In Part 1 of this series I described the characteristics that make up a good Automated Test. Here in Part 2 of this series I will explore all of the benefits you will enjoy by creating those good tests and why the time spent on making good tests is a no-brainer investment. Continue reading »
The adoption of Automated Testing strategies and tools, both in Agile and traditional teams, has been patchy – some teams and communities have embraced it, but many organizations still perceive it as a burden that just slows down development. Those that see the writing and execution of tests as an additional, costly and separate task from development have missed seeing some of the main benefits of an expertly manicured test suite. Continue reading »
Robert C. Martin, during his keynote at QCon London 2010, tried to figure out why there is so much bad code written. He offers advice on writing good code talking about a bad code example, Boy Scout rule, functions, arguments, craftsmanship, TDD, continuous integration, pairing, small cycles, patterns, engineering, certification, and other elements contributing to qualitative code.
In the Pig and Chicken analogy for Scrum participants (Jeff Sutherland explains Pigs & Chickens), the Pig is the one who is required to make the biggest commitment and put his proverbial skin in the game. For the Pig, it is an all or nothing proposition. They either meet their commitment or they do not, there is no gray area. However, many teams fail to get this level of commitment from their Pigs, or don’t even ask for it in the first place. This is the genesis of the Outlier Pig. Continue reading »
The prioritization of Stories is a core practice in the Scrum agile development process. In fact it is probably the single most important responsibility of the Product Owner – making sure the Product Backlog is prioritized properly to maximize business value (a.k.a ROI). However, there is a common anti-pattern that I see regularly in which the Product Owner and the Delivery Team act complicitly to establish a priority order for Stories that are being committed too within a single Sprint. The need to do this comes from a negative place and it has dramatic consequences for the Delivery Team. Continue reading »
A colleague of mine forwarded an article to me during this last week, which he prefaced with the following statement …
guys, I’ll write it in all caps and bold:
I AM NOT PROMOTING OR IN AGREEMENT OF ANY OF THE POINTS THE ARTICLE MAKES.
… which begs the question, why did he send it not only to me, but an entire team of people? I choose to believe it was because he is an enlightened soul that understands that the best way to reinforce your own beliefs is to read more of the opposing point of view, not more of the view you already have. I am lucky to have a few of these souls working for me right now. Continue reading »
Code Camp is a place for developers to come and learn from their peers. This community driven event has become an international trend where peer groups of all platforms, programming languages and disciplines band together to bring content to the community.
Who is speaking at Code Camp? YOU are, YOUR PEERS are, and YOUR LOCAL EXPERTS are…all are welcome! This is a community event and one of the main purposes of the event is to have local community members step up and offer some cool presentations!
Bill Crane, the vice president of engineering at LinkedIn, says local members of the social networking site may haveorange-prize Orange County as a geographic designation for members’ profiles within two weeks.
Another purpose of measuring capacity is to improve throughput. If you plan for less than your capacity, you get less done than you could have. If you plan for more than your capacity, you get less done than you could have.
- Kent Beck
(original signatory of the Agile Manifesto)
