Juggling The Elements of An Iteration

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You expect analysis to happen before design, and both to happen before implementation and testing. But how much should these activities be staggered? When a project is being run with monthly releases, it might seem logical to have each group working on a different release. For example, the test team […]

Is Agile Bad For Software Development?

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Last week, Ivan Chalif, a product manager / blogger, tapped into a thread criticising product managers for not adopting and espousing agile, or at least rapid-release techniques. In this article we look at Ivan’s comments and one of the articles that he referenced. We also share our own perspective and an alternative analysis of what may have happened.

Agile Release Planning With Games

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Leading Answers, an agile project management blog, has a great article that details some agile techniques for release planning exercises. Their article includes explanations and great diagrams.

How To Start The Use Case Process For Agile Software Development

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One of the goals of agile software development is to deliver value quickly and iteratively. One of the most effective ways to begin the software development process is with use cases. To deliver with agility, you start with the most valuable use case, bang it out, and then move on to the next most valuable use case. How do you know which use case is the most valuable if you haven’t defined all the use cases first?

Explaining Agile Development…

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…to your Brother-in-Law. A great article by Joe Little, on his new blog. Thanks Mishkin for telling us about it. Joe’s article serves as an excellent precursor to our comparison of agile software development methodologies. It would also be extremely effective advice for getting mindshare prior to rolling out agile […]

Agile Development Methodology Comparison

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Agile project management has entered the mainstream – incremental delivery is now common and (should be) expected for any new software development project. Which agile development methodology should you use on your project? There are at more than ten to choose from. What makes them different? The risks that they try to address.

Agile Development and Software Maintenance Costs

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Over 90% of the cost of software development is software maintenance (cite). This alarming trend was predicted as early as 1972. McKinsey suggests that CIOs should spend no more than 40-60% on maintenance. Gartner’s IT Spending and Demand Survey (2002) reports that CIOs are spending 80% of their budgets on maintenance (p12 of presentation). Agile development can help reverse this trend.