaboratively with people separated by time and distance? Or are decisions to split software development around the globe more about pressure to cut costs and less about tapping the intellectual capital from other nations? Countering the multi-shoring trend is a powerful new movement that looks at the forces of concentration-clustering of human creativity and talent-to claim the creativity, innovation, and productivity that can result when smart and talented people locate closely to one another. Who is right? To answer this question, Michael Mah looks at what measurement data says about offshore and co-located projects. Michael presents actual case studies from real companies and contrasts the results from the two philosophies. What you learn may challenge long-held beliefs about knowledge work, commoditizing human capital, and innovation.