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Is Agile Breaking Product Management?

It can be a challenge for a product manager to know how to lead an agile software team. As product managers take on many different roles throughout a project lifecycle, there can be confusion, resulting in the product manager doing what nobody else wants to do. Steve Johnson offers a perspective of the agile product manager that every software developer should know.

Steve Johnson's picture Steve Johnson
Motivating Teams In a Self-Organizing Environment

A key characteristic of agile is that a team self-organizes to best fit the workload. This, according to Maria Matarelli, can be more difficult than the more traditional approach of a project manager simply telling the team what to do.

Maria Matarelli's picture Maria Matarelli
Quality Assurance Is a Process, Not a Department

QA is often considered that lonely department of testers whose job is to find defects before the customer does. It's not always glamorous, but QA deserves to be recognized as a key cog in the testing  machine. To achieve business goals, it is Susan Bradley's view that the QA process needs to be embraced throughout the entire software development lifecycle.

Susan Bradley's picture Susan Bradley
Being Agile, Even if My Organization Isn't

Many of us work for organizations that claim adherence to agility, yet in practice aren't even close. Agile is definitely here to stay, and if you haven't caught the wave, it is only a matter of time before you do. Brian Rabon  presents insightful techniques that can help you become more agile now.

Brian M.  Rabon's picture Brian M. Rabon
Scrum or Kanban—Which Is Better?

In this FAQ column, Arlen Bankston defines the roles of Scrum and kanban and describes how the two agile methodologies can be complementary, each ideal for different situations, or blended to achieve the desired outcome.

Arlen Bankston's picture Arlen Bankston
Are You Done or Done-Done?

Probably one of the most frustrating roles a manager has to master is how to know the true status of work being performed. To a developer, completing 80 percent of the work may be good enough, but is it  even close to being really done? Masha Nehme shows techniques you can use to verify task completion.

Masha Nehme's picture Masha Nehme
A Tale of Two Doctors and the Value Stream

Johanna Rothman compares the experience a patient has with doctors to software development. Producing value implies that the customer believes the software you create provides an important benefit by taking into  consideration the way a user works along with an exceptional user experience.

Johanna Rothman's picture Johanna Rothman
Overcoming Challenges That Impact Product Delivery

Eric Winquist has considerable experience not only leading his company but also consulting with development teams. His advice to “link people to the work” is one of many golden nuggets of information that will help your team deliver projects on time.

Eric Winquist's picture Eric Winquist
How to Design a Test Strategy

Speaking from his experience with test-centered design projects, Jon Hagar explores some testing pitfalls that could have been avoided if the right test strategy had been chosen. You won't find a better, easier-to-understand explanation of a practical test strategy.

Jon Hagar's picture Jon Hagar
Project Management in Cloud Development

Cloud-based software development definitely changes how project managers need to approach their projects and lead their teams. Cloud development is not the same as traditional software product  development and requires a unique mix of traditional project management and agility. Project managers considering working on cloud-based projects need to read what Sridhar Kethandapatti has to say.

Sridhar Kethandapatti's picture Sridhar Kethandapatti

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