Earlier this year, my friend Andy Glover interviewed me for season 4 of his IBM developerWorks Java technical series Podcast (RSS, iTunes, MP3 download) on the topic of Agile software development. The episode is titled “Barry Hawkins on agile software development” and runs 41:03 in length. This… Read More »IBM developerWorks Podcast: Barry Hawkins on agile software development
Being in my ninth year of applying the processes and technical practices of Agile and Lean software development, people are sometimes surprised to hear me say that Scrum is still my preferred process. Let me explain. Scrum was designed to enable empirical process control for… Read More »Empirical Process Control: Why Scrum Works
I consult with all sorts of companies looking to adopt elements of process and practice from the Agile/Lean offerings. Whether it’s Scrum, Test-Driven Development, User Stories, Test Automation, Continuous Integration, Agile Estimation and Planning, Sprint Planning, or Sprint Retrospective facilitation, one challenge pervades across most… Read More »The Discipline Deficit
I was recently catching up on episodes of The Java Posse, and came to the one that features an Open Spaces topic I convened at last year’s Java Posse Roundup, Should We Shoot Agile in the Head? It was a vibrant conversation with plenty of… Read More »Is Agile/Lean as good as it gets?
There is one question I can guarantee someone will ask as I begin an engagement with a new client. It usually comes in the second half of the first major session I have, called the Agile Orientation. By that point in the initial training, we… Read More »Agile: Your Mileage *Will* Vary
After an Agile adoption is underway and the feedback mechanisms of most Agile processes begin to function, one or more team members usually ask me something like the following: Is it just my company that has a hard time with Agile? No, it’s not just… Read More »Is it just my company that has a hard time with Agile?
This installment of the Ask an Agile Coach series is a question normally asked by persons outside my field, but lately I have been asking it myself: What is an Agile Coach? Good question. I am not sure anymore. The more I encounter others who… Read More »Ask an Agile Coach: What is an Agile Coach?
Welcome to another installment of Ask an Agile Coach. Today’s question centers around how to structure teams in light of constrained skill sets in an organization: What technical roles, other than QA, can be successfully shared across scrum teams? DBA, UX, etc.? – @jakejgordon Strive… Read More »Ask an Agile Coach: What Team Members can be shared across multiple Scrum teams?
Hello readers, apologies for the lack of posts lately; lots of work at hand. Today’s Ask an Agile Coach question comes from a comment on the last installment, which is rephrased here. In one form or another, I have gotten this question for years now:… Read More »Ask an Agile Coach: Should I count partially complete user stories in my velocity?
Today’s installment in the Agile with External Clients series covers the topic of testing. A decade after The Agile Manifesto and over 16 years since Scrum and XP came on the scene, I still encounter a large number of teams where the use of testing is… Read More »Agile with External Clients: Testing Is Not Optional