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How to Evaluate CM and ALM Tools[article] Joe Farah writes that evaluating and selecting configuration managment (CM) and application lifecycle management (ALM) tools is an opportunity both to ensure that you have a good process in place and to learn the present state and the state-of-the art in CM and ALM technology. |
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Sometimes, You Just Need to Slow Down[article] While it may seem that slowing things down is undesirable, such approaches often work very well and produce a higher throughput than the original (seemingly more active and energetic, if perhaps rather more frenetic) process. The downside of these experiences is that they make it easy to confuse manage with control, and even easier to interpret control as inhibit. |
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People, Processes and Tools: The Three Pillars of Software Development[article] Every project is dependent upon people, processes, and tools: they are how the work gets done. These three essential elements are not equal, though, as each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Each one provides a different value to our projects.
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Alan S. Koch
June 22, 2009 |
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Options for Promoting and Controlling Changes in Risk Adverse Environments[article] Change occurs everywhere, and every day - especially in the software world. Knowing how to navigate that change, and maximizing it's acceptance across the board is crucial for development teams to reach their goals. Learn how this can be accomplished in processes that are easy to adopt. |
Anonymous
June 22, 2009 |
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Don't be a Fool, Choose the Right Tool[article] Tools can be a powerful productivity enhancer in any software development organization, but they can also be a swirling vortex of wasted time and money. Choosing the right tool can seem like a daunting task, but careful planning creates a win-win for you and the entire organization. |
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Evaluating and Selecting CM Tools - A Perspective[article] By documenting your CM processes, you are able to form a "CM standard" in order to make CM an easier task. Learn how automated tools, and up to date documentation and requirements are key factors in the success of any project. |
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Applying Software Configuration Management Methodology to Database Development[article] By incorporating SCM standards across database change management, developers gain security, and ease that was previously hard to come by. Tight deadlines are able to be met whether dealing with minor changes, or full-scale deployment and releases. |
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Promoting Tools Within an Organization[article] As SCM professionals, we want to not only work on software construction and release engineering; we want to help software organizations iterate, release, and work as efficiently as possible. A true SCM professional will not only work on Build and Release Engineering, but also try to remove all roadblocks to software development and software engineering. So instead of focusing on a tool in particular, I'm going to discuss how the SCM professional can introduce a tool into a development environment. |
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Consider Team Members' Personalities When Creating a Change Control Group[article] Creating a change control group (or any other process improvement effort) can be incredibly successful—or it can get bogged down with impossible "people" issues, often due to conflicting communication styles and personalities. If you want your team to be a success, you may need to consider some of these people issues, or else risk failure due to personality issues that really matter. It's not hard to address these challenges and build a change control function that will succeed despite some of the inherent challenges in getting people who may have very different styles and approaches to work together. |
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Selecting the Best Tools for Your IT Team[article] Tools selection should really be the most objective and straightforward task that any technology professional could be asked to work on. After all, selecting a hammer is a basic task that depends on objective criteria such as the size of the nail that you are pounding into a wall. In technology, tools selection involves a lot more group dynamics than you might expect, and it is very possible that personality issues within the team evaluating the tools could cause you to make some costly mistakes. This article discusses what you need to know to make sure that you can successfully “tame your wild tools selection process” and yield the best results for your organization. |
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Welcoming Change[article] "If they would just stop changing their minds!" Untold numbers of programmer’s rants have begun with that lament (including a few of my own). Of course, we know that will never happen. Change is a fact that we must live with and to avoid change is to avoid reality. The Agile method goes beyond merely acknowledging this reality. It teaches us how to capitalize on the changes that will inevitably come along to produce a better result than the one we planned for in the first place. We don't just accept change and we don't control it. Instead, we learn how to welcome change! |
Alan S. Koch
June 22, 2009 |
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Five Ways that Team Members Build Trust with Each Other[article] Esther Derby explains how people within the team can build trust in each other through feedback. |
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Independent Testers? Or Independent Thinkers?[article] In this article, Lisa Crispin recalls a time when testers alone were solely responsible for software quality, and compares that to more modern thinking where collaboration between developers and testers is king. Software quality is everyone's job, sometimes it takes independence to get there. |
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Invest in Your Tools for More Productivity[article] There are a wealth of open source and commercial tools available to help us build software. However, sometimes we get stuck using tools in ways that are not optimal for our project. In these cases, investing some time to make the tools work for us can make substantial improvements in productivity. |
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Rocks into Gold: Part 1[article] This short book, written by Clarke Ching, is a "biztech" parable for software developers who want to survive—and then thrive—through the credit crunch. We have republished the book in a four-part series. In part one, we meet the main characters who have just found out that their jobs are on the line after discovering their major client's business is failing. Follow the story as our characters fight to keep their jobs by implementing creative business ideas and management skills taken from agile development. |
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