Understanding Why Scrum Works (audio of the webinar)

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 Avoiding Coupling and Using Mocks (audio of the webinar)

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 Avoiding Over- and Under-Design in Agile Projects (audio of the webinar)

Scrum# is an extension to Scrum that was developed by Net Objectives to solve challenges that were being encountered by many teams adopting Scrum. Read about more about the issues which Scrum# was created to solve.

A webinar on August 18, 2008 presented by Alan Shalloway focuses on what developers must attend to when building systems with Agile methods. It discusses an alternative to the choices of:  read more »

 Managing Requirements in Agile Projects with Scrum Sharp (audio of the webinar)

Scrum# is an extension to Scrum that was developed by Net Objectives to solve challenges that were being encountered by many teams adopting Scrum. Read about more about the issues which Scrum# was created to solve.

A webinar on August 18, 2008 presented by Alan Shalloway discusses how Scrum#'s enterprise and product focus improves on the standard method of managing with Epics and User Stories. By stepping back to include product portfolio management, Scrum# facilitates working on the right product features across the enterprise, not just working on the right stories in a project. Topics discussed include:  read more »

I attended the Agile 2008 conference again this year. As usual, it was filled with great sessions and great people. It's clear that Agile is becoming more mainstream and there are more variations of it as well. Both good things. Scrum seems to still be the most popular method followed, Kanban is becoming known and Lean may have hit a plateau. But a few trends I noticed from last year were still present. These are:

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OK, that was an intentionally provoking title. I believe in TDD, but I don't believe it's really Test-Driven Development. It's something else. I remember when people first started calling it TDD I used to say TDD stood for Test-Driven Design. I'd say this because your tests helped you define how you designed your code. But this assumes we even know what I mean by Test-Driven Development. What kind of testing first am I even talking about?  read more »

When I first talk to a team as their agile coach, I often discover that they've read some books or attended conferences, and they've come away from these brief experiences with lingering concerns over certain "agile catch-phrases." Of course, the skepticism is healthy, and the misconceptions are natural. This is all part of a team's transition to true agility.

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Whenever I attempt to coach others, I have to acknowledge two things:

1. People will only do what's in their best interest
2. You can only get people to change their mind if it makes them right to do so

(Take a look at Joe Caruso’s excellent book, The Power of Losing Control, for more about this).

These strongly inform my beliefs about how to help people learn new approaches. I am often asked how to get other people to learn about Agile or Scrum methods.  read more »

 Lean-Agile in Tough Times

In times of economic slowdown, you have many choices to make about how to allocate scarce time and people and money. Is it at all relevant to invest in Lean-Agile software development? Why? What would you say? Alan Shalloway believes it is more important than ever. And it is why he places so much emphasis on Lean for those who need to become more Agile.

Focusing on local team efficiency is good... teams become more able to create product with a minimum of wasted effort. But the more important objective - and even more so now - has to be ensuring that the organization is delivering true value to customers as quickly as possible. This requires the entire stream of product creation to working effectively. 

The goal is not really to speed up software development. The goal is to speed up delivery of software that customers can use. To be faster now and faster in the future. Perhaps you would call this Enterprise Agility.  

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Design Patterns in an Agile Environment (audio of the webinar)

There is a myth that every iteration must be focused on customer value. Actually no customer value is delivered until the release. A webinar given on July 21, 2008 by Alan Shalloway relates an actual project using quality coding techniques and Lean principles to show that while releases should be based on customer value, individual stories should be based on a combination of customer value, risk mitigation and business value.  read more »