George Dinwiddie’s blog

Thanks to a pointer from Kent Beck, I’ve just read Alan Keefer’s post, Taking Responsibility.  This is probably the best description I’ve ever read of the role that a software or system architect should take.

And it’s very different from the role I’ve normally seen them take.  Most software architects got the title because they were very good software developers.  I’ve seen far to many who assume that they should now do the “highest level” of the work they’ve been doing, that of the system level design, and leave the more mundane work to those who are still software developers.  In other words, they’re considering their promotion from the point of responsibilities they’re shedding rather than those that they’re taking on. (Continued)

Amr Elssamadisy reports on InfoQ that automated acceptance tests are “only used by a small minority of the community.”  Is this true?  If you and your team don’t use automated acceptance tests, please let me know how you handle regression tests as the application grows larger.  You can leave a comment here or, if you’d rather not say it in public, email me directly. (Continued)

Bob Payne and I talk about retrospectives.  This is a topic dear to my heart.  Most scrum teams could do a lot better on these.

Smaller organizations have an easier time adopting Agile development practices than do larger ones.  Once you get beyond a handful of teams, things start to get much more complicated.  Not only that, but no “cookie-cutter” approach seems to work very well.  Context always matters, and even more so in the large.

Bob Payne and I recently had a conversation with Sanjiv Augustine about the issues, and some ways of dealing with them.

A new installment of the Agile Tool Podcast is available, where Bob Payne and I talk about Team Rooms.  Please let us know what you think of this.

Bob and I received some questions and comments by email, so we returned to the topic of self-organizing teams.  Catch the new podcast on The Agile Toolkit.

Bob and I tackle the topic of time boxes on our latest Agile Toolkit Tips & Advice podcast.

Live and unrehearsed, Bob Payne and I talk about Self-Oranizing Teams on the Agile Toolkit podcast.  This podcast is a lot shorter than our last one.  Give it a listen and let us know what you think.

I just got around to watching Josh Kerievsky’s talk, 10 Tips for Successful Agile Transitions.  He starts this talk with the tip, “You’ve got to do a readiness assessment,” and I think that’s incredibly good advice. He also says,

They should never, in a million years, have been doing Agile.  They were not ready for it…  They could not be helped.

Ouch! Are there really organizations that must be written off as hopeless? (Continued)

Bob Payne has posted a new podcast, Tips and Advice - Manifesto for Agile Software Development, where we talk about the principles and values of the Agile Manifesto.  I’m still a bit unused to hearing myself talk, and I’ve got a ways to go at getting the “um” monster under control.

If you’ve got the time, give it a listen and give us some comments.