You have to make that release date. You need more time to get the structure of your modules right, but you don't have it. Hitting the release date is more important than cleaning your code, so you defer the cleanup to make the deadline. You agree to take on technical debt which you'll have to … Continue reading Technical Debt
Tag: agile development
Kanban vs Scrum vs Agile
When inflexible and wasteful software development processes are making your organization inefficient, it's time to introduce an agile methodology. Kanban vs Scrum then becomes an essential question: Which agile software development methodology is better suited for my own situation? And is Kanban agile? What about Scrum vs agile? Confusion is spreading... Let's have a look … Continue reading Kanban vs Scrum vs Agile
Why you need to customize your agile methods
You're starting off with a new laptop. The OS is installed, but using it feels awkward. Nothing looks like it used to on your previous one. You're really frustrated how slow you move around just because you're missing your beloved customizations. A few days later you feel the flow again. You've tweaked your OS and … Continue reading Why you need to customize your agile methods
Why Teaching Developers To Test Is A Good Investment
Test a developer's software and you'll find bugs. Teach a developer to test and they can release their software. A bit of a twist on the old fish and eating maxim, but the same idea: teaching a skill enables self-reliance and self-confidence. And, while it's harder than quickly doing someone a big favor, teaching is … Continue reading Why Teaching Developers To Test Is A Good Investment
Why Agile Fails
In the past decade we've seen thousands of companies introducing agile methodologies. A lot of teams started introducing scrum, re-structuring the way they work, and ... getting stuck after a couple of months. Why do most agile introductions come to a screeching halt? Why do so many teams either fall back into old habits or … Continue reading Why Agile Fails
Why projects fail and how to make them succeed with more transparency
Imagine you’re driving your car through uncharted territory to a destination only vaguely described by "That Guy" who told you to go there. "That Guy" was kind enough to give you an absolutely non-negotiable deadline too. With that in mind, you race to the first waypoint - you should already be able to see it … Continue reading Why projects fail and how to make them succeed with more transparency
Stop missing out on collaboration opportunities by creating situation awareness
Yesterday, I was waiting for the train to arrive for my daily commute. After it pulled up to the station, a mother with a baby carriage tried to disembark. She struggled with the carriage while carrying a heavy bag, a second child pulling her arm. Naturally, I jumped in to help out and she was … Continue reading Stop missing out on collaboration opportunities by creating situation awareness
Where Agile Falls Short
It's amazing. Talking to a bunch of fellow CTOs I heard a lot of them saying: "We introduced Scrum and it works really well" and "we're too slow to bring new features to our customers". This piqued my curiosity. Scrum is supposed to speed up feature delivery through short iterations. How can an organization claim … Continue reading Where Agile Falls Short
Ground Zero: Starting Agile Development from Scratch
One of the most challenging things about introducing Agile in the workplace is that it's not very widespread. People have heard mixed reviews about it's implementations, and are hesitant to exchange the known (no matter how bad it may be), for the unknown. More and more companies, however, are adopting Scrum for their project management. … Continue reading Ground Zero: Starting Agile Development from Scratch
How to translate “business value” of things that are technically important
Agile teams often struggle with purely technical tasks. They just don't know how to translate technical necessity into business value. This makes it difficult to prioritize technical tasks against User Stories. In this article, I want to show you how to transform the hidden value of technical tasks into visible business value to ease prioritization … Continue reading How to translate “business value” of things that are technically important
Agile Web Operations 