Scrum is a great framework for organizing projects. It defines exact roles and procedures to structure your work environment. You gain a lot of visibility and you empower your teams. All that is great. But in software development or operations it’s not sufficient. You need an underlying set of values and practices which drive quality [...]
Scrum – Iterative, incremental methodology for project management
An agile based practice of software development favors short iterations and rapid releases. Agile software developers love them some Scrum!
A lot of people I meet are interested in agile software development. Either they’ve heard about it or they participate in projects which use Scrum, Kanban, or Extreme Programming. They wonder whether it makes sense to do pair programming, which Kanban tools to use, how to get started with test driven development or how to [...]
It’s amazing to see again and again how teams complicate their lives without any necessity. They dream up features “urgently” required by their imaginary customers and then start a death march to launch them at an arbitrary, self-invented date. Why is it so hard to simplify things and get going? Let’s have a look at [...]
I’ve been in the process of introducing agile over at NetDoktor for over a year. I really like the sound of “in the process of introducing agile”. It’s kinda like the permanent Gmail Beta (or Flickr Alpha). It means there will never really be a “final” agile process here and that’s a great thing! Why? [...]
I will continue my course about agile methodologies at the University of Augsburg with both a Scrum and a Lean project simulation. The Scrum simulation will introduce the students to concepts like User Stories, Backlog, Iteration, etc. After doing lots of Gantt Charts, Use Case Diagrams etc. in the waterfall simulation, it’s time now to [...]
Agile methodology builds on the concept of iterations – time boxes – in which you create a piece of working software. Each iteration starts with a planning meeting where the team takes stories from the backlog and commits to the sprint goal. If you use a tool like Pivotal Tracker, you even get emergent iterations [...]
Currently, I’m preparing for teaching my next course on Agile Methodology. Again and again, I wonder what is the single most important thing my students should be able to take with them after four full days. One of my core messages is definitely that agile is more about principles than about practices. If you absorb [...]
Testing Dash Metrics with Cucumber (Bradley Taylor) – A short article showing off a Cucumber feature for monitoring with Nagios. Kanban vs. Scrum (Henrik Kniberg) – A great, 26 page long PDF about the similarities and differences between Scrum and Kanban. Absolutely worth reading! Reconnoiter (Theo Schlossnagle) – Theo and his OmniTI Labs are working [...]
