Welcome to the May 18th edition of the Carnival of Agilists – providing you with a commented digest on what’s been said in the agile blogsphere during the last two weeks.
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Ed Gibbs wonders what would be the impact of replacing all development managers, so that every team self-organised.
- Marco Abis at BrainScrum discusses the impact of assumptions on team performance, and particularly on the agile inspect/adapt cycle.
- And while we’re on that topic, J. Timothy King presents Thirty Days to Better Software, in which he discusses Alistair Cockburn’s Reflective Improvement practice.
- Kane Mar suggests that daily stand-up meetings can be more effective when a talking-stick is used.
Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Martin Fowler discusses various styles of code ownership and when to use them.
- Roy Osherove reports on a panel at TechEd Israel, at which there was a lively debate about agile versus “formal” methods.
Responding to change over following a plan
- Dave Nicolette fears the worst as the rapid increase in numbers of agile projects means that more and more traditionally-trained managers are assigned to run them.
- Frank Patrick blogs about the Theory of Constraints and its use as a management tool. This week, he’s rounded up a number of quite old posts he wrote comparing the ToC approach with agile methods. Well worth a read, and plenty to think about.
Agile in practice
- In Incremental Agile Ed Gibbs tells the story of how he gradually (incrementally) introduced agile practices into a large project.
- Scott Ambler’s column argues that many agile practices have “crossed the chasm”, whereas for others we still have some way to go.
- Brad Appleton summarises a recent mailing list discussion of nutshell definitions of agile development.
Previous Editions
All previous editions of the Carnival are referenced at the Agile Alliance website.
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