Agile Journal from CM Crossroads - March 2006 - Vol. 1 No. 1
Read it online - http://www.agilejournal.c
om
The Agile Journal is a new publication and online magazine
from
CM Crossroads focused on providing readers with information
and
resources they need to develop software for an agile
business.
Driven by Editor in Chief and noted analyst Liz Barnett,
the Agile Journal delivers thought leadership and pragmatic
advice from a wide range of industry experts, as well as
direct feedback from hands-on developers and project
managers.
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This Issue Sponsored by:
- LogicLibrary - Achieve Business & IT agility through
SOA Governance
http://www.cmcrossroads.net/go/cid=490&mid=911&
amp;id=852
- Passionate about technology? Come work with us!
THOUGHTWORKS
http://www.cmcrossroads.net/go/cid=491&mid=912&
amp;id=759
=================
In this Issue
=================
1. “Agile” Versus “agile” Development
2. Agile Processes: Making Metrics Simple
3. Changing Times: Turning the Fragile into the Agile
4. Seven Agile Team Practices That Scale (Part I of II )
5. Make SOA Governance A High Priority
6. Generating Real Value From Your Service Oriented
Architecture
7. And The Agile Survey Says…
8. FEATURED BOOK: Agile Project Management with Scrum - by
Ken Schwaber
9. CASE STUDY: Learning.com
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Sponsored by - LogicLibrary
LogicLibrary: the only company that seamlessly brings
together
the architectural, development and operational views of
services
without compromising choice. LogicLibrary’s integrated
design-time
repository/registry functionality and configurable
governance
policies make it possible for organizations to actively
track
and manage services, delivering those services to the
developer’s
desktop through its deep IDE integration.
Read More >>
http://www.cmcrossroads.net/go/cid=490&mid=911&
amp;id=852
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Editors Note
Liz Barnett
=====================================
CM Crossroads is excited to bring you a new journal
dedicated to helping developers use Agile techniques and
technologies to deliver successful software solutions. No
other publication or industry portal is providing such
substantive vendor-neutral content for Agile teams. In the
Agile Journal, you'll receive thought leadership and
pragmatic advice from a wide range of industry experts, as
well as direct feedback from hands-on developers and project
managers.
I've spent the past 20+ years working in a variety of
different development environments, in roles ranging from
programmer and analyst to consulting project manager to
software industry analyst. During that time, applications
have evolved from monolithic mainframe applications to
distributed component-based applications and now to those
that include services from external partners and even
customers. Never before have the stakes been higher for
software teams. If you don't continually deliver value to
the business and keep up with changing business needs, then
there are many, many companies around the world ready to
jump in and take over.
So what must the Agile Journal address? In this age of
increasing global competition, software teams must:
- Be responsive to changing business requirements.
- Leverage a global a development community.
- Comply with domestic and international regulations.
- Deliver value that is directly tied to business goals.
To do so, you must leverage technologies and techniques
including Agile and iterative processes, open source, SOA,
globally distributed development environments, and flexible
integrated tools. These and other leading-edge development
topics will be discussed in the Agile Journal in the coming
months.
I look forward to your comments on how we can expand this
new journal and continually improve the content that we
provide. Please contribute your letters to the editors in
the "Letters to the Editors" forum at http://www.AgileJournal.c
om
Liz Barnett
Editor in Chief
editor agilejournal.com
=====================================
“Agile” Versus “agile” Development
by Liz Barnett
=====================================
There's no question that "agile" is the
buzzword of the times for software developers, ISVs,
consultants, and businesses, in general. As with most
buzzwords, the term is often over-used and mis-used,
especially by those trying to portray their products or
services in a new light. In the world of software
development, the term "agile" is applied to a
wide variety of processes, techniques, tools, projects, and
phases of the development life cycle. It's important,
therefore, to set out some basic definitions and context for
the use of the term "agile," especially as it
will be used in articles throughout this journal.
Read more >>
http://www.agi
lejournal.com/article/id,3/
************************************************************
***********
Sponsored by – ThoughtWorks
Passionate about technology? Come work with us! THOUGHTWORKS
Imagine a work environment that values innovation,
integrity, enthusiasm
and a passion for technology. A place where you'll work on
interesting,
challenging projects alongside some of the brightest people
you have ever
met - all without the typical frustrations of big company
politics.
You’ll find this work at ThoughtWorks.
Check out the variety of jobs for a range of skill sets at
http://www.cmcrossroads.net/go/cid=491&mid=912&
amp;id=759
===========================================
Agile Processes: Making Metrics Simple
by Ross Pettit
===========================================
IT organizations, and in particular application development
departments, are increasingly under pressure to provide
performance and compliance metrics to justify annual spend.
Unfortunately, many metrics campaigns collapse under their
own weight: there's no shortage of things to measure, the
scope is greater than first appears, measurement needs to
happen frequently, and collection is a distraction to
traditional software delivery operations. By comparison,
Agile processes are uniquely well suited to metrics,
providing measurements transparently and consistently as an
extension of day-to-day operations. Framed in a scorecard,
information collected during an Agile project provides a
comprehensive analysis of delivery excellence at the
project, program and department levels.
Read More>>
http://www.agi
lejournal.com/article/id,12/
===================================================
Changing Times: Turning the Fragile into the Agile
by Kevin Parker
===================================================
Tool integrations are notoriously fragile; how can we fix
this problem once and for all?
The first sign of trouble is the unusually long time it
takes for your IDE to start one morning. Maybe you can't
access the trouble tickets any more or the team members
cannot build their applications or run the automated test
suite.
Your first question is "What changed?" But
before anyone has time to answer you already know the
culprit ... during the night some (usually nameless person)
upgraded some part of the technology infrastructure and now
your development organization is staggering to a halt.
Read More>>
http://www.agi
lejournal.com/article/id,13/
======================================================
Seven Agile Team Practices That Scale (Part I of II )
by Dean Leffingwell
======================================================
The benefits of agile software methods, including faster
time to market, better responsiveness to changing customer
requirements and higher application quality are undeniable
to those who have mastered these practices. Agile practices,
however, have been defined and recommended primarily to
small team environments where co-location, ready access to
interactive customers and small team size are the defining
rule. Are the benefits of agility to be denied to those
larger software enterprises who don't share these simple
paradigms? Or can the industry learn from these practices
and apply some of the core principles to large scale
development of applications that require 100, 200 or even
1,000 distributed team members to achieve?
Read More>>
http://www.agi
lejournal.com/article/id,14/
======================================================
Make SOA Governance A High Priority
by Greg Coticchia
======================================================
Today's enterprises face growing regulatory pressures with
legislation such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, HIPAA, the Patriot Act and others.
As a result, corporate and IT governance - the processes,
controls and reporting infrastructure over business and IT
activities, respectively - are becoming progressively more
pervasive as a means for providing the compliance
infrastructure necessary to satisfy this list of complex
regulations. Combine this increased pressure for corporate
traceability and visibility with the "next big
thing" in software, service-oriented architecture
(SOA), and you have a challenging governance environment to
say the least. SOA's loosely-coupled nature forces IT away
from monolithic application development and deployment, and
as a result it greatly increases the number of moving parts
that must be managed and governed.
Read More>>
http://www.agi
lejournal.com/article/id,11/
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Generating Real Value From Your Service Oriented
Architecture
by Eric Newcomer
============================================================
===
The question is no longer how best to automate business
systems, but rather how to improve what's already been
automated. We are nearly finished with the initial wave of
IT adoption and most of what can be automated already has
been. This means that the essential set of features and
functions required to run a business already exists in some
form. The trick is how to reuse and repurpose existing
investments for additional value.
Read More>>
http://www.agi
lejournal.com/article/id,10/
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===
FEATURED BOOK: Agile Project Management with Scrum
by Ken Schwaber
============================================================
===
Scrum is one of the most widely used Agile processes in the
US and around the world. Why is this? First of all, Scrum is
easy to adopt because it makes sense to development teams
and empowers them to deliver value through software
products. And, it's also a very practical approach in that
it does not prescribe specific development techniques and so
it can be adopted by companies with a range of legacy
processes and tools in place. From software vendors to
corporate IT organizations to offshore consultancies, teams
using Scrum are successful in delivering valuable software
faster.
Read More>>
http://www.agi
lejournal.com/article/id,7/
===================================
And The Agile Survey Says…
by Liz Barnett
===================================
In planning the launch of the Agile Journal, CM Crossroads
polled its subscribers on their attitudes towards Agile
development and to see how the subscribers' values fit with
the priorities for the upcoming journal. In February 2006,
over 400 IT professionals representing 25 different
industries responded to a short online survey. The results
showed a very high level of interest in Agile processes and
the recognition that responding to changing business
requirements and delivering value are the key success
factors for development organizations.
Read More >>
http://www.agi
lejournal.com/article/id,17/
===================================
CASE STUDY: Learning.com
by Liz Barnett
===================================
Portland, Oregon-based Learning.com is a fast-growing
software company providing online services to students and
teachers to help integrate computer technology and education
into their curricula. With a user base of over 30,000
teachers and over 1.5 million students accessing its
subscription-based hosted products, Learning.com must
continue to innovate and meet market needs while continuing
to provide robust and scalable products.
Read More >>
http://www.agi
lejournal.com/article/id,6/
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