Category Archives: Agile

How do you estimate with Story Points and determine Velocity when you’ve not done it before?

As Captain Spock said to Lt. Saavik in Star Trek II – The Wrath of Khan – For everything, there is a first time. Taking a whack at estimation with story points the first time may seem as daunting as … Continue reading 

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TDD/BDD as Architectural Tools

InfoQ has made another of my DevTeach talks available online – TDD/BDD as Architectural Tools. Enjoy! TDD/BDD as Architectural Tools As architects, we have all experienced the folly of BDUF (Big Design Up Front) – spending weeks or months perfecting … Continue reading 

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Convention-over-Configuration in an Agile World

A friend just pointed out that my presentation on “Convention-over-Configuration in an Agile World” is being featured by InfoQ. (The speaker is always the last to know.) I’m honoured and humbled by the great responses from folks. Worst criticism so … Continue reading 

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Communication Bandwidth on Successful Projects

[Originally published on Telerik blog here. Republished with permission.] As developers, we like to believe that only raw data matters. And what is more raw than the written word? Does this mean that email is a more efficient communication mechanism … Continue reading 

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Mocks and Tell Don’t Ask

One of our alumni Karl blogged a request recently for folks to stop using mocks. Once upon a time I also made clear that I had a significant distrust of mocks. I’ve mellowed on that position over time, so I … Continue reading 

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Stand Up Meetings Are About More Than Standing

[This post was originally published on the Telerik blog and is reproduced here with permission.] “Our team is agile because we stand up for meetings!” It’s the perennial joke of the agile community. We’ve all heard of teams that feel … Continue reading 

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TDD/BDD and the lean startup

A post at Hacker News caused a little bit of a storm on Twitter, by questioning if a lean startup needed to use Test First or if it was an obstacle to delivery. Build the right thing, or avoid Rework … Continue reading 

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Finding the assumptions in stories

My colleague J.K. has written an interesting blog post where he describes a slightly different approach that he’s been taking to writing stories to help move the business value in a story towards the beginning of the description and avoid … Continue reading 

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The Book Shelf: Lean Software Development An Agile Toolkit

http://www.amazon.com/Lean-Software-Development-Agile-Toolkit/dp/0321150783 At about 180 pages or so, it is a quick read. I have heard lots of talk about Lean, Kanban, etc. and thought it was time to sit down and read Mary and Tom Poppendieck’s 2003 book on the … Continue reading 

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Prairie Developer Conference 2010

A few months ago, my friend, D’Arcy Lussier, and I had the following conversation: D’Arcy: Want to speak at a developer conference? Me: Sure. Sounds awesome! D’Arcy: It’ll be in Regina, Saskatchewan. Me: Sweet! D’Arcy: It’ll be in June. Me: … Continue reading 

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