Thanks to everyone who joined us for the Requirements and Agile: Keeping up with Change webinar. If you missed the event, take some time to watch the Requirements and Agile: Keeping up with Change recorded webinar. Attendees asked several interesting questions, all of which we weren’t able to address during the webinar. To follow up, and invite others to participate, we’ve included the Q&A below.
Agile
Do requirements still matter in an Agile environment? What is the business case for Agile, and why is the market moving toward Agile solutions? Agile experts from Seapine Software will answer these questions and more at the TechNet-Aero Conference in Dayton, Ohio, October 17-20.
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Requirements or user stories? Why not both? Attend our Requirements and Agile: Keeping up with Change webinar on October 4, at 1 p.m., to learn how to minimize gaps in verification and validation practices sometimes seen when using Agile methodologies. These gaps are typically a result of moving away from formal requirements in favor of user stories, which are quicker to develop but typically not as rigorously defined. Continue reading…
Share on Technorati . del.icio.us . Digg . Reddit . Slashdot . Facebook . StumbleUponIf you’re serious about Agile, you don’t want to miss Agile2011 in Salt Lake City, August 8-12. Seapine will be there, with some of our Agile Services team members manning our booth. We’ll be demonstrating our products, including our new electronic task board. More importantly, we’ll be sharing ideas and experiences with anyone interested in learning or discussing Agile concepts and practices.
Whether you’re new to Agile, or already an experienced veteran, we’d love to meet you and talk shop. Fill out your registration form (check your conference bag) and make sure you stop by our booth to drop it off. You’ll get a free Agile Expedition kit filled with some great giveaways (Agile badger T-shirt anyone?) to help with your next sprint planning meeting.
On the product side, we’ll be showing off TestTrack for Agile project management along with our new task board that enables your team to work with tasks in a Kanban-type interface via web and mobile devices.
Seapine Agile Task Board
Seapine Agile Task Board in Action
Agile Product owner working with her team
In talking to a potential client the other day, it occurred to me how misunderstood the role of the product owner (also known as the product manager or customer) often is. The conversation centered around their admission that a previous attempt to adopt Agile methods had been a failure. To my delight, they were not content to cling to the often misaligned and unsubstantiated view that “Agile doesn’t work here”!
As we talked, several red flags were raised that they were not aware of themselves, namely “we had too much scope creep” and “requirements weren’t detailed enough.” While I raised awareness of these red flags, the one that struck me the most was the comment that “our product owner wears about nine different hats.” As we approach the 10 year anniversary of the signing of the Agile Manifesto, why have we not learned that the role of the customer, often played by the product owner or product manager, is central to the success of Agile projects? It reminds me that we still have a long way to go and a lot of educating to do.
While a good Agile product owner has many traits, I like to think the best and most successful are like a great bond, and have a AAA rating. For product owners, the triple A rating means Available, Attentive, and Amiable. I have defined each word below and encourage you to remind your team—especially the person in the product owner role—and those in your organization of their importance.
Share on Technorati . del.icio.us . Digg . Reddit . Slashdot . Facebook . StumbleUponThanks to everyone who joined us for our 5 Ways to Boost Enterprise Agility webinar. The recording is now available on YouTube if you missed the webinar or want to watch it again. Q&A from the session follows.
Share on Technorati . del.icio.us . Digg . Reddit . Slashdot . Facebook . StumbleUponThe customers and prospects we typically work with are medium-sized and larger businesses that understand the business value of Agile, but are leery of going “all in” right away. What we see in these cases is a slow transition where they evaluate various Agile practices, keeping only the ones that improve team productivity without hampering their ability to meet existing quality, reporting, and compliance requirements.
One area where we can help is with tooling for these companies in transition. Seapine ALM provides an alternative between legacy systems built on Waterfall concepts and pure Agile tools that focus almost exclusively on the project management side of Agile. Surround SCM, an integrated source control and change management tool, is a key component of Seapine ALM for developers.
Fernando Cremer, a product consultant here at Seapine, will be demonstrating how an integrated solution like Seapine ALM can support your adoption of Agile practices. Some of what he’ll cover in Surround SCM includes:
- Flexible branching models that support rapid development and refactoring
- The benefits of linking code changes with stories and issues in TestTrack
- Using continuous integration tools with Surround SCM
If you’re struggling to make a tool like Subversion or Git work in a hybrid development environment, join us for this webinar.
Share on Technorati . del.icio.us . Digg . Reddit . Slashdot . Facebook . StumbleUponThanks to everyone who joined us for our Understanding the Business Case for Agile webinar last week. The recording is now available on YouTube if you missed the webinar or want to watch it again. Following is the SlideShare version of the webinar. Additionally, check out the full Q&A transcript from the event.
As a result of the recent recession, many organizations were forced to reduce head count, salaries, and benefits to shore up their finances in an attempt to ride out the downturn. Now, as the economy slowly recovers, organizations are looking for ways to satisfy their customers within the boundaries of the “new normal,” which is a reduced cost structure and increased pressure to deliver more, faster. Organizations also need a way to divert funding from one project to another when a higher priority initiative emerges. Agile methods have proven to be an effective way to address these challenges.
Continue reading…
Since we launched the Agile Expedition, we’ve seen a huge number of folks taking the time to learn more about Agile development ideas and methods. What we’ve lacked during most of that period is an easy way for you to take your new knowledge and put it to work in TestTrack. Also, as customers begin the process of becoming more agile, they’ve been asking for help and guidance in using TestTrack to support the adoption of those Agile practices.
Continue reading…
