process improvement

Make Sure Measuring Agile Metrics Is Really Leading to Improvement

In your quest to figure out how your team is doing with its agile process, gathering data can be useful—as long as it does not add significant overhead to your project or get in the way of delivering customer value. Don't let the desire to quantify your improvement get in the way of improving.

Steve Berczuk's picture
Steve Berczuk
DevOps for Microservices

Microservices addresses the challenges of deploying bulky monolithic systems and their complexities due to their abundance of moving parts. While some view microservices as a much-improved service-oriented architecture, there are significant differences in strategy necessary for efficient DevOps.

Bob Aiello's picture
Bob Aiello
More Slack Time, Please!

As we seek and achieve efficiency, we eliminate "slack"—purposeful time to allow our brains individually and our organizations collectively to create, think, reflect, analyze, contemplate, plan, learn, grow, and change. This story gives some ideas for building more slack time into your routines.

Michael Sowers's picture
Michael Sowers
Building a Testing Framework for Digital Accessibility

Many mistakenly believe frameworks are applicable only to test automation because they provide easy test implementation, enhanced productivity for testers, and empower dependable quality for the product. However, accessibility also is a rich ground for frameworks to be built and leveraged. Read on.

Rajini  Padmanaban's picture
Rajini Padmanaban
Planning Techniques for Estimating Projects

Agile teams often use estimation to plan projects. There are many different methods, and which you choose should depend on the type of work, what kind of deadline there is, and your team. Matt Heusser explains some estimating techniques that can expand your options when planning a work effort.

Matthew Heusser's picture
Matthew Heusser
Are You Focusing on the Right Thing in Your Sprint Reviews?

The role of demonstration in a sprint review often takes on more importance than it should, even to the extent that some teams refer to the review as a demo. By focusing on the demo you risk having the team do all the talking, rather than a two-way conversation between the team and the stakeholders.

Steve Berczuk's picture
Steve Berczuk
Who Is Responsible for Happiness?

No one can take full responsibility for another person's happiness. However, a manager can create an environment in which a team can thrive, and that leads to happy environments. Being a servant leader means you don’t micromanage; you manage for outcomes. Is team happiness part of your culture?

Johanna Rothman's picture
Johanna Rothman
“Post-Heroic” Leaders and Agile Teams

Self-organizing agile teams still need management, but they need a different kind of management from the autocratic style many teams in nonagile organizations have. A "post-heroic" leader is able to shift from an authoritative manner to a collaborative one as needed to optimize team performance.

Steve Berczuk's picture
Steve Berczuk