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Agile Journal Articles


The Agile Journal publishes original content, articles and regular columns from industry thought leaders, analysts and software providers on a wide variety of topics related to agile development best practices and business adoption of agile ideas. Below you will find links directly to our columns and articles or you may use the search box to scan for a particular topic or writer.

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Defining Requirement Types: Traditional vs. Use Cases vs. User Stories

Articles
Written by Charles Suscheck   
Wednesday, 18 January 2012 00:00

jun-09-bestbigI’ve worked with a lot of teams transitioning to agile. In each situation, user stories always seem to be a sticking point, with a common question being, “What are the differences between traditional requirements, use cases, and user stories?” I’d like to answer this question with a description and example of each requirement type. I’ll also use a running example: Imagine that we’re writing software for placement firms, and one of the firms has requested the ability to search for candidates for a specific role by specialty within a geographic location. For example, “I want to find all business analysts who are Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) experts within fifty miles of New York City.”

Last Updated on Wednesday, 18 January 2012 17:30
 

Quality

Magazine
Wednesday, 11 January 2012 00:00
When I first read "The Zero Defect Vision," by Bob Schatz, I told Bob, "You have two articles. You have to break this into two parts."

Bob said, "But people need to read both pieces, they are so important."

So, I said we would run them together. You, our readers, are extra lucky this month. You get to read Bob’s management and technical vision of how to create zero defect software. In part one, read how Bob sees the personal piece of zero defect software and how to develop strategies to eliminate errors and prevent defects in your products.

In part two, Bob examines common sources of errors and reminds us of tools that some of us learned about way back when, in more traditional quality training days. The lessons are just as useful now.

I like seeing the ecosystem of how companies have applied agile to their organization. In "An Agile Software Shop" by Rafael Alvarez, you have a chance to see how they have adapted Scrum in his organization. I particularly like the way Rafael talks about the sales team working with
the BA.

When was the last time you thought of traditional process quality in relationship to your agile software development? Maybe you haven’t. Well, if not, you’re missing something.

And, I always have something to say about agile. Jonathan Vanian, our wonderful editor, picture selector, and webmaster, interviewed me. The result is included in this issue.

I hope you enjoy the January 2012 Agile Journal.

Johanna Rothman
Technical Editor
Agile Journal


Last Updated on Wednesday, 11 January 2012 10:11
 

An Agile Software Shop

Articles
Written by Rafael Alvarez   
Monday, 09 January 2012 15:37

Worksho[One of the most challenging situations involving adopting agile is when doing so in a software shop that has several specialized groups already in place forming silos: development, quality assurance (QA), business analysts (BA), software configuration management (SCM), documentation, architecture, database admin (DBA), and user experience (UX). These shops may or may not have fixed (non-negotiable) delivery dates with a very tight schedule, developing either commercial products or turnkey solutions for customers. The goal is to take these silos and form a cohesive team while delivering useful software by the required date.

Last Updated on Wednesday, 11 January 2012 10:24
 

The Zero Defect Vision, Part 1

Articles
Written by Bob Schatz   
Monday, 09 January 2012 15:10

How many times have you had the conversation at work about how software is so complex and it should be an accepted fact that there are going to be a significant number of defects?

Would you be comfortable if your doctor, surgeon, airline pilot, bridge-builder, car manufacturer, or pharmaceutical company had similiar conversations?

Last Updated on Tuesday, 10 January 2012 12:59
 

The Zero Defect Vision, Part 2

Articles
Written by Bob Schatz   
Monday, 09 January 2012 15:10

In " The Zero Defect Vision" Part 1, I explored how to develop strategies to eliminate errors and prevent defects in your product or service. In part two of my series, I will examine the common sources of errors in product development activities; by being aware of the things we can change in our environments, we can reach our goal of preventing errors. Then, a number of techniques can be employed in order to help teams work towards a zero defect goal.

People
In order to be able to recognize, and prevent, human error, it is important to understand that developing technology is a people business. Completely eliminating human error is not possible, so we should focus on minimizing the conditions that increase the possibility of error. Some of the factors to pay close attention to are:

Last Updated on Tuesday, 10 January 2012 12:58
 

Editor's Choice

Magazine
Wednesday, 14 December 2011 00:00
We have a potpourri of articles for you this month—definitely an editor's choice for the Agile Journal.

Neil Fox has an intriguing article, "The Two Metrics that Matter." Neil uses a radar chart to show predictability and productivity. He and I had some vigorous discussions during our back-and-forth during the technical editing, and I think he has a great article as a result. Of course, it really matters what you, the readers think. Please read it and comment.

One of the best things about the Agile Journal is that you, the readers, respond to the articles we publish. And, because every project is different, people have different experiences. Scott Ames has a response to a recent Daryl Kulak piece in this article based on his experiences. Please read "How to Give an Accurate Answer," and let Scott know what you think.

Ellen Gottesdiener and Mary Gorman have some great answers in their article, "It's the Goal, Not the Role: The Value of Business Analysis in Scrum." If you've ever wondered, "Where does the business analyst fit?" or "Do we need a BA?" this article attempts to answer those questions.

Finally, we have my article, "Edit Those Epics." I seem to have hit a nerve with this article. Please join the conversation. Tell me what you really think—others have!

I hope you have a healthy and happy holiday season. See you in January.

Johanna Rothman
Technical Editor
Agile Journal


Last Updated on Wednesday, 14 December 2011 11:33
 

How to Give an Accurate Answer

Articles
Written by Scott G. Ames   
Tuesday, 13 December 2011 15:15

Answer“How long’s it gonna take?” My response: “Six weeks, plus or minus two days. No more.” In this article, I’ll give a rebuttal to Daryl Kulak’s article, “Let’s Stop the Wishful Thinking.” I will show why his beliefs about software estimating, while understandable, are questionable because of the advent of the Test Requirements Agile Metric (TRAM).

Last Updated on Tuesday, 13 December 2011 21:41
 

Edit Those Epics

Articles
Written by Johanna Rothman   
Monday, 12 December 2011 00:00

Edit

I've been working with folks making their transition to agile. One of the hardest transitions is for the managers and technical leaders.

Managers are accustomed to working in timeboxes. To them, the iteration is a timebox. But, they also are accustomed to features spanning multiple timeboxes, and that’s not OK in agile.

Last Updated on Tuesday, 13 December 2011 11:28
 

The Two Metrics that Matter

Articles
Written by Neil Fox   
Tuesday, 06 December 2011 17:14

1The global recession has strongly impacted the software development industry, including companies that develop software to support their traditional services. Anyone speaking to a development executive can feel these effects. The outcry is universal: “How can I do more with the same resources?” The need to be innovative, competitive, and cost effective has never been stronger than it is today. If necessity is the mother of invention, then current world economy is the mother of necessity.   Nearly every CIO or VP of R&D that I speak with is struggling to improve their time to market while increase the number of features delivered within stagnant or shrinking budgets. Two common objectives of software development teams address this need:

Last Updated on Wednesday, 07 December 2011 11:13
 

Implementing Agile Across the Organization

Magazine
Tuesday, 08 November 2011 00:00
august-09-databigThis month, we have Daryl Kulak's great article on estimation, "Let's Stop the Wishful Thinking." I wish I could tell you how many times I fell into the accuracy/precision estimation trap, but the 842,623 times—make that more than 800,000 times—would be a good estimate.

Mike Kelly always makes me think about automation, and he's done so again in "Orders of Magnitude in Test Automation." I'd never considered the 1000s, 100s, 10s, and 1s heuristic. Thank you, Mike!

Sowmya Karunakaran's article, "Seven Strategies for Handling Distributed Agile," highlights the challenges of making a distributed team work, and provides answers! If you, like so many others, are working in a distributed agile team, please read this article.

And, I found Ove Holmberg's experience report, "Six Steps for Implementing Agile Across the Organization" delightful. I hope you do, too.

Remember, December is editor's choice month, which means if you have a story to tell, I am all ears, ready and waiting for your stories.

I hope you enjoy this month's Agile Journal.

Johanna Rothman
Technical Editor
Agile Journal


Last Updated on Tuesday, 08 November 2011 22:10
 

Six Steps for Implementing Agile Across the Organization

Articles
Written by Ove Holmberg   
Friday, 04 November 2011 16:16

FeetOnce, I was hired at a big company as a team lead with a mission to create an agile team from a group of twelve skilled people. It was hard to transform the group (80 percent of whom were consultants) into a self-organized agile team consisting of 80 percent company employees, some of them offshored. This setup was a major success for me and my agile mentors as we transformed from a bunch of developers to an agile team, but I wasn’t able to celebrate because I had a problem. I was pushing too much self-organization onto the team, and one year of low (but increasing) velocity combined with stepping too hard and often on my boss’s toes, was fatal for me. My boss had to repeatedly explain to the CIO why we did not show the expected results.

Last Updated on Wednesday, 09 November 2011 11:39
 
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