Category Archives: agile

On the discussion on “When should I test?”, I followed up with a conversation: When it provides value. When is that? It depends. And it truly does depend. But upon what? That’s trickier to answer – and there is no … Continue reading →

With some recent changes at work and I am looking at the quality of software development teams across a very large software organization. I am currently looking at getting the teams back to the basics in terms of software quality. … Continue reading →

Read any book about estimation and you’ll probably see a picture of this: This is the cone of uncertainty, a measure of the accuracy of our estimation of effort as we get closer to finishing work. Very close to finishing, … Continue reading →

Some time ago, we at Headspring were brought in to help replace an existing legacy system based on Excel with a new web application built using the latest and greatest architectural patterns and practices. During the initial discovery phase, we … Continue reading →

I’m a huge Martin Fowler fan, but one bit of advice I still can’t understand is the recommendation to eschew feature branches for feature toggles. The argument against feature branches are not just merge problems, but semantic merge problems, such … Continue reading →

My first foray into Agile was with a product team back in 2004-2005. It was my first “real” job out of college, and my first experience with a death march. During the death march, I was struck on how bad … Continue reading →

It’s been a looooong time since I’ve posted anything about Agile, and today I sat down to try and figure out why. It’s not that I don’t care about the values in the Agile Manifesto, nor that I’ve gone completely … Continue reading →

One of my favorite shows on TV these days is (don’t laugh) the show Property Virgins on HGTV. In it, an experienced Realtor walks first-time home buyers through the house selection and offer process. A lot of times the “let’s … Continue reading →

Earlier this year, I bought a car—my first new car. Although it fills me with sanctimonious hybrid glee (it really does), it’s making me neurotic with instrument panel indicator lights. The low-tire-pressure indicator after the weather turned cold. The insistent … Continue reading →

Scrum is a rather interesting phenomena. As a process, the feedback system it incorporates encourages incremental and iterative improvements not only in the software, but the process itself. Once scrum is in place, things can go rather smoothly, although I … Continue reading →