develpreneur podcast
Posted on The Agile Manifesto

Agile Anti-Patterns of The Dev Team

Everything in software development has good and bad patterns.  We have looked at why the agile approach is valuable.  However, we need to review agile anti-patterns to avoid problems that can erase any benefits.  There are many ways we can misuse this process.  Here are some development team mistakes we can avoid No WIP Limit There is a pride people have around multi-tasking.  However, it is not the most efficient way to get things done.  Even worse, we can end up having too many tasks in flight when a sprint ends.  This causes a broad range of challenges and can block a team from critical sprint tasks.  We should take a task, complete it, and then move on to another. ... Read more

develpreneur podcast
Posted on The Agile Manifesto

Agile Weaknesses – When It Is Not a Good Approach

It may come as a shock, but there are agile weaknesses.  These are situations where a different approach brings a lower risk.  These weaknesses also point to the strengths and attributes of a project or team that make agile the best choice for our framework.  None of these are set in stone.  Thus, knowing about the weakness is an opportunity for overcoming it. The Team Is Central Most of the Agile weaknesses center around the team and their ability to follow through on the principles or values.  The most essential of these is the ability of the team to handle cross-functional tasks.  It requires developers in the dev team rather than just several coders.  We ask team members to understand... Read more

develpreneur podcast
Posted on The Agile Manifesto

Agile Philosophy, Not Hard And Fast Rules

We have covered a broad range of topics in our discussion of Agile.  However, the goal of this approach is to fit your team and environment.  Think of it as an agile philosophy and not a well-defined or rigid process.  Your team should make the framework applicable to them, not force the team into agile methods. Make Adjustments The principles and values laid out in the agile manifesto point to one or two primary goals.  We want to satisfy the customer and do so with working software.  All of the other details of the manifesto are for helping us to accomplish those goals.  If any step or recommendation detracts or distracts, then we can skip it.  However, we should not... Read more

User Acceptance Testing
Posted on Integrate Testing Into Your Development Flow

User Acceptance Testing

Welcome to the next episode in our new series “Integrating testing into your development flow”. Today we are going to be looking at “User Acceptance Testing”. In our last presentation we will be talking about Integration Testing. Specifically, what it is, when should we do it, who does it, and why is it so important?  We went into why most of this type of testing is typically done by a QA manager or test team, not the developer. Including the different types of testing such as big bang, top-down, bottom-up, and sandwich/hybrid approaches. Ending with a real-world use case example of why/how a company would apply it. Plus some tips on the best practices you should consider when doing integration... Read more

Django website
Posted on Python-Django Crash Course

Django Website Basics – Models And Forms

This series looks at Python and Django.  We continue our tutorials by exploring the steps to build a Django website.  There are a few keys areas to understand, and then we are off and running.  In this presentation, we introduce forms, models, views, and URLs. Forms and Views Our last presentation was an introduction to the models and building a database.  We start with a review and then tie those items to the front-end of our solution.  We can quickly use templates to create a modern web application.  The Django framework even pushes us to do this in a manner that is easy to maintain. Views provide our routing logic, and then we jump into scripting out our HTML pages... Read more

develpreneur podcast
Posted on The Agile Manifesto

Using The Sprint Retrospective For Agile Improvement

The sprint retrospective is where we take the time to assess how we did and plan for improvement.  It is essential for getting better.  Unfortunately, running this activity can be challenging and easy to underestimate for its value.  Here are some suggestions for converting the time spent in a retrospective into action items for improvement. Initial Challenges All teams start out working on how they communicate.  That is just the nature of being human beings.  It is not different in the professional world.  We have processes to clarify and terminology to agree upon.  That means an early sprint retrospective will likely have this “low hanging fruit” to address.  These items may seem trivial or surprising for an experienced team.  However,... Read more