Agile Software Development - Q & A

Cards vs Docs

Artem — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:51:56 -0700

Janne's Law of Engineering: I've come to the hypothesis that "all engineering problems can be solved through the methodical appliance of yellow stickers."

I personally prefer index cards, but it is anyway about cards. I find it amazing how a lot of things become simpler after they "become" tangible cards.

What is your best way for solving engineering problems? Cards? Talks? Drawings? Google?

Conflict of interests on the retrospectives

Artem — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 10:49:32 -0700

Lately Patrick Kua described a retrospective that went all wrong after a tech lead (i.e. person who has strong personal/technical interests in the project) was leading a retro into a direction he wanted.

I also witnessed similar situation in my own practice. At times a person that "just knows how to do it right" is tempted to push his solution no matter what. Often it is the person most competent technically that is assigned to the Scrum Master or Coach role. Such an assignment creates a conflict between his personal interests and interests of the whole team.

Did you experience such situations? What was the result? How did the situation change over time?

Regarding making this website more interesting

pkaarthikeyan — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 04:51:50 -0700

Dear Artem,

To make this website more interesting and more people participating in the discussions please include a feature using which we can upload pictures in the Profiles...or some icons atleast.

Thanks
Karthikeyan

Web 2.0 + Agile development + Tacit Knowledge

pinastro — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 03:32:28 -0700

I have consolidated some good definitions and principles on the topics Agile Development / Tacit Knowledge / Web 2.0

What Wikipedia says about Tacit Knowledge :

" ...Tacit knowledge is knowledge that people carry in their minds of people and is, therefore, difficult to access. Often, people are not aware of the knowledge they possess or how it can be valuable to others. Tacit knowledge is considered more valuable because it provides context for people, places, ideas, and experiences. Effective transfer of tacit knowledge generally requires extensive personal contact and trust.

Tacit knowledge is not easily shared. One of Polanyi's famous aphorisms is: "We know more than we can tell." ... "

Agile Manifesto Says :

"..We are uncovering better ways of developing
software by doing it and helping others do it.
Through this work we have come to value:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on
the right, we value the items on the left more .. "

Web 2.0 principles says:

"...web 2.0 is sometimes called the e-Democracy which has the 'architechture of participation' as the base..."

Does the above words have any relationships within them ?

Tools and Infrastructure used in Agile

kaberwalz — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 22:09:31 -0700

Hi, I have been praticing Agile for a while now, Can any one tell me
or categorise - what are the Tools and Infrastructure typical to
Agile ?
I have to bring that acquaintance level in my team but first i need to know what are thetool tools used at various level ,
managment ,technical, testing level.

And what is the infrastructure and environment for it.

I will appreciate if some can provide me any material from where i could read about this. or an explain this.

Gauravdeep

Agile Principles

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 16:03:45 -0700

10 Key Principles of Agile Development

[censored out link]

Agile Web Search

Artem — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 14:20:46 -0700

Agile Web Search built over the Google Co-op technology searches the whole web, while giving a small boost to the sites about the terms agile lean scrum xp evo "extreme programming" "user story" and to the following list of sites. If you feel, some sites or terms should be added or excluded, please, add a comment to this forum thread.

List of sites, a little boosted by the Agile Web Search engine:

Public sites
agilesoftwaredevelopment.com - Public blogs and posts on ASD
*.testdriven.com/* - Test-driven development community
agileplanet.org/* - Selected agile blogs
*.agilemodeling.com/* - Agile Modeling
*.diasparsoftware.com/* -
*.scrumalliance.org/* -
agilemanifesto.org -
agilealliance.org -

Company sites
*.odd-e.com/* - Bas Vodde's company
blog.versionone.net/blog/* - Corporate sponsored blog on agile development
http://butunclebob.com/* - The Official Object Mentor blog site
controlchaos.com/* -
*.mountaingoatsoftware.com/* - Mountain goat software

Forums, discussion groups
agilesoftwaredevelopment.org - Agile forums
tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Agile_Experience_Group/* - Agile Experience Group
tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/agilearticles/* - Agile Articles
tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/AgileEmbedded/* - Agile Embedded
tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/agilemanagement/* - Agile Management
tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/agileplanning/* - Agile Planning
groups.yahoo.com/group/scrumdevelopment/* - Scrum Users
tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/agilefinland/* - Agile Finland
tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/leandevelopment/* - Lean Software Development

Blogs, personal sites
radio.javaranch.com/lasse/* - Lasse Koskela
martinfowler.com/* - Martin Fowler
*.laughingpanda.org/blog/kaksles/* - Timo Rantalaiho
api.blogs.com/* - Anssi Piirainen
*.jamesshore.com/* - James Shore
*.davenicolette.net/* - Dave Nicolette
softwaredevelopmenttoday.blogspot.com/* - Vasco Duarte
jeffsutherland.com/* - Jeff Sutherland
alistair.cockburn.us/* - Alistair Cockburn
poppendieck.com/* - Mary and Tom Poppendieck on Lean Software Development
*.jtse.com/* - J. Timothy King
*.xprogramming.com/* - Ron Jeffries

Public questions

Artem — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 13:17:48 -0700

Forums are up and running.

If you'd like to ask or tell something that doesn't fit to comments or your personal blog (available to all registered users), you are very welcome to express yourself on the forum. No need even to register on the site.