agile

What tools are available for a team leader & members to manage tasks (Agile programming)

I are working in a small development team of 4 people. We are trying develop "Agile style" - story points, small tasks, etc... Unfortunately, we are currently managing our tasks in a (shared) excel table. We looked at some available tools (Mingle, TFS, Scrum for Team System), but all of these looked like they would be too much overhead ...

Single most important thing to impart when teaching TDD

I'm collaborating with a group of professionals to put on an event to help teach the practice of TDD to people who are interested, but have no experience (novices). We're trying to come up with labs, workshops, etc and I'm trying to think of the single, biggest thing that we need to impart upon these individuals to help them be successf...

We can't do agile because...

What's the most often used reason for not being able to do agile, and is there an argument against it? ...

What is your favorite Software Engineering methodology?

I'm hoping the SO crowd can help me expand my definitions of methodology buzzwords such as SCRUM, Agile, XP, Waterfall, etc, and give some enlightenment as to which approach is the best. If there's some specific book or web page that really captures your philosophy on constructing software with teams of programmers, please indicate it. ...

What Agile methodology?

What agile methodology would you recommend for a web-site shop? We have a variety of small projects and a few large ones, teams are cross-project and they multitask. We are really interested in Scrum, but it seems that it would not apply to small projects (less than 2 weeks), which currently make up a lot of our time. What alternative...

Which Continuous Integration library to use?

I've worked with Cruise Control as the CI framework in my last project. Any recommendations on some other tools? (Not that i found CruiseControl lacking, just wanted to know if someone did some comparisons) ...

How do "spikes" figure in the schedule / estimation game?

Might be subjective and/or discussion.. but here goes. I've been asked to estimate a feature for the next big thing at work. I break it down.. use story points come up with a estimate. The feature however calls for interfacing with GoDiagrams a third party diagramming component in addition to various other company initiatives.. (a whole...

How to deal with pair programming issues?

Some members of the team are having problems programming together. Different gender, different culture, different age. How to deal with those problems? - Do not pair them together, or - Pair them together and let them come to a "golden middle" ...

Team size and project iteration length.

Do you think that project iteration length is related to project team size? If so, how? What other key factors do you use to recognize correct iteration length for different projects? ...

Software for managing medium sized projects

So, at my current job we're usually 1-3 developers, 1-2 art directors and 1 project manager on each project, with the smallest ones just being one of each and the larger ones being three developers and two art directors. I'm looking for a software, combination of softwares or some type of service that will allow us to manage our project...

Managing user stories for a large project

We are just starting on a pretty big project with lots of sub projects. we don't currently use any kind of named process but I am hoping to get some kind of agile/scrumlike process in by the back door. The area I will be focusing on most is having a good backlog for the whole project and, at least in my head, the idea of an iteration wh...

How do you visualize your sprint backlog?

Most Scrum teams have some sort of whiteboard or other board upon which the stories/tasks for the current sprint are visualized. I'm curious as to how people organize this board? Do you use post-it notes? Are they color-coded? How do you group tasks? How do you distinguish the state of tasks? Etc... ...

Behaviour-Driven or Test-Driven Development?

I recently heard of BDD and found it very similar to TDD. Which of these two do you use (if any)? and which are the pros and cons of each? ...

What software development process do you use?

I have always used the agile Feature Driven Development process for developing software. What does everyone else use, and why do you prefer it? I prefer FDD because that's what I started with fresh out of college. In college, everything was very free-form and my "customer" was typically my professor, who might not have had much indust...

How do you avoid waiting for requirements when using iterative agile development methods like SCRUM?

We attempt to do agile development at my current job and we succeed for the most part. The main problem seems to be that the developers on the project are always waiting for requirements at the beginning of the sprint and rushing to get get things down by the end. The business analysts who are delivering the requirements are always worki...

Favorite agile related books?

From implementing Scrum in an organization to Test Driven Development, what books would you recommend for beginners, advanced and trainers in Agile development methodologies? ...

Getting Started with Pair Programming

I found out yesterday that due to demands from the powers that be, I am being pulled from my current project to help out a colleague with some work. Now, he is a great guy, and while it sucks I will have to put my little baby down, I am looking forward to working with him. We have both previously expressed an interest in pair programmi...

Two questions regarding Scrum

Hi, I have two related question regarding Scrum. Our company is trying to implement it and sure we are jumping over hoops. Both question are about "done means Done!" 1) It's really easy to define "Done" for tasks which are/have - clear test acceptance criterias - completely standalone - tested at the end by testers What should be d...

Help me understand how QA works in Scrum

Apparently we use the Scrum development methodology. Here's generally how it goes: Developers thrash around trying to accomplish their tasks. Generally the tasks take most of the sprint to complete. QA pesters Dev to release something they can test, Dev finally throws some buggy code out to QA a day or two before the sprint ends and sp...

What are your experiences with ScrumPad?

What are your experiences with ScrumPad? ...