On Twitter, my good friend Mike Sutton said, “CSD is a misnomer. The value of existing Certifications needs to be justified before new ones are released.”
Many of the terms we use are misnomers. For example, “acceptance testing” is a misnomer because it doesn’t indicate acceptance if the tests pasts–it indicates lack of acceptance if the tests fail.
What is the misnomer in the phrase “certified scrum developer?” Read More
A recent post on the scrumdevelopment yahoogroup got me thinking about the age-old problems of distributed software development. The author of the post described having a Product Owner in California, developers in CA, TX, NC, & India, and QA in India. (No mention if all of the workers in India were in the same place.) I’m not picking on this individual. I’ve heard similar stories many times.
It reminded me of something I’d read in Martin Fowler’s book, Patterns of Enterprise Architecture. On page 88, figure 7.1 shows a common but distressing architectural design of distributed objects. In the diagram, the components for Invoice, Customer, Order, and Delivery are each deployed to separate machines. Why do it this way? Read More
Everybody wants to get full value for their money. I can pinch a penny as hard as the next guy, maybe harder. But I’ve learned in many ways and many contexts, the very things I do to get more for my money, often result in actually getting less. How can this happen? Read More
In the late 1970s, in the Co-Evolution Quarterly, the magazine successor to The Whole Earth Catalog, Peter Warshall stated that geodesic dome houses always leak. This was a bold and surprising statement at the time, coming from a man who was considered one of the finest builders of dome houses–ones that didn’t leak.
Why did he make this statement? Read More
Jim Shore has posted a response to the reactions about his previous post on Acceptance Testing in which he defends the way he and the teams he coaches are working. About the same time, Lisa Crispin posted her thoughts on the topic.
As Lisa says,
I can’t tell you the one right way to test and develop software”¦. The one right way for your team to code and test will continually evolve over the years. In fact, I’m sorry to tell you that you’ll never find the one right way; it’s a moving target, but you’ll get closer and closer to it.
This is an incredibly important point! There may be many “wrong” ways—wrong in that they fail to achieve your objectives—but there is no “right way.” So I’m happy that Jim and his teams are able to achieve the results they want. I’m not saying they’re doing it wrong. Read More
Recently, Jim Shore wrote about The Problems With Acceptance Testing. I like Jim, and respect him a lot. Because of my respect for his opinions, I found it quite discouraging that he said, “I no longer use [automated acceptance testing] or recommend it.” Gojko Adzic has posted his response to Jim. This is mine.
Certainly when something’s not giving you the results you want, it’s time to make a change. That change can be to drop the practice that’s not working for you. It can also be changing the way you go about the practice, or changing what you want to accomplish. Or, instead of changing, maybe the word “refining” is a better fit. Read More
Yesterday was a day of mistakes. Not so much making mistakes, but talking about them. It started with Bret Pettichord’s tweet
Agile requires the courage to make mistakes in front of others and the maturity to admit them when they happen.
There were a couple dozen people who showed up at the Fool, last night, for my presentation on A ”Lingua Franca” to Ensure You Get the Right System. I’d like to thank them all for coming and for such lively participation.
These are exciting times. The tools of acceptance testing and behavior-driven development are progressing beyond the domain of the techies. They are entering the realm where they can help the Whole Team. Read More
Maybe you’re starting your first Agile project. You’ve read books and blogs. You’ve had training. You think you’re ready, but it’s still a daunting prospect. There’s just so much to remember—so many details.
Here’s a little cheat sheet. Forget all the details and the various ways you can implement Agile for the moment. Let’s simplify the picture. There are just three essential legs that your Agile project needs to stand. Get those in place, and you’ll do OK. Keep improving all three, and you’ll do fantastically! Read More
It’s a very common complaint, such as this one left on the Scrumdevelopment yahoogroup:
Usually in different phases, workload for tester and dev is different. E.g. when a project is coming to the end, most of the tasks will be test.
There are a couple of big red flags waving at me in those two sentences. One is “different phases.” Why should a software development project, especially one only a couple weeks to a couple months long, have phases? The other is, at “the end, most of the tasks will be test.” Postponing testing to a phase at the end has never worked very well. It always results in the testers being behind at the end.
Does this situation sound somewhat familiar to you? If so, what can we do about it?