Who Should Pay for Bug Fixes?
In a perfect world, every application would sit comfortably atop wholly stable, never-changing systems.Unfortunately for utopians everywhere, however, the foundation upon which modern software is built is much more akin to a ticking time bomb.While…
How to Get Agile Teams to Plan for Themselves
As many parents will undoubtedly know, one of the hardest things to achieve for our kids is that elusive balance between freedom and boundaries. We do not tell our children that they mustn't play at…
Running a Great Retrospective
All too often in life, one simple mistake can lead to a stream of errors that if not stifled early enough, is bound to result in a flood of frustration. Unfortunately, the same is true…
On Building Successful Agile Teams
Although it may be common knowledge that behind every great product is a well-oiled machine of talented people, what is not immediately understood is how to successfully put together a winning team. Of course, anyone…
Learn from the Experts
Sometimes, the greatest lessons we can learn come not from our own experience, but from the wisdom of others. This article presents some of the aptest quotes we have found to eloquently capture the spirit…
Avoiding Sticking-Plaster Solutions
An unnamed engineering professor at Yale once stated that if he had just one hour to solve a problem, he would first spend up to forty minutes trying to define what the actual problem is.…
Why a Product-Based Mindset Works Best
Imagine that you are in South America celebrating your wedding anniversary. Because pottery is a great local tradition and you want your spouse to receive the best possible gift, you have asked two of the…
The Power of the System Metaphor
"Life is like a box of chocolates. "You never know what you're going to get." Forrest Gump In one short and sweet statement, the character played by Tom Hanks was able to sum up life's…
Why We Advocate Test-Driven Development
Gerald Weinberg, an American computer scientist, once famously stated that "If builders built houses the way programmers built programs, [then] the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilisation." While this was far from a…
Why We Back Pair Programming
Pair programming is likely to be the most misunderstood of all Agile development techniques. While the practice is known to have been used for decades, it was only made popular in the early 2000's by…