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
Tag: lean software development
How Value Stream Mapping can speed up your cycle time from years to weeks
When switching on the oxygen pumps, there was an explosion on board of the Apollo 13 space craft. A short circuit in a small module led to an explosion rendering most of the space craft useless. For days, the crew frantically worked in cramped quarters trying to return to Earth. Tensions ran high, but, instead … Continue reading How Value Stream Mapping can speed up your cycle time from years to weeks
How To Break Departmental Silos By Forming Feature Teams
Imagine a seven year old playing the piano. She hits every note like it's the only one, taking long breaks between each note. The play drags and listening to the singular notes is a pain. Instead of music, all you hear is a bunch of individual sounds, each one rivaling with the others to be … Continue reading How To Break Departmental Silos By Forming Feature Teams
How Delays Render All Your Efforts Useless
London Stansted Airport, early afternoon - a huge crowd at the railway station. No trains - only people, and a lot of confusion and anger. Having just flown an hour from Munich, Germany, I was supposed to meet a client two hours after touch down. But here I stood, waiting with the crowds: the railway … Continue reading How Delays Render All Your Efforts Useless
Has your Scrum implementation caused more problems than it solved?
Implementing Scrum helps your development department but breaks the old way of doing things, so the overall process actually slows down. Everyone was bashing your development department. You were too slow, you were the bottleneck - if only development would be faster, we could earn so much more money ... you know what I'm talking … Continue reading Has your Scrum implementation caused more problems than it solved?
Waterfall, SCRUM and Lean Software Development simulation as teaching platform
Currently, I'm preparing for teaching my next course on Agile Methodology. Again and again, I wonder what is the single most important thing my students should be able to take with them after four full days. One of my core messages is definitely that agile is more about principles than about practices. If you absorb … Continue reading Waterfall, SCRUM and Lean Software Development simulation as teaching platform
Agile Project Management Tools Evolving: Kanban FTW
It's been a while since we were using Thoughtworks Mingle as our agile project management tool. We liked their Kanban style Card Walls View a lot. Nevertheless, we switched to PivotalTracker because of its superior support of prioritizing stories in a backlog and automated iteration planning. Unfortunately, PivotalTracker does not offer any Kanban style card … Continue reading Agile Project Management Tools Evolving: Kanban FTW
Kanban for Lean Project Management with agilezen.com
Zen is a brand new Kanban tool for lean project management. In contrast to PivotalTracker, which concentrates on automating iteration management for SCRUM like projects, Zen's main view is a story board. The funny thing is, that I preferred the stroy board view in Mingle over the list view provided by PivotalTracker before I started … Continue reading Kanban for Lean Project Management with agilezen.com
Agile Web Operations 