agile infrastructure
Posted on Tech Notes

Best Practices for Creating An Agile Infrastructure

These days everyone wants to be agile. In fact, agile is now considered essential for survival in the emerging service-driven economy.  It has stoked fear in big organizations that have invested years, if not decades, in building the monolithic data environments that are anathema to agility.  Therefore, we need to consider the best practices in building an Agile infrastructure. The enterprise is accepting the “adapt or perish” mindset that is the first step in digital transformation.  Yet, it is important to note that agility is not only dependent upon an abstract, cloud-based infrastructure.  It requires changes to processes, business models, and the very fabric of the organizational culture. Agile History In terms of software development services, agility as a concept... Read more

develpreneur podcast
Posted on The Agile Manifesto

Agile Patterns – Make The Most of The Process

We take a look at Agile patterns as we come to the end of this season.  There has been a lot of content covered.  However, we do not want to move on without looking at tools for implementing these practices.  Fortunately, there is an excellent DZone article on Agile patterns for those that want to dig deeper into these. Avatars An avatar is exactly what you might expect on a project.  It can take the form of a magnet, a pin color, or a miniature of some sort.  It could even be a playing piece from a board game.  This pattern aims to give each dev team member a limited number of items they can work on at a time. ... Read more

test frameworks 1
Posted on Integrate Testing Into Your Development Flow

Build Test Frameworks with Test Scenario, Test Case, and Test Data

In this episode, we will be covering how to build test frameworks using a lot of the best practice techniques using Java, Selenium, Maven, and TestNG. However, due to the extent of the material this presentation will be presented in two parts going over the ins and outs of building your project structure and how and why you should separate the different units of work. Therefore we will start with the first part covering “How to Build: Test Scenario, Test Case, and Test Data“. Finally, concluding with “How to Build: Assertions, Builders, Controllers, Page Objects“ in the final video. Some of the Topics Covered in Build Test Frameworks with Test Scenario, Test Case, and Test Data: The importance of listeners.... Read more

develpreneur podcast
Posted on The Agile Manifesto

Scrum Management Anti-Patterns – A Vote of No Confidence

The focus on anti-patterns continues with this episode.  We have touched on some of these challenges in other examples.  However, these scrum management anti-patterns are special in that they often point to a lack of confidence in the process.  That can reduce morale and the team’s dedication to the process.  It can rapidly devolve into a negative monkey see, monkey do situation. Going Around the Scrum Master There are several reasons why a team member is tasked with specific work.  However, these directives can reduce the team’s ability to self-organize.  Micro-management of a Scrum team shows a lack of respect for the Agile process and can quickly lead to the team working for their boss.  This lack of teamwork reduces... Read more

Agile Product Development
Posted on Tech Notes

VIDEO: Coaching Tips to Stop Teams Equating Points to Hours

This article is well-timed for our discussions around Agile and best practices.  I hope you find it useful in how to handle equating points to hours. VIDEO: Coaching Tips to Stop Teams Equating Points to Hours Today’s post introduces the first installment in a free series of training videos to help teams use story points to create estimates. The training will be available until Wednesday, October 28, at 9 pm Pacific. To watch the first video and find out when the next video is available, sign up here. Over the next week, some new (and free) training videos will be released to tackle common problems teams face when estimating with story points. Earlier this year, a survey to discover what... Read more

develpreneur podcast
Posted on The Agile Manifesto

Scrum Team Anti-Patterns, What We All Need To Avoid

Our focus the last few episodes have been on anti-patterns relegated to a specific role.  We take a step back in this episode and review scrum team anti-patterns.  These are mistakes we make on a whole that can derail our project and reduce velocity.  These can even drive a product into failure. Deliver The Wrong Thing There are many ways this anti-pattern can make an appearance.  The story may be too vague, requirements gathering is insufficient, or the dev team misses the point of a feature—all of this boils down to a communication problem.  Yes, we have once again come to a point where our problem and solution fall under the category of communication.  This time the root cause is... Read more