Steve Neiderhauser

History of Agile

A nice article from Jeff Sutherland and Hirotaka Takeuchi that delves into the history of Agile Innovation.

It may have all started when Walter Shewhart of Bell Labs applied Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles to the improvement of products and processes.

Roadmap to TDD Adoption

My experience getting teams to practice Extreme Programming techniques like Test-Driven Development (TDD) says that the typical approach of sending developers to a class and having them practice what they learned back at work doesn’t play real well.

Instead, I like the approach described by Ben Scott.

Summary of TDD Approach:

• Focus on design and clean code
• Learn how to write unit tests
• Enforce tests in the same commit as production code
• TDD exercises
• Complete well suited stories in TDD fashion
• Switch to TDD

 

How to Integrate UX Design and Agile

I have been reviewing the book Lean UX to gain a deeper understanding of Dual-Track Agile.

Here’s a free chapter from the book that explains the evolution from staggered sprints to dual-track agile. 

Brief summary of the chapter: 

We discussed why having everyone participate in all activities is critical and how the staggered-sprint model, once considered the path to true agility, has evolved into design sprints and dual-track product discovery and delivery.

How to Make Impediments Visible

Have you ever presented an impediment that was costing your company tens of thousands of dollars and senior management just yawned.

I’ve had that happen to me plenty of times. 

This Scrum Inc article explains four steps to framing impediments so leadership listens.

I always suggest finding ways to attach dollars to the impediment and make the cost visible. Perhaps in a bar chart or graph. Consider the opportunity cost. How many customers would we lose, or would we miss a market opportunity?