Dan Keldsen's Library tagged agile_development →  View Popular, Search in Google

Software development and test engineers often argue about “that’s not really a bug” or “that’s not a blocker to ship”. But they all agree on one thing for sure: shipping the next cool, new release to market faster and doing it with style and quality is fun and exciting. Yet, the reality of crummy old hardware, limited storage and deadlines often makes shipping quality software on-time a stressful exercise.

Can there be no end to this status quo?
Can developing, testing and shipping software be made fun again?
Can that be done for lesser cost and in far less time than before?

We asked Dr. Becky Hammons, a renowned quality expert these questions. Her simple answer is, “Yes! Use the cloud”. Having worked in the software industry for 30 years and having built many cool new products, Dr. Hammons is no stranger to this stressful cycle. But she has broken out of the status quo. She shared her experience on Aug 19 with 70 other industry peers.

When asked to describe the typical challenges her team faced, she identified a few key ones:

Availability of client, server and network configurations for complex test scenarios
Baseline test configuration growth over time, with limited capital budget for new servers
Cycle time needed to configure test environments, including localized operating systems
Troubleshooting defect scenarios with offshore testers
Sharing test resources with remote development teams
Dr. Hammons wanted to eliminate these challenges for her team. She looked at Cloud computing as a solution.  She felt the cloud model offered several distinct benefits:

Cloud resources enable fast deployment of new test configurations upon demand
Usage is scalable to meet virtual machine and storage needs
Local physical test network can be integrated with cloud network via VPN
Able to expand client and server test load beyond capabilities of our physical equipment
Large variety of client and server operating systems in cloud enable teams to run more concurrent tests without additional capital investment
Reduce cycle time

cloud_computing testing deployment skytap cost_cutting agile_development

Every time I look at Christopher Alexander's "A Pattern Language" - I'm struck by how much you can apply these patterns to just about anything.

This in particular sounds eerily TRIZ-like, and very much like modern Agile Software Development. Don't "freeze/stiffen" the development too soon, or make it too rigid, or you end up with inappropriate solutions for usage that you can't anticipate up front.

patterns pattern_library pattern_language agile_development TRIZ

Excellent article by Jeff Patton on an agile development practice/pattern known as the user story. Looks at a user experience end to end (and with sub-tasks) to make sure the ENTIRE experience is considered. I believe Jeff taught the Agile Development mee

IA development agile IxD process methodology jeff_patton user_story user_experience agile_development

More on the topic of Lean Thinking and Agile Development, with a further tie to Six Sigma. Folks, these aren't just buzzwords. There is far more meat in those concepts than most realize.

agile lean sixsigma development agile_development agile_enterprise lean_thinking

Weaving in Lean Thinking and Agile Development into our Enterprise 2.0 work - this is a nice collection, readable, doesn't assume you've been soaking in this world for terribly long.

agile quality lean sixsigma agile_development agile_enterprise Toyota manufacturing thinking theory_of_constraints lean_thinking

Agile Government - A whitepaper with a nice twist on agile software development, and lessons from lean manufacturing. Thanks to Ben Tremblay for pointing this resource out.

agile_development agile_enterprise agile lean_manufacturing toyota agile_government

Great article discussing how 4 grad students created 50 games during one semester - and each game from idea to final design in under 7 days. Lessons to be learned re: agility in the enterprise!

tips games innovation development rapid_prototyping agile_development gamasutra design

Caught in the agile vortex again - stumbled onto this extensive list by Steve Berczuk, a developer at FAST Search and Transfer. Nice to see some items I'm familiar with, and plenty of information on why each book is useful and relevant.

agile_development agile_enterprise agility steve_berczuk FAST books

Interactive group collaboration with a 'card-based' approach. Early days, but interesting!

web2.0 development cards project_management cardmeeting collaboration agile_development

Interview with two authors of a Pragmatic Programmer's book I'm eyeingon Agile Teamwork

podcast agile_development pragmatic

Stumbled onto this - interesting explanations of one agile methodology - SCRUM. This bookmark is for the first in the series.

development agile_development scrum

Have not viewed this yet, but sounds like an interesting romp through the clashes between traditional software project management and development and agile development, certifications in this area, and the like.

agility agile_development PM project_management devsource