Nothing can be quite as vexing for a company as having multiple definitions of done.

Throughout the course of a project, if there isn’t a mutual understanding, this issue will rear its ugly head continually. Furthermore, the misunderstanding is pervasive – nearly every company has combated the problem at one point. That is precisely way it’s important to establish an agreed upon definition of done before a project begins. Many well-respected agile development minds have come up with suggestions to help minimize issues pertaining to the definition of done. Here are…

Even before management buy-in, try small Agile changes.

A recent InfoQ.com blog, addresses a common Agile issue — lack of management buy-in. A company with delivery and quality issues might seem ripe for Agile adoption. However, way too often, one developer or project manager will learn what Agile has to offer, only to have their enthusiasm squashed by higher ups. Even when managers are not interested in Agile, employees can sneak in a few techniques, which may ultimately sell Scrum to higher ups. According to Rafael Fuchs, who took this  Scrum implementation…

When it comes to defect testing and tracking, the goal should be zero bugs over time.

The first keynote at the ‘Agile Testing Days’ conference in Berlin, was a discussion of defect management and tracking. Blogger Markus Gartner discusses this presentation by Lisa Crispin in a recent post. Traditional defect tracking systems are used for “metrics and to help a team to know what to fix”, writes Gartner. However, Agile use of defect tracking strives for zero bugs over time. To do this, it may be necessary to use a tracking…

Eliminate Agile boundaries to reduce bottlenecks.

One of the key success factors for Agile teams, according to Michael Depaoli of the VersionOne blog, is the creation of cross-functional teams.  Depaoli explains, “In the last company that I lead an Agile initiative, when I arrived, client dev engineers had tech specialties and code ownership was cut up equivalently.  After just less than a year, the team eliminated the boundaries and we had common code ownership which greatly reduced bottlenecks.” By sharing skills, each team member improves his or her breadth of skills and…

When an agile team is first formed, performance is always the biggest question.

There are concerns about whether or not the team will be productive, how long turnarounds will be and all sorts of questions. For this reason, a new agile team needs to get good at predicting their performance. The first part of this should relate to timelines. During an iteration, it’s very helpful if a new team is able to estimate their productivity over a span with accuracy. Furthermore, over time, these teams should develop a pattern of production.…

Agile development creates a lot of intrinsic need for testing.

With so many iterations and alterations constantly being done, it’s just a necessary part of the process. Problems arise, however, when developers decide to ignore testing. The reasons they choose to do so aren’t that diverse. For the most part, it’s because they don’t believe in the purpose or because they can’t budget the time. Here are some other reasons that developers ignore testing: Not having enough time available to test. The changes were simple, so it’s not needed. This relates to…

Adhere to Fixed Scope for all Iterations. One of the biggest challenges and benefits of Agile project management is the concept of fixed scope. Leeann Berner of VersionOne explains in a recent blog, that it is easy to stray from this fundamental aspect of Agile.

When a stakeholder or product owner says, “It could be so much better if…” the implications can throw your iteration out of focus. Berner suggests that you consider the following tips to avoid scope creep: You can…but should you? Decide if you should change the scope. “And…

The Best Agile Books on the Market Based on popularity at Amazon.com, user reviews, and a few other criteria, Jurgen Appelo compiled a list of top 100 Agile books for the software development community. Five of these are listed below for your reading pleasure: Agile Estimating and Planning by Mike Cohn Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship by Robert C. Martin Working Effectively with Legacy Code by Michael Feathers Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code by Martin Fowler, et al. The Art of Unit Testing: With Examples in .Net by Roy Osherove The full list if 100…

During the agile process, teams may reach a wall when it comes to production.

They may be working on all facets of the product, at their fastest speed, and decide they can’t move any quicker. They’ve reached their production peak, so to say. There are no longer impediments to fix; either they’ve all been tended to or they’re in the process of being resolved. But that is only the way it appears to the team. Many times an outside perspective will discover countless hurdles being ignored. Oversights are unavoidable during a project…