Monthly Archives: October 2009

10 Rules for Winning Punkin Chunkin’ (and Architecture, too!)

 Mike Rosen | Oct 27, 2009  1 Response
Oct 272009
 
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I live in the state of New Hampshire. It’s a major pumpkin-growing region of the country, and October is harvest season. Truckloads of pumpkins head south and west, and local farm stands are bursting with the orange globes. But what do you do with all the misshaped or leftover pumpkins? Chuck ‘em, what else? A local farmer has turned this into an art with his World Champion ‘Yankee Siege’ Trebuchet. This is something you really must see to comprehend. The top of the mast rises to more than 60 feet, and when the 12,000 pounds of weight are let loose, pumpkins fly for about 2,000 feet. Now, it turns out that this farmer is not …

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 Enterprise Architecture  Tagged with:

Why Agile is Successful

 Jim Highsmith | Oct 26, 2009  3 Responses
Oct 262009
 
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What makes agile development and project management successful? While there are many factors in agile’s success, four key ones are: a bias for action, a focus on customer value, the appeal to doers, and being principles based. One of the most famous, or infamous, management books ever written was In Search of Excellence : Lessons from Americas Best Run Companies, by Thomas Peters and Robert Waterman. This book, published in 1982, has been criticized in some circles because some of their designated “Best Run Companies” fell on hard times after the book’s publication. However, there are some ideas about what makes successful companies that can be compared with agile success factors. “Do it, fix it, …

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 Agile Project Management  Tagged with:

An Apparent Truth: Your Organization Will Change if You Adopt Agile

 David Spann | Oct 20, 2009  No Responses
Oct 202009
 
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Much of the discussion about agile has in the past been about creating “working software,” team dynamics, technical practices, and even the project management required to get effective and acceptable code delivered and/or deployed. What teams quickly find out is that they depend on other organizational dynamics outside their purview, such as securing customer involvement, issue escalation, and resource allocation; even facility management becomes important. When these issues arise, unless they are in a small enough company where there is only one team working, they will need to become aligned with the rest of the organization to ensure the best collaboration possible. However, what most leaders discover is that by taking on agile as their …

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 Agile Project Management  Tagged with: ,

Alpha, Beta, Meta: a New Product Introduction Cycle?

 Claude Baudoin | Oct 19, 2009  No Responses
Oct 192009
 
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As the old joke goes, alpha tests and beta tests are named that way because “alpha” is a Greek word that means “doesn’t work,” and “beta” is another Greek word that means “still doesn’t work.” But seriously, we know that the classical software product lifecycle includes tests performed by the development team (alpha tests) and tests performed by a limited number of selected users (beta tests). Beta testers have to accept that the software may have bugs (otherwise, what would be the point of testing?) and they commit to taking the time to provide detailed feedback on the issues they encounter. In exchange, they get to use the software early, usually for free, and may …

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 Collaboration+Teams, Web 2.0  Tagged with: , , , ,

The Great Recession Fallout: Will CIOs Be Elevated or Exterminated?

 Christine Generali | Oct 15, 2009  No Responses
Oct 152009
 
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With all that has transpired in the last year, what do you think is in store for the role of the CIO in 2010 and beyond? The January 2010 Cutter IT Journal — with Guest Editor Vince Kellen — invites thoughtful analysis and debate on how the great recession will reshape the role of the CIO. If you’d like to share your perspective with us, article abstracts are due by October 29. For more information, visit here.

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Planning and Scanning: Adapting Isn’t Always The Solution

 Jim Highsmith | Oct 9, 2009  No Responses
Oct 092009
 
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Agile methods are geared to managing uncertainty – uncertainty related to “ends” (customer objectives and features), and uncertainty related to “means” (technology and people). One way in which agile approaches deal with uncertainty is frequent re-planning based on progress to date and new information gathered during development iterations. The positive aspect of agile methods is that they encourage dealing with the uncertainty early in a project and focus on working software. Unfortunately, these very aspects of agile methods can also have negative outcomes – sloppy planning, and reactive thinking. All agile projects combine aspects of anticipation (planning) and adaptation (revisions based on reflections). Too great an emphasis on adaptation (we can always fix or refactor …

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 Agile Project Management  Tagged with: , , , ,

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