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Implementing Agile Across the Organization

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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

 
Featured articles...

Let's Stop the Wishful Thinking
by Daryl Kulak
"How long's it gonna take?" We have to be able to answer that question accurately, right? Not necessarily. In this article, we'll examine the long-held beliefs in software development regarding estimating.

We Are Such Bad Estimators!
Show me a development shop that estimates its work confidently and accurately and I'll show you a...what? Three-headed lizard that plays gin rummy and has a .350 batting average. We all hang our heads in shame at our poor estimating. Our business executives just want to know how long it will take and how much it will cost. Why can't we tell them?

Read More >>
 

Orders of Magnitude in Test Automation
by Mike Kelly
Many teams focus on automation at the level that's easiest to automate given the team makeup and the readily available tools. For some teams, that means lots of automated unit tests. For others, it can mean large suites of GUI-level automation tests. Developers tend to favor automation similar to their regular daily work, and testers tend to favor tools more closely resembling their normal test routines. Or, said another way, when the team looks to implement automation, they identify the closest hammer and start swinging.

Read More >>
 

Seven Strategies for Handling Distributed Agile
by Sowmya Karunakaran
Global markets, global talent, and a constant pressure to reduce costs through outsourcing are all major forces that contribute to distributed teams. In VersionOne's 2008 State of Agile Development survey, 57 percent of respondents stated that their teams were distributed. While distributing a team could have practical business reasons, distribution can inhibit communication within the team.

Read More >>

More articles...
Six Steps for Implementing Agile Across the Organization
by Ove Holmberg

Once, 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.

Read More >>
 
 
 

 

 
Last Updated on Tuesday, 08 November 2011 22:10
 
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