Cutter Consortium: Agile Product & Project Management

Agile: 10 Points of Organizational Friction

2 Feb 2012 15:28:13 GMT

Collier, Ken |

Agile adoption for data warehouse and BI is on the rise. Agile can shorten development cycle time, improve quality, and help ensure that you build the right BI solutions for business decision makers. However, conventional IT organizational structures, policies, processes, and procedures are sometimes inconsistent with the tenets of agility. Values like customer collaboration, face-to-face interaction, and continuous delivery of value are often impeded by IT organizational protocols. Here are the top 10 points of friction that I frequently see in companies that I assist in agile adoption. While many of these also impact software teams, DW/BI departments are often more directly impacted by them.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2012/apm120202.html

Performance Without Appraisal

1 Jan 2012 15:13:53 GMT

Derby, Esther |

As I write this Executive Update, it is the season for annual performance appraisals. Managers and team members gather feedback, catalog accomplishments, and fill in forms. Managers collate, rate, and rank. All this activity culminates in the annual review. Many managers tell me this process consumes enormous time but yields little benefit in terms of improvement or better working relationships. Managers who support teams find the appraisal process particularly troublesome. They struggle to differentiate individual contribution to combined effort, and they worry the message of individual appraisal works against team work and collaborative effort.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2012/apmu1202.html

The Expanding Scope of Business Resilience: Linking ERM with Agility

31 Jan 2012 15:03:44 GMT

Dooley, Brian J. |

As we explore in this Executive Report, business resilience combines enterprise risk management (ERM) and agility to create robust organizations capable of withstanding any threat. A resilient organization aligns its strategy, operations, and management systems to continually adjust to changing risks, endure disruptions, and improve efficiency. Resilience is a program for taking proactive measures to ensure an effective response and preserve core values. In addition to examining ways to achieve resilience, including existing industry frameworks and models, this report also reviews some case studies that illustrate how organizations can create resilient practices.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/reports/2012/01/index.html

Webinar: "Big Agile" Is More than Just a Software Method

30 Jan 2012 15:59:39 GMT

Gat, Israel; Smits, Hubert |

Small is beautiful in software. While big software might not be beautiful, more often than not, it's in the nature of what needs to be accomplished. This contrast between the beauty of small and the requirements of the big generates systemic tension in many software projects, organizations, and companies. Resolving this conflict is the focus of this webinar.

http://www.cutter.com/events/multimedia/big-agile.html

How to Transition from a Traditional to a Robust APM Environment

26 Jan 2012 14:45:46 GMT

Wysocki, Robert K. |

In this Executive Report, I describe a process for migrating from whatever current project management model environment your organization embraces to a robust portfolio of models. Through this robust process, you can evolve and expand your model to a comprehensive portfolio of models and effectively manage any project. Answering the following six questions best explains the transition process: (1) Where are you? (2) Where do you want to go? (3) How will you get there? (4) How are you doing? (5) How will you know you got there? and (6) How will you improve what you have done? In this report, I answer these questions.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/reports/2012/01/index.html

Enterprise Agility

26 Jan 2012 14:43:01 GMT

Watson, Jim |

Agile development has revolutionized the way systems are developed from a waterfall or phased-based approach to an iterative-based approach that continuously reexamines development progress, current priorities, and sufficiency of solution. The important considerations from an enterprise governance perspective are the notions that the system design/solution will emerge over time (rather than being completely preplanned) and teams will seek continuous integration testing (including system-of-systems integration) in confirming completion and correctness of functionality. Within agile development, the overall context of a system is loosely understood (e.g., online banking), while the details of the application requirements, priorities, and design emerge through the iterations. Systems development teams adopting agile development methods -- Scrum, XP, Crystal, and so on -- need to be supported organizationally in different ways than how they are supported when utilizing waterfall methodologies.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2012/apm120126.html

Webinar: "Big Agile" Is More than Just a Software Method

30 Jan 2012 17:27:51 GMT

Gat, Israel; Smits, Hubert | Events |

Small is beautiful in software. While big software might not be beautiful, more often than not, it's in the nature of what needs to be accomplished. This contrast between the beauty of small and the requirements of the big generates systemic tension in many software projects, organizations, and companies. Resolving this conflict is the focus of this webinar.

http://www.cutter.com/events/multimedia/big-agile.html

Agility, Adaptability, and Alignment

19 Jan 2012 17:25:33 GMT

Gat, Israel | E-Mail Advisors |

It often starts as a seemingly plain training request. Having decided to go the agile route, a client would like Cutter to train a certain number of employees in one agile method or another. We collect data on the demographics of the target population: architects, UI designers, product managers, project managers, developers, testers, and so on. We then move on to discuss the way these folks are geographically dispersed and what the team structure for the launched agile teams will be. Once these parameters have been nailed down, it largely becomes a matter of figuring out the logistics for training and coaching. A fairly straightforward process for rolling out the agile process, one might say.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2012/apm120119.html

Agile EA: Governance Introduction

13 Jan 2012 19:10:34 GMT

Watson, Jim | Executive Reports |

This Executive Report explores processes in enterprise architecture governance to achieve improved agility using technology advancements in Maven and virtualization. The report describes approaches for enterprise situational awareness, agile systems integration, and dependency management, along with technology variants and innovation.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/reports/2011/09/index.html

Unsuccessful Agile and Lean Adoptions

12 Jan 2012 19:07:56 GMT

Elssamadisy, Amr | E-Mail Advisors |

Agile and lean adoptions don't always work. This Advisor shares a few examples of lean and agile adoptions that failed to make things better. These types of agile adoptions are more common than we would like to think. If you are experiencing any of these failure states, you are not alone. But remember that you do not have to accept results like these; they can be fixed. Let's examine four of these failure states more closely.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2012/apm120112.html

Secure Software: Part II -- Hackers and Cyber Attackers

12 Jan 2012 19:03:02 GMT

Bennatan, E.M. | Executive Updates |

If you're looking for a great idea for a high-tech startup, read on. The idea comes from the second-largest center of startup companies in the world, namely Israel.1 This hub of innovation has just experienced a cyber attack from Saudi Arabian hackers in which some 20,000 credit card owners (the hackers claimed 400,000) were jeopardized when their personal information, including passwords, was posted online. The goal was to disrupt the country's economy.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2012/apmu1201.html

Big or Little, Devops Needs a Complete Picture, Part II

5 Jan 2012 18:53:02 GMT

Glazer, Hillel | E-Mail Advisors |

In my last Advisor (see "Big or Little, Devops Needs a Complete Picture," 23 November 2011), I promised to provide examples of using systems thinking to incorporate compliance into devops. I described an aspect of applied systems thinking called "IPPD" -- integrated product and process development -- that has been in use in manufacturing operations for decades and is now finding its way into IT operations, albeit perhaps by other names.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2012/apm120105.html

A Contrarian View of Scalability

22 Dec 2011 18:22:27 GMT

Gat, Israel | E-Mail Advisors |

In just about every due diligence engagement I carry out, the VC and I spend a lot of time on scalabity of the software architecture. The company whose software architecture we are evaluating usually has a good track record of successfully scaling up on quite a few technology and business dimensions. If we extrapolate the historical growth rate a few years into the future, the company really looks attractive. The concern, however, is that the company might run into a hard barrier for growth. In particular, getting stuck on some rigid architectural constraints is always a concern.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm111222.html

Devops: Exploring the Value of Microblogging

22 Dec 2011 18:18:11 GMT

Gafni, Ruti; Khononov, Vladik; Sivan, Yesha | Executive Updates |

This Executive Update examines the potential value of microblogging for software development teams. As a reference point, we introduce TwitTeam, a prototype tool similar to Twitter that has been enhanced with special capabilities. These include automatic tags, integration with the software development environment used by the organization, automatic publication and distribution of messages, and reports for control and supervision. The use of this enhanced microblogging infrastructure is in keeping with the spirit of CAMS (Culture, Automation, Measurement, and Sharing), the four pillars on which the devops idea was established.1 In order to successfully implement an effective and efficient connection between the development and operations departments, there is a need to embed communications in the corporate culture. Collaboration is enhanced by sharing ideas and information and using automated tools for management, monitoring, and control, which can help to measure and improve the processes.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2011/apmu1124.html

Agile Analytics

21 Dec 2011 17:28:37 GMT

21 December 2011 |

Does your Agile BI delivery team routinely fail to complete the user stories it commits to during sprint planning? Then this Advisor is for you!

http://www.cutter.com/content-and-analysis/resource-centers/business-intelligence/agile-analytics.html

Agile Analytics: Curing the Common Hangover

20 Dec 2011 16:27:48 GMT

Collier, Ken | E-Mail Advisors |

This Advisor is a continuation of the "Scrum Ain't Enough" series (see "Agile Analytics: Community, Customers, and and Collaboration," 18 October 2011, and "Agile Analytics: Evolving Excellent Data Models and Architectures," 22 November 2011) I started in October. With this series I aim to convince you that Scrum, while useful, is not by itself sufficient to gain the greatest benefits of agile analytics. It must be augmented with other important behavioral and technical practices to produce the real horsepower that agile analytics has to offer.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2011/bia111220.html

Reducing Software Release Pain by Releasing More Often

19 Dec 2011 15:49:49 GMT

Morris, Kief | Journals |

Our operations director put forward a counterintuitive suggestion -- rather than releasing less often, why not try releasing more often? Initially this seemed ridiculous. If our team wasn't capable of getting a release out in six months without running overschedule and overbudget, the idea of an even shorter release cycle seemed like a fantasy. But the operations director outlined his thinking, which was based on the concepts of Continuous Delivery. Over the rest of the year, we made some radical changes to the way we worked and saw some very practical benefits to delivering one or more software release(s) every month.

http://www.cutter.com/index.html;jsessionid=9307A462AC1CF6F18202C8ECB59AA60D

Embedding Devops in the Enterprise

19 Dec 2011 15:45:58 GMT

Debois, Patrick | Journals |

With the term "devops" picking up steam, vendors are now (re)branding their tools as devops tools. Similar to unit-test tools that supported an agile workflow, the current discussion on deployment automation supports the devops ideas. Even though tools have their merits, after reading the August 2011 issue of Cutter IT Journal -- "Devops: A Software Revolution in the Making" -- it should be clear that tools are merely one aspect of devops and must be complemented with other aspects. The nice thing about tools is that they give you something concrete to discuss, as compared to the more intangible notion of "culture." Within large enterprises, tools are probably the easy part. Therefore, in this issue, we would like to focus on the harder aspects, like "people and processes," or as the Agile Manifesto puts it, "Individuals and interactions."

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/2011/12/index.html

Where Is IT Operations Within Devops?

19 Dec 2011 15:42:59 GMT

Keyworth, Bill | Journals |

It would seem that the devops discussion is mostly driven by development's incentives, and appropriately so, given developers' focus on building functionality for the business user. So it's no surprise that development is the originator of the whole devops lifecycle, but are there any dangers lurking in a one-sided focus on devops issues?

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/2011/12/itj1112b.html

Devops and the People Who Practice It: Winning Their Hearts and Minds

19 Dec 2011 15:37:41 GMT

Mueller, Ernest | Journals |

On the dev2ops blog (one of the primary locations for seminal devops thought), Alex Honor states his chosen methodology as "People over Process over Tools." This is of course a riff on the Agile Manifesto's value statement of "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools." I believe that devops is at its heart an extension of agile as applied to include operations, so this makes sense as an analogous principle. Why, then, is so much of the devops discussion about those lower-priority items and not the people?

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/2011/12/itj1112a.html

Disciplined Agile Delivery and Collaborative DevOps

19 Dec 2011 15:34:38 GMT

Ambler, Scott W. | Journals |

In this article, I present an overview of Collaborative Development and Operations ("Collaborative DevOps" for short) and Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD). More important, I will describe how DAD explicitly "bakes" devops strategies right into the process framework.

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/2011/12/itj1112c.html

Metrics-Driven Devops

19 Dec 2011 15:32:06 GMT

Le-Quoc, Alexis | Journals |

Devops as a cure for the dysfunctional gap between development and operations is here to stay. Complex applications built as an orchestration of highly distributed services, some internal, some outsourced, demand that development and operations find a common language in which to collaborate. Rather than discussing the toolkit du jour, I focus in this article on the necessity to anchor the devops conversation in shared and actionable metrics. To that end, I will examine the recent transformations in the way we build and run applications, discuss the resulting need for better metrics, and introduce a simple framework for evaluating a metrics-driven devops practice in the enterprise.

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/2011/12/itj1112d.html

Why Agile Fails at Scale: The Human Side

15 Dec 2011 16:30:23 GMT

Levison, Mark | E-Mail Advisors |

My Cutter colleagues will give you excellent advice on some of the key elements to making Lean-Agile work at scale. Even with their advice, however, implementing any large-scale change is very difficult. This Advisor is the first of several in a series dealing with the human issues in making change at scale. The article focuses on the systematic-level challenges. My experience suggests that, in large part, problems stem from a failure to understand and address certain key human needs:

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm111215.html

Secure Software: Part I -- Are We All On Board?

15 Dec 2011 16:26:23 GMT

Bennatan, E.M. | Executive Updates |

Several months after 9/11, I received an article that had been submitted to a journal I was guest-editing. The author, a seasoned professional, included the following passage: "9/11 didn't have the long term, worldwide effect on the economy it might have had." She then proceeded to consider the effect of the worst terror attack on US soil along with the effects of foot and mouth disease in Britain. For the author, "long term" was eight months.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2011/apmu1123.html

Enterprise BI Architecture Groups: The Key to Effective Agile Data Warehousing Programs

15 Dec 2011 15:55:00 GMT

Hughes, Ralph | Consulting |

Agile data warehousing delivers powerful BI applications in the shortest time frame possible, yet coordinating multiple fast-moving BI teams demands more than simple project management. Organizations need an enterprise business intelligence architecture (EBIA) function to coordinate high-level requirements, designs, and technologies in order to avoid ruinously expensive mistakes and redundancies.

http://www.cutter.com/workshops/enterprise-bi-architecture-groups.html

When Techinical Debt Hits Life

8 Dec 2011 19:14:47 GMT

Gat, Israel | E-Mail Advisors |

In my recent Cutter Webinar "Implementing a Technical Debt Prevention, Measurement, and Reduction Program in Your Company" (8 June 2011), I described the holistic view of the software process. The success of the process is measured by its output; the success of the output is measured by the outcome. As depicted in Figure 1, the balance between the three -- process, output, and outcome -- is what matters. Excellence in the software process does not count for much if the productivity in developing the output (i.e., code) and its quality are not satisfactory. Likewise, as desirable as the combination of high productivity and good quality might be, it is of little value if the business outcome is disappointing. The team, no doubt, has worked hard but produced the wrong product.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm111208.html

To Change or Not to Change?

1 Dec 2011 14:14:58 GMT

Gartner, Markus | E-Mail Advisors |

David Anderson describes Kanban as an evolutionary change method.1 In comparison to other agile methods, Kanban can be introduced with little changes. But what are the differences between different methods? And is there a way to handle changes more successfully?

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm111201.html

Is Agile Shortchanging the Business?

29 Nov 2011 15:59:55 GMT

Robertson, James; Robertson, Suzanne | Executive Reports |

Agile methods provide a very efficient way to develop software. But efficiency is not the point. As we explore in this Executive Report, the point is that in the rush to experience the virtues of this effective development method, and the excitement of the surrounding publicity, an important question is left unanswered: Does efficient software development (read "agile") necessarily bring a real advantage to the owner of that software? A growing number of our clients are concerned about business value and that the software they take delivery of is not fully exploiting the potential value. To put it another way, there is real business value to be had, but the software development process alone does not deliver it. Clients complain about the lack of innovation coming from agile development teams, and they report that their new software is often not that different from the previous incarnation of the functionality -- a few extra bells and whistles, yes, but not the breakthrough implementation that delivers a significant business advantage.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/reports/2011/11/index.html

Measuring Collaborative Value

29 Nov 2011 15:56:58 GMT

Coleman, David | E-Mail Advisors |

For the last decade I have been asked, "What is the ROI for collaboration?" I have come to several conclusions about this: one, that it is the wrong question to ask (and is a trap in itself) and two, everyone wants collaboration, but no one seems willing to pay for it.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2011/bia111129.html

Big or Little, Devops Needs a Complete Picture

23 Nov 2011 15:48:19 GMT

Glazer, Hillel | E-Mail Advisors |

The Cutter IT Journal from August 2011 asks, "Devops: A Software Revolution in the Making?" (Vol. 24, No. 8), and guest editor Cutter Senior Consultant Patrick Debois, in his opening statement, invokes the notion of systems thinking. In this first of a multipart series of Advisors, I will explore a side of systems thinking and devops that goes beyond looking at the technical aspects of development and operations, and beyond that part of the business itself in which development and operations coexist. I will explore how systems thinking needs not only to apply to what goes on beyond development and operations, but that in order to see the complete picture, we need to look at a set of insidious, ubiquitous, and unavoidably influential attributes of the entire enterprise: compliance. In future installments in the series, I will cover examples of using systems engineering to incorporate compliance into devops, fundamental prerequisites for sustaining high-performance devops, and an architecture with the supporting framework for ensuring consistent, compliant devops performance.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm111123.html

Agile Analytics: Evolving Excellent Data Models and Architectures

22 Nov 2011 15:32:10 GMT

Collier, Ken | E-Mail Advisors |

Last month I began an Advisor series that I am unofficially calling the "Scrum Ain't Enough" series (see "Agile Analytics: Community, Customers, and and Collaboration," 18 October 2011). If your organization has adopted agile, or is considering agile, then I suspect you�ve been exposed to Scrum -- the current most well-known agile flavor. Scrum is easy and accessible for new agile adopters, and the Scrum Alliance has done a brilliant marketing job. While Scrum provides a set of effective techniques for managing iterations and requirements, it does not address technical discipline, release planning, program management, and other important considerations. This Advisor series is designed to help you truly benefit from agile analytics (and agility in general) -- not by discarding Scrum, but by augmenting Scrum with other important practices and techniques.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2011/bia111122.html

Anything Measurable Will Be Measured

17 Nov 2011 15:14:42 GMT

Gat, Israel | E-Mail Advisors |

Consider this Advisor a very pragmatic recommendation to the software development manager/director/VP. I have a feeling that the opinion I express here might get me in hot water, but what would life be like without some risk?

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm111117.html

The BMC Agile Transformation: A Seven-Year Perspective

15 Nov 2011 16:11:06 GMT

Gat, Israel | Executive Updates |

Just about seven years ago I launched the first agile team at BMC Software. Little had I known back then that this small start would revive my business unit, transform software engineering at BMC, and become a much-quoted business case in the agile movement. I, of course, had no clue that it would dramatically change the course and nature of my career from a software executive to agile consultant.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2011/apmu1122.html

Toward a Knowledge Architecture

15 Nov 2011 16:07:31 GMT

Baudoin, Claude | E-Mail Advisors |

First came the realization that the collective knowledge of an organization or, for that matter, the individual knowledge of its members, is not solely held in libraries of documents. There is also the tacit knowledge that people have in their heads a relatively small fraction of which can be teased out and made explicit through various knowledge-capture efforts such as storytelling and interviews. Then there is a latent form of knowledge, which consists of knowing who to ask on a given subject; something I described in a previous Data Insight & Social BI Executive Update ("It's Not (Just) What You Know; It's Who You Know." Vol. 10, No. 9), and which leads us to a collaborative and even social approach to knowledge management (KM).

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2011/bia111115.html

Go Big or Go Home with Agile

10 Nov 2011 15:52:15 GMT

Spann, David | E-Mail Advisors |

If you want increased net profits, cash flow, and ROI now, then it is time to "Go Big" with agile: scaling and integrating practices, methodologies, and processes across the organization. In this era of tight budgets, increased customer demands, and overwhelming regulations, many firms are looking to agile for low-cost operational improvements and increased customer satisfaction. This isn't the time to be wasting resources on developing elegant systems that take forever to deliver -- it's the time to be nimble, responsive, and, most important, financially productive.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm111110.html

Need Software Engineers to Develop Secure Software? Put It in Your Job Descriptions!

9 Nov 2011 15:33:07 GMT

Mead, Nancy | E-Mail Advisors |

Recently I had occasion to review software engineering position descriptions to try to understand what skills were sought after for entry-level software engineers. Much to my chagrin, I found that the top-level requirements, and for the most part the secondary requirements, made no mention of knowledge of how to develop secure software, how to avoid coding vulnerabilities, how to do threat modeling, and so on. Generally, the position descriptions followed the age-old practice of emphasizing knowledge of specific programming languages, database applications, and operating systems. It seems that unless a security specialist is sought after, there is no mention of secure development.

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/advisor/2011/itj111109.html

The Make-Up of a Big Agile Engagement: You Need Two Frameworks

4 Nov 2011 18:25:51 GMT

Gat, Israel | E-Mail Advisors |

The "secret sauce" of agile productivity at the team level is that everyone does the most important thing at any point in time. Instead of following a rigid plan in which it takes months, and possibly years, to act on feedback, agile methods are geared toward immediacy of feedback and subsequent adaptation. The agile team grooms the backlog as a standard operating procedure in the course of its day-to-day work. In addition, stakeholders provide inputs for grooming the backlog during the biweekly demo. This double feedback loop is depicted in Figure 1. A team that develops the skills required to carry out its work in such a nimble and adaptive manner can indeed be highly productive.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm111103.html

Andrew Clay Shafer

4 Nov 2011 18:15:34 GMT

Andrew Clay Shafer | Consultants |

Andrew Clay Shafer is a Senior Consultant with Cutter Consortium's Agile Product & Project Management Practice. He is broadly recognized as a major contributor to devops, having helped spread the body of knowledge now known by this name.

http://www.cutter.com/meet-our-experts/shafera.html

Top 10 Mistakes Project Managers Make

2 Nov 2011 18:08:52 GMT

Egeland, Brad | Executive Updates |

Make no mistake (no pun intended). I realize there are hundreds of mistakes waiting out there for project managers to make, and I've probably made many of them somewhere along the way in my 25-year IT career. But I like to believe that I've learned from my mistakes as well as from those that I've witnessed. During and after projects, I not only make mental notes but also document mistakes in postdeployment lessons learned sessions with my teams and project clients. Through my professional writing, I attempt to bring these experiences and observations to light to help other project managers, team members, IT executives, and even project customers be aware of and plan for the avoidance of such mistakes in their own projects.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2011/apmu1121.html

One Size Does Not Fit All: Hiring an Agile Coach

26 Oct 2011 17:55:35 GMT

Derby, Esther | E-Mail Advisors |

If your company is adopting agile methods for software development, you've probably been told you need ScrumMasters or agile coaches. But who should fill those roles? No matter the name, the essence of the role is to help teams learn new skills, continuously improve, and make the transition to a new way of working. Some people say it's a technical role, others claim that the role is primarily facilitation. The truth is, there is no one-size-fits-all role when it comes to hiring an agile coach or ScrumMaster.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm111027.html

What's the Status of Unstructured Data Analysis Initiatives? Where Are the Bottlenecks?

25 Oct 2011 17:36:21 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 25 October 2011 |

For the majority of end-user organizations, analyzing unstructured data for BI and other decision-support needs is still a fairly new practice; it's of serious interest but, at this stage, primarily in the investigation and experimentation stages. I base this finding on recent Cutter research, where 24% of surveyed end-user organizations indicate they currently use text mining and analysis tools, applications, and practices for analyzing unstructured data in some capacity or another.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2011/bia111025.html

Delving into Technical Debt

24 Oct 2011 17:09:41 GMT

Sterling, Chris; Gat, Israel | Executive Updates |

"Context over content" is a good metaphor to keep in mind when considering a technical debt assessment, reduction, and prevention engagement. Specific patterns in your code and the intricacies of your programming environment are paramount factors in determining how general insights will be turned into actions. In other words, it is unlikely that a technical debt engagement in your company will evolve along similar lines to those taking place in your competitor's "shop" down the street.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2011/apmu1120.html

Beyond Elementary Agile

20 Oct 2011 16:58:43 GMT

Cockburn, Alistair | E-Mail Advisors |

"What's after agile?" People have been asking that for a few years now. What is next is subtle application of the principles that make agile development effective in the first place, in ways that are not in the standard agile literature, in ways that are no longer elementary, in ways that call for creativity as well as science, and in ways that enrich the strategy library for those capable of applying them.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm111020.html

Agile Analytics: Community, Customers, and Collaboration

18 Oct 2011 19:06:51 GMT

Collier, Ken | E-Mail Advisors |

The year 2011 has seen a proliferation in agile adoption for data warehousing, BI, and analytics. This excites me, but I'm worried about a trend I'll call, "basic Scrum only." The lure of Scrum is that it is popular and easy to understand. Unfortunately, this leads many IT leaders to believe that daily Scrum meetings, short iterations (sprints), and ScrumMaster certification for project managers is all that is necessary to "go agile." Not surprisingly, I'm hearing an increasing number of "agile isn't working for us" stories.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2011/bia111018.html

Teamwork Required: Managing Agile Application Delivery in a Matrix Organization

13 Oct 2011 19:01:23 GMT

Light, Adam; Vike, Chris; Larsen, Diana |

The collection of development techniques and work management practices commonly referred to as agile methods has evolved rapidly over the past decade to the point where it is difficult to find any sizable IT organization that doesn't make claim to some sort of agile initiative. Mainstream management thinkers1 have begun to take notice and to hold up agile practices as a model of self-organization for the 21st century. While some IT veterans were initially skeptical of agile as just another methodology fad, it is by now clear that this trend isn't going away.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2011/apmu1119.html

Pitfalls of Agile XVIII: Linear Thinking

11 Oct 2011 19:04:05 GMT

Coldewey, Jens | E-Mail Advisors |

It seems so easy: just take an agile method of your choice -- be it Scrum or Kanban or whatever -- and include it into your organization's process handbook. You may have to do some adjustments to fit it into your organization, but eventually you can send it out so everyone is able to do agile -- maybe after a few days of additional training.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm111013.html

Beware of Strategies Masquerading as Objectives (and Objectives that Aren't Well Defined)

11 Oct 2011 18:40:49 GMT

Schildkraut, Laura | Executive Updates |

Have you ever overloaded your dishwasher? You focus completely on getting every last dish and every last glass and every last utensil loaded. Then you breathe a sigh of relief as you press "start." An hour later, as the wash cycle completes, you return to find that the dishes and glasses and utensils aren't really clean.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/updates/2011/bitu1112.html

High Performance Operations: Strategies for Making Compliance a Competitive Advantage

10 Oct 2011 18:21:19 GMT

Glazer, Hillel | Consulting |

General Overview: The bureaucracy of everyday compliance issues often gets in the way of being lean and achieving excellence. In fact, the desire to be lean and agile can turn into its own form of "compliance". This one-day workshop introduces a revealing systematic approach that puts compliance properly in its place -- behind your pursuit of excellence.

http://www.cutter.com/workshops/high-performance-ops.html

Half-Life Metrics

6 Oct 2011 14:07:09 GMT

Gat, Israel | E-Mail Advisors |

"Gaming the system" is the kind of phenomenon that makes pedantic software development managers end their careers in mental asylums. A metric is introduced in order to achieve a certain outcome. To enhance the prospects of achieving the desired outcome, individuals and/or teams are compensated on the measured value of the metric. Over time they learn how to "game it"; that is, skillfully improving the measured value irrespective of whether or not such improvements still are in good accord with the desired outcome. The means (i.e., the measured value of the metric) becomes the end.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm111006.html

Should You Staff Your Organization with Certified Project Managers?

5 Oct 2011 14:00:31 GMT

Egeland, Brad | E-Mail Advisors |

This must be a question that tugs on CEOs, CIOs, VPs, and PMO directors at every company across the nation and around the world whenever they consider PM staffing. Wouldn't it be? PMP certification -- the most well-known and widely regarded certification in the project management world -- is a great default requirement, right? Require certification of all your incoming project managers -- and require that your current ones get certified in the next year -- and you're set, right? If you've required the industry standard, how can you go wrong?

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/advisor/2011/itj111005.html

Five Levels of Planning: The Executive Perspective

2 Oct 2011 18:15:41 GMT

Smits, Hubert | Executive Updates |

Several years ago, I wrote a short article on planning in agile projects that dispelled the notion that agile practices did not include much planning. 1 Agile has moved on, and implementations now have the attention and participation of the whole organization, including its leadership, which we'll explore in this Executive Update.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2011/apmu1118.html

The Friction of Agile

29 Sep 2011 18:09:50 GMT

Gat, Israel | E-Mail Advisors |

It is quite a common occurrence in my practice: I step into an engagement that involves hundreds of developers, testers, product managers, project managers, architects, user design specialists, and quite a few other disciplines, from all over the globe. The time zone difference between some of their most important sites is 10, 11, or 12 hours. The expectations of whatever agile software method I bring to bear is that it will improve quality, productivity, and time to market. Some of the clients actually ask me point blank: "Well, Israel, this is, after all, 2011, not 2004. You can certainly do better than what you accomplished back then with the agile transformation at BMC Software,1 can't you?!"

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110929.html

Successful ROI with Agile and Lean Adoption

22 Sep 2011 16:58:56 GMT

Elssamadisy, Amr | Executive Reports |

Agile and lean methods are a means to an end, and that end is increased capability and productivity for your teams and organizations. This leads directly to cost savings and revenue. All too often, however, adoption and transformation initiatives fail to lead to such results. In this Executive Report, you will read about the financial returns of successful adoption initiatives. When these returns are not evident, there is something wrong. You will also read about typical impediments that lead to a lack of results, which will help you diagnose your initiatives. The report will leave you with clearer expectations of your agile and lean initiatives and provide one or more starting points to diagnose and eventually address any roadblocks your organization may face.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/reports/2011/09/index.html

Agile Data Warehousing/Business Intelligence Can Be a Loose Cannon

22 Sep 2011 16:27:13 GMT

Hughes, Ralph | E-Mail Advisors |

Experience has shown that agile data warehousing (ADW) can be a double-edged sword when viewed from the program level or the perspective of a data warehousing/business intelligence (DW/BI) director. On the one hand, we end up with multiple BI teams enthusiastically translating sketchy business requirements into working ETL and BI cubes as fast as fingers can fly across keyboards. On the other hand, we unleash a tremendous amount of undirected, creative energy. If we were to rely upon agile DW/BI teams to deliver the components of an enterprise data warehouse, we may well be very disappointed when these teams fail to spontaneously coordinate their separate efforts. We risk receiving instead a jungle of stovepiped solutions that do not integrate and that leave the corporation without any insight into its collective operations and competitiveness.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110922.html

Being a Collaborative Leader (And Getting Things Done)

14 Sep 2011 15:37:13 GMT

Spann, David | Consulting |

General Overview: The Being a Collaborative Leader course will help you discover how you can be a leader who motivates people to work better together, deliver results faster, and exceed basic customer satisfaction by creating an environment in which others succeed. You'll understand the organizational and behavioral barriers that prevent your teams from being as agile and adaptive as they could be. By developing an understanding of the beliefs, behaviors, and practices of successful Collaborative Leaders, you'll become one, and be better positioned to serve your teams so they can reduce cycle times, increase customer satisfaction and enhance organizational value.

http://www.cutter.com/workshops/agilebehaviors.html

Agile Facilitation: Creating Solutions That Stick

14 Sep 2011 15:32:00 GMT

Spann, David | Consulting |

General Overview: Consider for a moment how much money is wasted when a group of people get together without a predefined purpose, without any meeting design. agenda, or ground rules. The picture gets worse as, after two or more hours, these same people leave without any action items defined. If this kind of meeting takes place in your organization, you need Agile Facilitation. When you lead a meeting, your challenge - and responsibility -- is to facilitate the tough discussions surrounding issues, discoveries, and agreements, even when you may be personally affected by the outcome. Agile facilitation techniques make it discovering that which is not yet known or agreed upon the regular outcome of your meetings. In his Agile Facilitation course, David Spann, a professional facilitator as well as an expert in Agile leadership, will divulge the techniques leaders, managers and other internal facilitators can adopt to help teams reduce cycle times, increase customer satisfaction and enhance organizational value (ROI).

http://www.cutter.com/workshops/agile-facilitation.html

Balancing Specialization and Teamwork

14 Sep 2011 15:24:30 GMT

Berczuk, Steve | E-Mail Advisors |

At first glance, you might think that the best way to deliver good software quickly is to have teams of people who have deep skills in required areas. There are several reasons why this is not the most effective approach to developing software when you have changing requirements and need to be agile, including

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110915.html

The Wastes of Scrum

13 Sep 2011 15:14:56 GMT

Rooney, Dave | Executive Updates |

Recently I've been learning and following the principles surrounding the Lean Startup community, as popularized by Eric Ries. While attending the inaugural San Francisco Agile Conference this past June, and after listening to several sessions that were either dedicated to Lean Startup or used the principles and practices it encompasses, my mind was fully able to grasp the level of waste that exists in contemporary Scrum today.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2011/apmu1117.html

Pitfalls of Agile XVI: The Agile Island

9 Sep 2011 19:10:50 GMT

Coldewey, Jens | E-Mail Advisors ::

One of the saddest patterns I've seen several times in my career is that of an agile island. The story usually goes along this route: a highly motivated middle manager finds herself in some difficult situation and decides that agile is the right way out of her turmoil. She starts to read books, she engages skilled consultants, she gets the team on board, introduces self-organization, finds skillful product owners, and, after one year or so, she has a highly successful agile team. Well, not everything is really perfect, but after all, the situation is way better than it was before the transition and the clients notice a significant difference -- though there is still some way to go.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110908.html

Software Development Contracts: The Agile Perspective

2 Sep 2011 18:23:52 GMT

Smits, Hubert | E-Mail Advisors ::

Traditional contracts for outsourced software development focus on the desired requirements and the time and price it will take to deliver these requirements. The aims of traditional contracts are to create a predictable delivery cost and to shift the risk of cost overruns to the contracting party. The reality is often an inflexible structure, with a well-defined “change avoidance process,� which at best delivers the software you thought you needed 12 months ago. You weren't changing your software delivery process if these types of contracts worked for you.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110901.html

Generalists, Specialists, and Generalizing Specialists

2 Sep 2011 18:10:45 GMT

Berczuk, Steve | Executive Updates ::

Software development is complicated, requiring highly specialized skills. Agile methods such as Scrum advocate self-organizing, cross-functional teams and promise predictable, efficient delivery of useful functionality. To have teams composed of people who are specialists in each of the relevant skills for your project, you need to know what the skills are before you plan the iteration. Unless the work for an iteration matches the available people, you will have idle hands and incomplete work. You are also unlikely to have an expert in every area you need. Having teams of generalists addresses some of the problems, but it's a reasonable concern that generalists aren't going to deliver the best solution for a task.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2011/apmu1116.html

Devops: A Software Revolution in the Making?

25 Aug 2011 14:35:43 GMT

Debois, Patrick | Journals | 25 August 2011 | Agile Project Management; Cutter IT Journal

Only by providing positive results to the business and management can IT reverse its bad reputation and become a reliable partner again. In order to do that, we need to break through blockers in our thought process, and devops invites us to challenge traditional organizational barriers. The days of top-down control are over -- devops is a grass-roots movement similar to other horizontal revolutions, such as Facebook. The role of management is changing: no longer just directive, it is taking a more supportive role, unleashing the power of the people on the floor to achieve awesome results. And that is the focus of this issue of Cutter IT Journal.

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/2011/08/index.html

Next-Generation Process Integration: CMMI and ITIL Do Devops

25 Aug 2011 14:31:50 GMT

Phifer, Bill | Journals | 25 August 2011 | Agile Project Management; Cutter IT Journal

Only by providing positive results to the business and management can IT reverse its bad reputation and become a reliable partner again. In order to do that, we need to break through blockers in our thought process, and devops invites us to challenge traditional organizational barriers. The days of top-down control are over � devops is a grass-roots movement similar to other horizontal revolutions, such as Facebook. The role of management is changing: no longer just directive, it is taking a more supportive role, unleashing the power of the people on the floor to achieve awesome results. And that is the focus of this issue of Cutter IT Journal.

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/2011/08/itj1108d.html

Why Enterprises Must Adopt Devops to Enable Continuous Delivery

25 Aug 2011 14:25:24 GMT

Humble, Jez; Molesky, Joanne | Journals | 25 August 2011 | Agile Project Management; Cutter IT Journal

Only by providing positive results to the business and management can IT reverse its bad reputation and become a reliable partner again. In order to do that, we need to break through blockers in our thought process, and devops invites us to challenge traditional organizational barriers. The days of top-down control are over � devops is a grass-roots movement similar to other horizontal revolutions, such as Facebook. The role of management is changing: no longer just directive, it is taking a more supportive role, unleashing the power of the people on the floor to achieve awesome results. And that is the focus of this issue of Cutter IT Journal.

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/2011/08/itj1108a.html

Devops: So You Say You Want a Revolution?

24 Aug 2011 14:22:57 GMT

DeGrandis, Dominica | Journals | 25 August 2011 | Agile Project Management; Cutter IT Journal

Only by providing positive results to the business and management can IT reverse its bad reputation and become a reliable partner again. In order to do that, we need to break through blockers in our thought process, and devops invites us to challenge traditional organizational barriers. The days of top-down control are over -- devops is a grass-roots movement similar to other horizontal revolutions, such as Facebook. The role of management is changing: no longer just directive, it is taking a more supportive role, unleashing the power of the people on the floor to achieve awesome results. And that is the focus of this issue of Cutter IT Journal.

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/2011/08/itj1108e.html

Technical Debt Assessments, Now for C++

25 Aug 2011 14:19:49 GMT

Heintz, John D. | E-Mail Advisors | 25 August 2011 | Agile Project Management

Today�s state of the art for technical debt assessment1 is really quite impressive: in a matter of hours, a Java, C#, or even JavaScript code base can be analyzed and the details of measurable technical debt can be available in a dashboard. Once these mechanics are out of the way, we can approach the really interesting work. For the actual code, this includes looking for false positives (usually generated code by compilers or the like) that should not be aggregated with the rest of the production code, or false negatives (often library files that contain code outside the measured repository). From the perspective of the people and the process, this interesting work includes how to interpret the technical debt, deciding on responsible remediation policies, and integrating ongoing measurement into the feedback cycles of the development and management processes.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110825.html

Strategy, Governance, and Execution Excellence: Best Practices for Leveraging Business and Technology

18 Aug 2011 18:30:58 GMT

Moroney, Patrick | Executive Summaries | 18 August 2011 | Agile Project Management

Implementing best practices is a must for real leaders who value their role as stewards of shareholder value and who have no patience for inefficiency and waste. Given the horrendous historical rates of technology project failure across industries, the disciplines of strategy, governance, and project execution excellence provide an opportunity for leap-ahead competitive advantage, especially given how few businesses work at getting these best practices right. This Executive Report is a primer on 21st-century excellence and accountability.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/summaries/2011/08/index.html

Agile 2011: Handshakes, Hugs, Hats, and a Few Kisses

18 Aug 2011 18:23:24 GMT

Rothman, Johanna | E-Mail Advisors | 18 August 2011 | Agile Project Management

Agile 2011 is a community of peers. Some of those peers are new to the agile community, which is why we just shake hands when we greet each other. Some of them I�ve known for years. Some of have been clients, friends, colleagues, online buddies, reviewers, blog readers, and close friends -- those are the huggers. I met two young men from Peru this year who told me I was their inspiration for moving to agile -- I was moved! They gave me a hat, which I will wear with great pleasure during our Boston winter. Finally, my European colleagues and friends greet me with two or three kisses, which, I admit, I love.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110818.html

Pitfalls of Agile XVI: Blueprints

11 Aug 2011 16:45:28 GMT

Coldewey, Jens | E-Mail Advisors :: If you're doing agile consulting, you may meet two different types of clients: the chaotic client, where your major challenge is to introduce at least some discipline into the development work, and the disciplined organizations that welcome you with their process handbook and ask you "to help us write the chapter on agile." The latter understands the introduction of agile as a three-month project that defines "the agile process in our company." They assert, "You see so many companies in your work, you must have a blueprint on how that works. We just have to adapt the processes to our standards and we're done. And, by the way, don't try to sell us all that fluffy social stuff; we're a mature engineering company here." Well ...

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110811.html

Five Ingredients for PMO Success

11 Aug 2011 16:43:50 GMT

Egeland, Brad | Executive Updates :: Often, at the heart of a successful project management practice is a project management office (PMO), which has been structured to create a path of success for company projects and the project managers who lead them. Sounds like a good plan, right?

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2011/apmu1115.html

Use Architecture to Reduce Technical Debt

10 Aug 2011 16:42:21 GMT

Rosen, Michael | E-Mail Advisors :: All the talk in the press lately about the US national debt (and the political system's inability to deal with it) got me thinking about another kind of debt near and dear to an architect. That is the "technical debt" that we have in our IT systems.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2011/ea110810.html

Leading Change in Your Organization

4 Aug 2011 16:40:59 GMT

Glazer, Hillel | E-Mail Advisors :: Leaders of technology companies should take change management more seriously. While this is also true of changes to requirements, products, and other elements normally handled by change-control systems, here we're talking about the type of change management that's associated with organizational change. Such change deals with altering what goes on inside an operation.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110804.html

Four Things the Project Manager Should Expect of Senior Management

3 Aug 2011 16:37:48 GMT

Egeland, Brad | E-Mail Advisors :: Project managers (PMs) are used to working fairly solo. If you have a PMO of, say, 15 PMs, each of whom is running, on average, five projects, then that's 75 projects that may be going on at any given time in the organization. Are we going to involve senior management in every one of those 75 projects? No. Should we, as project managers, expect that our senior management wants to have intimate knowledge of the status of each of those 75 projects? No. Do we really want senior management's hand in each of those projects and have them looking over our backs as we try to lead both staff and customers on each of those projects? I know I don't.

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/advisor/2011/itj110803.html

Software Cloud Computing: Part III --The Dizzy Pace of Innovation

1 Aug 2011 16:36:09 GMT

Bennatan, E.M. | Executive Updates :: For more than half a century we have been witnessing the doubling of the power of computer technology every two years. This is Moore's Law, named after Intel cofounder Gordon Moore, who noticed this phenomenon back in 1965. Since then, others have expanded the law to cover virtually all branches of technology.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2011/apmu1114.html

Toward a Fusion of Agile Methods, Technical Debt Techniques, and Competitive Strategy

28 Jul 2011 15:40:30 GMT

Gat, Israel | E-Mail Advisors | 28 July 2011 | Agile Project Management

Technical debt is not a new concept. The term itself was coined by Cutter Fellow Ward Cunningham more than 10 years ago. Certain components of technical debt, such as the Cyclomatic Complexity software metric, have been in use since 1976. One could actually consider some of Manny Lehman's Laws of Software Evolution,1 which started with the joint studies of the IBM programming process by Belady and Lehman in the 1960s, as an early formulation of the underlying principles of technical debt.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110728.html

Windows Phone: Today or the Future?

21 Jul 2011 14:48:30 GMT

Kursh, Steven R. | E-Mail Advisors | 21 July 2011 | Agile Project Management; Business Technology Trends & Impact

If your company is considering a new mobile operating system, Windows Phone may be its most intriguing option. Microsoft has made a major commitment to mobile as evidenced by its recent decision to invest what has been reported to be US $1 billion into Nokia, once the world's leading handset manufacturer, as part of a partnership that will result in Nokia using Windows Phone as the OS on many of its products.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2011/btt110721.html

Pitfalls of Agile XV: Size Does Matter

21 Jul 2011 14:46:00 GMT

Coldewey, Jens | E-Mail Advisors | 21 July 2011 | Agile Project Management

If I were to design a certification program for agile consultants (not that I think such a program would be helpful!), one of the first questions would be "Have you ever settled a discussion about iteration length or sprint size?" If someone were to answer no, that person has probably never consulted in a real-world project.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110721.html

Competence Requirements for Leading Change in Technology Companies

20 Jul 2011 14:18:03 GMT

Glazer, Hillel | Executive Updates | 20 July 2011 | Agile Project Management

Leaders of technology companies should take change management more seriously. While this is also true of changes to requirements, products, and other elements normally handled by change-control systems, here we're talking about the type of change management that's associated with organizational change. Such change deals with altering what goes on inside an operation.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2011/apmu1113.html

Spending Billions on Cloud Computing

14 Jul 2011 15:43:21 GMT

Bennatan, E.M. | E-Mail Advisors | 14 July 2011 | Agile Project Management; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Here's a question for you: who do you think is planning to spend US $20 billion a year on cloud computing, every year? I can't imagine that you came up with any answer other than the US government, and you're right. Well, almost.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2011/btt110714.html

Where Do Complex Managers Come From?

14 Jul 2011 15:32:03 GMT

Wysocki, Robert | E-Mail Advisors | 14 July 2011 | Business-IT Strategies; Agile Project Management

Right now, most complex project managers (CPMs) are accidents of their experience rather than the product of a planned professional development program. To be really effective in managing complex projects, organizations will have to reverse that. A cadre of CPMs must be developed to align with the current and future needs of the organization. That means having a professional development program that anticipates future demands and counsels and prepares CPMs to be ready to meet that demand as it materializes. Future demand is a changing target, and so is the profile of the CPM cadre at any point in time. Maintaining the alignment of supply and demand over time is a major challenge.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110714.html

Lean-Agile Project Management

13 Jul 2011 15:07:31 GMT

Glazer, Hillel | Consulting | Agile Project Management

The high level of competitiveness in domestic and international markets is forcing companies to be more efficient than ever at creating top-quality products and services that meet customers' real needs. And, organizations in regulated industries feel even more pressure than merely market forces to produce products and deliver services that not only meet customer's needs but also address compliance matters in a cost-effective way. Lean-Agile project management increases your ability to lead projects with the level of adaptability and quality of today's demands and manage your teams under a Kanban, Scrum, or Scrumban environment.

http://www.cutter.com/workshops/lean-agile.html

Transitioning to Agile and Complexity at Cisco VTG

12 Jul 2011 15:04:12 GMT

Smits, Hubert; Rilliet, Kathleen | Executive Reports | 12 July 2011 | Agile Project Management

This Executive Report summarizes and explains the authors' work in implementing agile software development practices in the large and complex Cisco Voice Technology Group (VTG). The chosen solutions as well as the efforts required to implement them are discussed. The report follows John Kotter's 8 Step Process for leading change, listing results, experiences, successes, and failures.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/reports/2011/07/index.html

Press Release: Cutter Consortium Welcomes New Consultants to its Team

11 Jul 2011 14:52:16 GMT

Cutter Consortium | 11 July 2011 | Agile Project Management; Business Intelligence

Cutter Consortium is pleased to announce that Hubert Smits and Ralph Hughes have joined our team as Senior Consultants.

http://www.cutter.com/press/110711.html

Devops: What, Why?

7 Jul 2011 14:48:46 GMT

Berczuk, Steve | E-Mail Advisors | 07 July 2011 | Agile Project Management; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Developing software in a way that enables reliable, repeatable deployments should not be a radical idea. Like many named concepts, devops makes formal the practices of many successful teams. This is also true of software development practices for agile and lean, and devops shares some values with agile -- especially a focus on delivering value to the business.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2011/btt110707.html

SoftBut

7 Jul 2011 14:45:13 GMT

Gat, Israel | E-Mail Advisors | 07 July 2011 | Business-IT Strategies; Agile Project Management

Cutter colleague Jens Coldewey recently published a very incisive Advisor entitled "Pitfalls of Agile XIV: KanBut" (16 June 2011). I must admit some jealousy mixed with anxiety evolved within me while reading his excellent article. Bas Vode and Jeff Sutherland have their ScrumBut test, Jens has his KanBut, but I have no "but" to claim. Am I falling behind? Can my Cutter practice really succeed without a "but"? What am I going to say to a prospect who tells me, "Dr. Gat, please cut the crap about your experience and accomplishments -- our RFP clearly stipulated that having a 'but' is a mandatory prerequisite." Hence, I felt compelled to write this Advisor entitled "SoftBut"; we are doing software but ...

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110707.html

Webinar: High Performance Operations: Turning Compliance Into Competitive Advantage

13 Jul 2011 16:32:01 GMT

Glazer, Hillel | Events | 13 July 2011 | Agile Project Management

Don't let the bureaucracy of everyday compliance issues get in the way of being lean and achieving excellence. Don't let your desire to be lean and agile turn into its own form of "compliance." Learn about a revealing systematic approach that puts compliance properly in its place -- behind your pursuit of excellence. This approach champions Lean and Agile for their benefits but remains faithful to disciplined management, development, and governance of products and services.

http://www.cutter.com/events/multimedia/high-performance-operations.html

Software Cloud Computing: Part II -- How to Spend $20 Billion

1 Jul 2011 15:47:07 GMT

Bennatan, E.M. | Executive Updates | 01 July 2011 | Business-IT Strategies; Agile Project Management; Business Intelligence

Here's a question for you: who do you think is planning to spend $20 billion a year on cloud computing, every year? I can't imagine that you came up with any answer other than the US government, and you're right. Well, almost.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2011/apmu1112.html

Product Not Process

30 Jun 2011 15:41:33 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 30 June 2011 | Agile Project Management; Enterprise Risk Management & Governance; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Recently, my old friend and colleague Conrad Weisert sent me an enormously important new manifesto, entitled "Programming Standards & Methodology Manifesto,"1 which argues that software engineering should focus on the product rather than the process. And he does this in little over a page of clearly articulated prose. Conrad argues that, at the end of the day, what software developers need to be judged on is the quality of their end product, not the way they produced that product, just as we judge every other product in the marketplace and every other engineering discipline.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2011/btt110630.html

"Selling" Agile

30 Jun 2011 15:34:15 GMT

Gat, Israel | E-Mail Advisors | 30 June 2011 | Agile Project Management

A friend of mine was recently asked by his new CEO to provide a roadmap for the coming two years. Being a tried and true agilist, my friend pushed hard against it, insisting on either/or: either scope or schedule, but not both. The rest, as they say, is history. Many of my friend's responsibilities as vice president of R&D have been taken away and assigned to other staff members. He spent Memorial Day weekend updating his resume ....

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110630.html

Scaling Agile Technical Practices: Implementing Continuous Integration to Enable Lean

23 Jun 2011 13:49:50 GMT

Golden, Jonathon M. | Executive Reports | 23 June 2011 | Agile Project Management

While concepts borrowed from lean manufacturing have long been associated with agile software development methodologies, they have become more en vogue recently. One of these concepts, Kanban, has emerged of late as an overused buzzword. Implementations of "Kanban" are appearing throughout the software industry that are often, in reality, nothing more than glorified task boards. This Executive Report examines how the implementation of an enterprise continuous integration system and related organizational and cultural transformation truly enable organizations to apply lean manufacturing principles. The focus is on where the metaphor makes sense. Our aim is to get past the fluff and focus on real-world lean software production practices.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/reports/2011/06/index.html

It's Time for More (and Better) Kanban

17 Jun 2011 17:13:35 GMT

Malladi, Suresh | Executive Updates | 17 June 2011 | Agile Project Management

Why the current call for more Kanban -- and better Kanban? Recently, I thought about this question while perusing the work of Professor C.K. Prahalad and his colleagues. 1 Fusing their viewpoints with my own research on five current macrotrends highlights the need for more Kanban -- and the potential for better Kanban -- which IT should explore. Let me first explain the macrotrends driving my argument.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2011/apmu1111.html

Pitfalls of Agile XIV: KanBut

16 Jun 2011 16:58:52 GMT

Coldewey, Jens | E-Mail Advisors | 16 June 2011 | Agile Project Management

It looks so easy: instead of going through all the pain of a Scrum adoption, you just take your current process, put it as columns on the wall, call it Kanban, and you're agile! No more hassle with changing the organization into a cross-functional team, no more fight against knowledge silos, and no more expensive consultants that infect your teams with ideas of self-organization. This seems to be a frequent motivation for adopting Kanban. If you found yourself with these thoughts, my simple advice is: forget it! If you want to become agile, you have to go through a painful organizational change, no matter which method you choose. Kanban is just a different way to lead you through that necessary change.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110616.html

Press Release: Stat of the Week -- How often do your software development teams use peer review of source code by other team members?

14 May 2011 15:57:18 GMT

Cutter Consortium | 14 June 2011 | Agile Project Management

Code review is one of the most fundamental practices within the open source community. While I'm delighted to see any form of peer review taking place, I'd encourage development teams to explore interteam review. An "outsider" is less likely to have the same assumptions (and thus potential errors) as a teammate. In addition, reviewing other teams' code can form the basis of a subtle form of knowledge sharing, raising awareness of how other teams may be solving problems similar to our own.

http://www.cutter.com/press/110614.html

What Is a Complex Project Manager -- Really?

10 Jun 2011 15:27:26 GMT

Wysocki, Robert K. | Executive Summaries | 10 June 2011 | Agile Project Management

Despite their differences, there is one common link that all complex projects share: the need for a very special type of project manager, a person I call a "complex project manager." This family of professionals has not yet been formally defined. In this Executive Report, I present my thoughts on exactly who this person is, what disciplines should be present in his or her skills profile, where these unique professionals come from, and, finally, what can be done to develop a cadre of such professionals to meet the ever-growing demand for their services.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/reports/2011/05/index.html

What Is a Complex Project Manager -- Really?

10 Jun 2011 15:14:37 GMT

Wysocki, Robert K. | Executive Reports | 10 June 2011 | Agile Project Management

Despite their differences, there is one common link that all complex projects share: the need for a very special type of project manager, a person I call a "complex project manager." This family of professionals has not yet been formally defined. In this Executive Report, I present my thoughts on exactly who this person is, what disciplines should be present in his or her skills profile, where these unique professionals come from, and, finally, what can be done to develop a cadre of such professionals to meet the ever-growing demand for their services.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/reports/2011/05/index.html

How Much Software Debt Do We Have?

9 Jun 2011 15:07:10 GMT

Barton, Brent; Sterling, Chris | E-Mail Advisors | 09 June 2011 | Agile Project Management

In the past, teams could tell project stakeholders that software debt existed, but it was difficult to describe where and how much. Teams would increase their estimates for features that used to seem simple because it meant making changes to areas of the code they knew were infested with software debt. In the worst situations, teams would recommend a full rewrite of an application because the software debt was too difficult to work around anymore.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110609.html

Want to Remove Obstacles from Your Project? Then Communicate with Stakeholders

8 Jun 2011 14:38:23 GMT

Cohen, Moshe | E-Mail Advisors | 08 June 2011 | Business-IT Strategies; Agile Project Management

The success of an IS project often depends less on the technical skill of your project team and more on your ability to understand, manage, and gain the support of a bewildering array of stakeholders that impact the project. You need to be able to identify your key stakeholders, figure out the extent and manner in which they impact your project, understand what they need from you, and influence their behavior so they help move your project forward.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2011/bit110608.html

Webinar: Implementing a Technical Debt Prevention, Measurement, and Reduction Program in Your Company

8 Jun 2011 14:53:01 GMT

Gat, Israel | Events | 08 June 2011 | Agile Project Management

Technical debt assessments often follow a similar pattern across engagements. In contrast, technical debt reduction initiatives can vary significantly from one company to another. In addition to exposing unexpected technical challenges, the technical debt reduction initiative brings business issues, organizational considerations and methodical questions to the fore. Moreover, when a technical debt reduction initiative is expanded from reduction to prevention of downstream effects, performance measures, governance issues and cultural aspects need to be addressed. Unless all these issues are addressed in a holistic manner, their combined effect will likely stall the technical debt initiative, frustrating the efforts to wrestle technical debt to the ground at the enterprise level.

http://www.cutter.com/events/multimedia/tech-debt-prevention.html

Lean-Green IT: A Powerful, Strategic Marriage

2 Jun 2011 14:36:51 GMT

Unhelkar, Bhuvan | E-Mail Advisors | 02 June 2011 | Agile Project Management

Lean is a powerful concept. Applied properly, lean can help both the manufacturing and services sectors. The power of lean comes from its simplicity: "maximize customer value and reduce waste." Insert the word "carbon," and we end up with the principle of green: "reduce carbon waste."

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110602.html

Green Methods for Managing IT Projects

2 Jun 2011 15:23:20 GMT

Egeland, Brad | E-Mail Advisors | 01 June 2011 | Cutter IT Journal; Agile Project Management

t's been increasingly evident over the past three to four years that "going green" is a business movement that is here to stay -- partly out of necessity as businesses struggle with increasing costs from fuel and energy. But also partly out of having an environmental conscious. Certainly organizations, publications, activist groups, and news stories are making the masses aware of our duties to help protect and preserve the world we live in.

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/advisor/2011/itj110601.html

Two Whys on Lag in Kanban Adoption

26 May 2011 15:05:24 GMT

Maeda, Masa K. | E-Mail Advisors | 26 May 2011 | Agile Project Management

As I reported in an earlier Advisor (see "An Enthusiastic Update on Kanban Adoption" 31 March 2011), Kanban is being adopted in all regions of the world. This is primarily true in Europe, where Kanban is growing amazingly fast and where enterprises are getting huge benefits. The exception in Europe is Spain. And, although Kanban was born in Seattle, Washington, its adoption in the US has been rather slow there as well. In Latin America, Kanban's adoption is also proceeding slowly. In order from steady to poor adoption in Spanish-speaking areas are Brazil, South America, Central America, and Mexico.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110526.html

SCM and Build: Keys to an Agile Lifecycle

25 May 2011 14:53:46 GMT

Berczuk, Steve | Executive Updates | 25 May 2011 | Agile Project Management

Software configuration management (SCM) and build management are misunderstood disciplines. Many organizations have practices in these areas that either hinder productivity or sacrifice too much traceability in the name of improving short-term productivity. SCM and build, when done correctly, can provide a framework that allows a team to develop code quickly. However, it's also possible to establish practices that can hinder your development team. This Executive Update discusses the importance of the build and SCM processes and what you need to know to help these processes be effective.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2011/apmu1110.html

Webinar: Implementing a Technical Debt Prevention, Measurement and Reduction Program in Your Company

8 Jun 2011 15:39:30 GMT

Less Is More

19 May 2011 15:25:38 GMT

Gat, Israel | E-Mail Advisors | 19 May 2011 | Agile Project Management; Enterprise Risk Management & Governance

Just about every one of my clients wrestles with the problem of governing the software process. As the process often eludes us, the natural tendency is to add more and more performance measures in order to ensure "completeness" of the governance system. More often than not, the end result is a baroque system that is difficult to implement, use, and comprehend.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110519.html

Being a Collaborative Leader (and Getting Things Done)

13 May 2011 14:37:47 GMT

Spann, David | Executive Summaries | 13 May 2011 | Agile Project Management

Being a collaborative leader requires a clear set of beliefs and disciplined practices to back up those beliefs. If you are a leader who wants people to work together better, deliver results faster, and exceed basic customer satisfaction, you will need to look in the mirror and see how your behaviors compare to the collaborative leader role expectations discussed in this Executive Report by David Spann. The key is to create an environment in which others succeed.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/summaries/2011/04/index.html

Being a Collaborative Leader (and Getting Things Done)

13 May 2011 14:35:23 GMT

Spann, David | Executive Reports | 13 May 2011 | Agile Project Management

Being a collaborative leader requires a clear set of beliefs and disciplined practices to back up those beliefs. If you are a leader who wants people to work together better, deliver results faster, and exceed basic customer satisfaction, you will need to look in the mirror and see how your behaviors compare to the collaborative leader role expectations discussed in this Executive Report by David Spann. The key is to create an environment in which others succeed.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/reports/2011/04/index.html

Not Just in Time This Time

12 May 2011 19:41:07 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 12 May 2011 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Agile Project Management; Enterprise Risk Management & Governance; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

In my last Trends Advisor ("Learning from Disaster -- Again," 28 April 2011), I talked about disaster planning and how the recent earthquake had reawakened our thinking about the unthinkable. In this Advisor, I want to discuss yet another consequence of this disaster: the closure of plants around the world.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2011/btt110512.html

Bugs, Technical Debt, and Error Proneness

12 May 2011 19:32:30 GMT

Gat, Israel | E-Mail Advisors | 12 May 2011 | Agile Project Management; Enterprise Risk Management & Governance

A participant in a recent technical debt workshop was quite anxious to determine the best indicator for quality (or lack thereof) of code. Specifically, the participant inquired whether technical debt analysis is more insightful than bug tracking, or is it the opposite way around? I probably disappointed this person when I answered, "Sorry, it is like asking me to choose between my mother and my father. Both are equally important."

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110512.html

Using the Adaptive Project Framework for a Best-Fit Project Management Approach

11 May 2011 19:18:00 GMT

Wysocki, Robert K. | E-Mail Advisors | 11 May 2011 | Cutter IT Journal; Agile Project Management

First, it is important to know that the Adaptive Project Framework (APF) is not a methodology. If you are like a cook and need a recipe in order to manage your project, APF is not for you because it doesn't contain any recipes. However, if you are like a chef and are looking to build a recipe for a best-fit approach to managing your project, then APF should be the tool of choice for you. APF was designed to be a framework for understanding, analyzing, planning, and continuously adapting the best-fit management approach to any project. In order to meet the needs of the chef, APF embraces all project management methodologies with a rationale for selecting and adapting from among them and building the best-fit approach. And it does that quite effectively. As the collection of project management methodologies increases so does the breadth and depth of APF. Understand then that APF is an agile framework and is constantly evolving and expanding. Further development of APF is a process-improvement project. It will never be finished. Like a fine Bordeaux, it only improves with age.

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/advisor/2011/itj110511.html

Software Cloud Computing: Part I -- Programming for Everyone?

10 May 2011 17:26:37 GMT

Bennatan, E.M. | Executive Updates | 10 May 2011 | Agile Project Management

In this, Part I in a series of three Executive Updates about cloud computing software, we examine the degree to which the concept of cloud computing has penetrated software development organizations and the extent to which it is used. We then examine the surprising pace at which the concept is catching on, and we look at the most common areas of software development that are serviced by the cloud. Finally, we return to the question of job security and consider whether software developers need to be concerned about the future of their profession.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2011/apmu1109.html

Webinar: Implementing a Technical Debt Prevention, Measurement and Reduction Program in Your Company

8 Jun 2011 14:19:44 GMT

Why You Need Agile to Cross the Chasm

5 May 2011 14:08:18 GMT

Gat, Israel | E-Mail Advisors | 05 May 2011 | Agile Project Management; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Many of the discussions I am exposed to as an agile consultant are about this question, "Have Agile methods crossed the chasm?" The client wants to know whether he or she will be using a software method that has reached a certain level of maturity and acceptance. Needless to say, the question is of critical importance. A client might be willing to be an early adopter, or even desire to be an early adopter, but he or she wants to be very clear up front about the maturity level of the software method to be adopted.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110505.html

Modernizing "Modern" Applications: Agile and a Strategy of Continual, Iterative Improvement

27 Apr 2011 19:01:41 GMT

Walton, Kaleb; Anderson, Brian; Hughes, Michael | Executive Updates | 27 April 2011 | Agile Project Management

Does this sound familiar? The product manager for a software application is getting hounded by sales reps to add functionality that would let them call on their installed base with a new story to tell. At the same time, customer service has a list of usability problems that need to be fixed. Meanwhile, the product developers are realizing that they have pushed the current architecture to its limits, and they need to move to an approach based on services.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2011/apmu1108.html

Webinar: Using Value Innovation to Boost Team Performance

20 Apr 2011 15:09:47 GMT

Maeda, Masa K. | Events | 20 April 2011 | Agile Project Management

Creating and fostering a culture of innovation -- encouraging innovative thinking, using innovative tools, and focusing on human factors -- delivers value to both an organization's customers and the enterprise itself. The result is an increase in competitive advantage. When you combine this culture of innovation and its resultant value with the quality advances you can achieve from implementing methodologies that encourage innovation, you have Value Innovation.

http://www.cutter.com/events/multimedia/value-innovation.html

Improving People and Processes: Lean-Agile, Systems Thinking, and the System of Profound Knowledge

18 Apr 2011 14:53:55 GMT

Maeda, Masa K. | Executive Summaries | 18 April 2011 | Agile Project Management

Organizational improvements typically address localized ailing areas or enterprise-wide transformations. Low ROI and high risk are commonplace. Lean and agile adoption often adds value, but some organizations still struggle to improve. This Executive Report by Masa K. Maeda provides an alternative for improvement that involves three areas: (1) lean-agile thinking, (2) the system of profound knowledge, and (3) systems thinking. Their application results in more effective improvements -- not only in software development or IT but in diverse management practices as well.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/summaries/2011/03/index.html

Improving People and Processes: Lean-Agile, Systems Thinking, and the System of Profound Knowledge

18 Apr 2011 14:50:57 GMT

Maeda, Masa K. | Executive Reports | 18 April 2011 | Agile Project Management

Organizational improvements typically address localized ailing areas or enterprise-wide transformations. Low ROI and high risk are commonplace. Lean and agile adoption often adds value, but some organizations still struggle to improve. This Executive Report by Masa K. Maeda provides an alternative for improvement that involves three areas: (1) lean-agile thinking, (2) the system of profound knowledge, and (3) systems thinking. Their application results in more effective improvements -- not only in software development or IT but in diverse management practices as well.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/reports/2011/03/index.html

Webinar: Using Value Innovation to Boost Team Performance

20 Apr 2011 15:07:49 GMT

Pitfalls of Agile XIII: The Mask and Mirror

14 Apr 2011 14:55:31 GMT

Coldewey, Jens | E-Mail Advisors | 14 April 2011 | Agile Project Management

When I get calls from new clients, they often start their story with the words, "We introduced agile 12 or 18 months ago on our own and had some success. Now, we are kind of stuck, and we have decided it makes sense to call someone from the outside to have a look at how we work." I usually offer to facilitate a retrospective with the team, and during nine out of 10 retrospectives I hear something along the following lines: "Yes, we tried that, but it didn't work for us, so we changed it" -- usually omitting the "we reverted to how we worked before."

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110414.html

Lessons from La Tour d'Eiffel

13 Apr 2011 14:23:17 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 13 April 2011 | Enterprise Architecture; Agile Project Management; Enterprise Risk Management & Governance

Last week, I was visiting Paris and got the chance to marvel at the Tour d'Eiffel, one of the world's most well-known and instantly recognizable structures. I also took the opportunity to learn a bit more about its fascinating history. For example, I learned that the Eiffel Tower is the world's most visited paid tourist attraction, reaching its 200,000,000th visitor in 2002, and having more than 2.6 million visitors in 2010 alone.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2011/ea110413.html

Webinar: What Should and Should Not Be Moved to the Cloud: How Enterprise Architecture Settles the Question

11 Apr 2011 14:05:00 GMT

Rosen, Mike | Events | 11 May 2011 | Enterprise Architecture

Everyone is talking about the cloud, but from many different perspectives. Some think it means virtualization, others think it means scalable infrastructure, and still others think it means software-as-a-service. Sometimes, the business has a different and dangerous perspective, thinking that the cloud provides a new way to source IT solutions without having to go through the IT department. At the same time, there are many other issues relating to the cloud and affecting its adoption such as integration, security, data integrity, reliability, accountability and responsibility.

http://www.cutter.com/events/multimedia/moving-to-the-cloud.html

Webinar: Using Value Innovation to Boost Team Performance

11 Apr 2011 14:02:39 GMT

Maintaining the Client/Vendor Marriage

8 Apr 2011 14:00:25 GMT

Egeland, Brad | Executive Updates | 08 April 2011 | Agile Project Management

In the IT world of project management, clients are the bread and butter. It's critical, of course, that what we do, the systems we implement, the processes we use, and the technology we employ falls within our organization's current direction and overall mission. That's definitely important. But even more important is our customer. I'm not saying we serve them at all costs. But it is the customer's money, after all, and this contributes to our bottom line. So satisfaction is important.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2011/apmu1107.html

Starting Agile Adoption: Avoiding Common Pitfalls of Planning

7 Mar 2011 13:50:05 GMT

Berczuk, Steve | E-Mail Advisors | 07 April 2011 | Agile Project Management

Agile software development involves people working together, across disciplines, to deliver business value efficiently. While the Agile Manifesto states that agile development values "responding to change over following a plan" and "working software over documentation," that does not mean plans are not important. A plan allows you to measure your progress, focus your efforts, or, more important, present a target that stakeholders can invest in. Too much time planning is wasteful, and it can be tricky to balance the lean imperative for reducing waste, with the comfort that a complete plan up front gives you. Collaboration makes agile effective and allows you to plan more efficiently and keep the focus on delivering value.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110407.html

An Enthusiastic Update on Kanban Adoption

31 Mar 2011 19:29:23 GMT

Maeda, Masa K. | E-Mail Advisors | 31 March 2011 | Agile Project Management

The subject of the September 2010 issue of the Cutter Benchmark Review (CBR) was Kanban adoption (see "Kanban for Project Management: Should We Buy In?" Vol. 10, No. 9). When I was asked to work on that issue of CBR, I immediately jumped at the opportunity to survey Kanban adoption. I thought we might all be in for a surprise, and I was right. The data from that survey revealed some amazing results on the extent of Kanban's adoption across all regions of the world -- and its great benefits compared to other methodologies.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110331.html

Devops: Beginning with the End in Mind

29 Mar 2011 18:34:22 GMT

Berczuk, Steve | Executive Updates | 29 March 2011 | Agile Project Management

One of Steven Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is to "begin with the end in mind."1 When developing software, this is a good rule. Even as teams embrace agile software development and practices that move testing earlier into the development process, the testing of delivery into production is often neglected. Since the goal of software development is to deliver value, and software does not create value until it is in production and available to the the end users, it is worth considering how to bridge the gap between development and operations concerns. Teams can learn from the devops movement and apply practices that can help improve quality and reliability as well as enable more reliable delivery of value and new functionality. This Executive Update describes what devops is, its importance in a modern agile organization, and how do learn more about it.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2011/apmu1106.html

Man Vans, Speed, Technical Debt, and You

24 Mar 2011 13:58:28 GMT

Mah, Michael C. | E-Mail Advisors | 24 March 2011 | Agile Project Management

I have what some people call a "Man Van." It has 4WD, alloy wheels, big ice-grip snow tires, tinted glass, and a 200-watt stereo. David E. Davis, past editor of Automobile Magazine, once wrote that his Man Van was his favorite car, even compared to his Ferrari and Dodge Viper. I'm no soccer mom, but as a single father of two, I can haul dorm-room piles of student belongings up and down the US East Coast. Most important, in a snow or sleet storm, I can drag-race anyone and leave them eating my dust ... um, snow.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110324.html

Webinar: Using Value Innovation to Boost Team Performance

20 Apr 2011 18:37:49 GMT

The Total Solution for Integrating Architecture and Agile Teams

23 Mar 2011 18:27:59 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 23 March 2011 | Enterprise Architecture; Business-IT Strategies; Agile Project Management

Agile software development and agile project management have shown considerable success in helping organizations develop better software and better manage development projects in the face of changing requirements and evolving technologies. In one sense, agile is about managing rapidly changing project factors and requirements.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2011/ea110323.html

How Does Visualization Work? Ask Those Who Use It

17 Mar 2011 17:45:34 GMT

Glazer, Hillel | E-Mail Advisors | 17 March 2011 | Agile Project Management

Last we heard from this thread, we ended with an example of visualization's time-saving benefits (see "'Click Here to Learn This One Crazy Secret...'" 27 January 2011, and "V Is for Victory -- and Visualization," 24 February 2011). Underlying them were the more value-packed benefits of greater clarity, insight, and transparency to all involved in the work.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110317.html

Total Agile Management

16 Mar 2011 17:36:45 GMT

Gat, Israel; Rosen, Mike; Glazer, Hillel | Consulting | Agile Project Management; Enterprise Architecture

Agile software development and Agile project management have shown considerable success in helping organizations develop better software and better manage development projects in the face of changing requirements and evolving technologies. In the largest sense, Agile is about managing for change.

http://www.cutter.com/consulting-and-training/total-agile-management.html

How to Successfully Restart a Stalled Project

16 Mar 2011 17:26:44 GMT

Egeland, Brad | Executive Updates | 16 March 2011 | Agile Project Management

In an age when rates of project failure sadly top 50%, having the chance to actually restart a project that has been stalled, cancelled, or put on hold for whatever reason, can be very positive. But it is definitely not without great challenges. Often, the project manager asked to restart the engagement is not the same one who ended its previous iteration. It's worth noting here before we go further that restarts -- like second marriages -- are just as likely, if not more likely, to fail than the original engagement.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2011/apmu1105.html

Are You Ready for a Good Project Manager?

10 Mar 2011 14:20:53 GMT

Hall, Payson | E-Mail Advisors | 10 March 2011 | Agile Project Management; Enterprise Risk Management & Governance

The title "project manager" is cheap. In some organizations it is given to administrative assistants, lead technicians, or senior business analysts in lieu of a raise. Senior PMs play a vital role on large, complex, mission-critical projects. The dynamic and risky nature of these projects compels an organization's executives to delegate (intentionally or not) significant power to the PMs who run those projects on the executive's behalf. Contemplating the disproportional negative consequences that a troubled project can have on an organization should give pause to those recruiting and assigning professionals to that duty. The role isn't one to be taken lightly.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110310.html

Webinar: Using Value Innovation to Boost Team Performance

20 Apr 2011 19:16:35 GMT

Organizational Change: Just Plain Sailing?

28 Feb 2011 16:23:29 GMT

Marcano, Antony; Palmer, Andy | Executive Updates | 28 February 2011 | Agile Project Management

Introducing small, frequent changes that help an organization progress toward its goals can be a much more effective and sustainable approach to adoption than a big-bang change. Let's examine why.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2011/apmu1104.html

V is for Victory -- and Visualization

24 Feb 2011 14:27:36 GMT

Glazer, Hillel | E-Mail Advisors | 24 February 2011 | Agile Project Management; Enterprise Architecture

In my last Advisor (" 'Click here to Learn This One Crazy Secret...'," 27 January 2011), I dropped the "V" word, "visualization," and it probably hit you like a sack of feathers unloaded from 100 feet in the air. What is it about visualization that makes it such an important topic that we choose to take up your time with it ... again?

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110224.html

Press Release: 70% Report Improved Work Environment for Projects Using Kanban

21 Feb 2011 18:39:50 GMT

Cutter Consortium | 21 February 2011 | Agile Project Management

According to a recent study by Cutter Consortium, 70% of respondents who have used Kanban on projects report an improvement in the quality of their work environment for those projects. The study results are reported in Cutter Benchmark Review.

http://www.cutter.com/press/110221.html

Pitfalls of Agile XII: Productivity

17 Feb 2011 18:32:25 GMT

Coldewey, Jens | E-Mail Advisors | 17 February 2011 | Agile Project Management

"Are we productive enough?" one of my client's teams recently asked as the theme of a two-day retrospective. The team had done one year of agile transition and had made significant progress in its collaboration and transparency. This transparency had shown the team that it spends about 40% of its time with emergency fixes caused by the technical debt it had piled up during the last 25 years; another 50% of its time was spent with legal changes in the domain that required adaptations every quarter; and only about 10% was left for changes that made a difference for customers -- 10%, if the team was lucky.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110217.html

Adopting Open Source Software Tools and Techniques: Part III

14 Feb 2011 18:08:04 GMT

Feller, Joseph | Executive Updates | 14 February 2011 | Agile Project Management

This is the final Executive Update in a series discussing the results from a recent Cutter survey on the adoption of open source software tools and techniques by organizational software development teams.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2011/apmu1103.html

Read Beyond Your Value Stream Map

10 Feb 2011 18:10:15 GMT

Maeda, Masa K. | E-Mail Advisors | 10 February 2011 | Agile Project Management

I have spent the last few days working with a customer on Kanban adoption. One of the organization's teams in particular claimed to be highly productive and therefore didn't think Kanban could be of much use. I worked with the team to create a value stream map (VSM) of their process by walking them through these six steps: http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110210.html

Agile Estimation: Dealing with the Unknowns

9 Feb 2011 17:30:15 GMT

Kumar, Ravi | Executive Updates | 09 February 2011 | Agile Project Management

Software estimation is still a gray area despite lots of research material, articles, and books. Some consider estimation an art; some a science. Others consider it both. Agile estimation has been no exception, and there is high level of debate about the ways in which it is done. Questions have been raised about the lack of scientific evidence as well as application in real-life projects and challenging scenarios. This Executive Update discusses aspects of standardizing agile estimation and applying agile estimation techniques in RFP/RFI and contracts for fixed-price projects (FPPs).

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2011/apmu1102.html

Agile May Not Survive Your Next Reorganization

3 Feb 2011 19:10:21 GMT

Barton, Brent | E-Mail Advisors | 03 February 2011 | Agile Project Management

Don't be surprised if your agile adoption is going south after your next company reorganization. Many agile implementations I've observed will not survive company or division reorganizations. Unfortunately, many of these agile adoptions enabled teams to exhibit truly breakout performances. Organizations still struggle with attaining the organizational competency to institutionalize agile methods while unlearning and disposing of existing antiquated practices. In this Advisor, I provide some examples and some thinking tools to consider so your agile adoption efforts have a better chance in supporting longer lasting value.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110203.html

"Click Here to Learn This One Crazy Secret..."

27 Jan 2011 18:49:31 GMT

Glazer, Hillel | E-Mail Advisors | 27 January 2011 | Agile Project Management

Anyone who’s surfed the Internet in the last few years has likely run across an online ad that started like the headline, above. Generally, the ad is a front to some "silver bullet" so-called "solution" to a nagging problem. This pickup line has been used for many products and services, but more than likely the ad is for something fitness-related and takes you to an offer for an exercise program or some consumable "guaranteed" to raise your metabolism or some such short-cut to firm abs, less fat, better sleep, sex, or all of the above.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110127.html

Include Rotation in PMO Staffing Strategy

13 Jan 2011 18:24:34 GMT

Wysocki, Robert K. | E-Mail Advisors | 13 January 2011 | Agile Project Management; Enterprise Risk Management & Governance

Staffing the project management office (PMO) hasn't really had much attention in the literature. Some PMOs do not have a project manager staff, while others have a permanent project manager staff. Between those two extremes, there are a few variations. For me, the only staffing strategy that makes sense is to rotate project managers between the PMO and their home business unit. That accomplishes three important aims:

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110113.html

If You Build It, They May Not Come

12 Jan 2011 18:17:34 GMT

Baudoin, Claude R. | Executive Updates | 12 January 2011 | Agile Project Management; Business Intelligence

With apologies to people who loved the 1989 movie Field of Dreams, starring Kevin Costner, the title above is an easy metaphor for what often happens these days when an organization attempts to develop and launch its own social network: it builds it, opens it with a fanfare ... and almost no one comes to the party.

In this Executive Update, we examine this new twist on the longstanding "build vs. buy" debate, based on several examples. We see what factors influence success or failure, and we attempt to draw some practical guidance about how to leverage the vibrant environment of social platforms that has emerged in the last three years.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/updates/2011/biau1101.html

Adopting Open Source Software Tools and Techniques: Part II

7 Jan 2011 18:13:29 GMT

Feller, Joseph | Executive Updates | 07 January 2011 | Agile Project Management

This is the second Executive Update in a three-part series looking at the extent to which organizational software development teams are using the tools and techniques associated with open source software projects. The series is based on data from a survey Cutter conducted in late 2010. In Part I,1 I described the key concepts behind the survey questions and the general profile of the survey's respondents.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2011/apmu1101.html

Pitfalls of Agile XI: The Spinning Wheel

6 Jan 2011 18:11:17 GMT

Coldewey, Jens | E-Mail Advisors | 06 January 2011 | Agile Project Management

Experienced coaches may have observed this effect: after one or two years of agile transition, the team is working really well. The team delivers valuable software regularly, does valid predictions on what it delivers at a sustainable pace, has excitingly low budgets, and the clients really like the work. But still the team seems not to be satisfied. There is an air of exhaustion, though the team doesn't do overtime, and the fire you sensed when you were starting with agile seems to be gone. Your yearly internal survey on employee satisfaction shows a decline since its peak one year ago.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2011/apm110106.html

Technical Debt

1 Oct 2010 15:25:08 GMT

Gat, Israel | Journals | 01 October 2010 | Cutter IT Journal; Agile Project Management

As they say about economics, you might ignore it, but it will not ignore you. If ignored, technical debt can lead to a broad spectrum of difficulties, from collapsed roadmaps to an inability to respond to customer problems in a timely manner and even to the code becoming "toxic." The seven articles in this issue of Cutter IT Journal explain how not to neglect technical debt, what to do in case neglect has already taken place, and how technical debt techniques could be applied in domains where they have not been used before.

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/2010/10/index.html

E-Government: Embracing the Challenges and Opportunities

1 Nov 2010 15:23:30 GMT

Ummel, Mitchell | Journals | 01 November 2010 | Cutter IT Journal; Agile Project Management

The November 2010 issue of Cutter IT Journal is a call-out to innovators in government and/or the private sector who are embracing the idea of e-Government, and realizing the promise of a new level of digital government maturity.

http://www.cutter.com/itjournal/fulltext/2010/11/index.html

Starting Agile Adoption: Part III -- Advantages and Pitfalls of Unit Testing

22 Dec 2010 15:18:00 GMT

Berczuk, Steve | Executive Updates | 22 December 2010 | Agile Project Management

Automated unit testing is an essential engineering practice for successful agile software development. A related practice, test-driven (or test-first) development (TDD), takes the idea of unit testing further, mandating the writing of tests before production code as a way of ensuring good, testable design. While the benefits of automated testing seem clear, teams struggle with making the writing of unit tests routine and effective. This Executive Update, the last in a three-part series,1 will explain the challenges teams encounter when adopting unit testing and provide some suggestions about how to use testing to move your agile adoption process forward.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2010/apmu1024.html

Adopting Open Source Software Tools and Techniques: Part I

10 Dec 2010 14:50:25 GMT

Feller, Joseph | Executive Updates | 10 December 2010 | Agile Project Management

In this Executive Update, I discuss the data from a survey Cutter conducted earlier this year. It's a bit of a teaser, I'm afraid, and simply lays the groundwork for the series by discussing the key concepts behind the survey questions and describing the profile of survey respondents. With this foundation in place, the second and third parts of the series will focus on detailed analysis of the survey results.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2010/apmu1023.html

Top 5 Intriguing Agile Product & Project Management Articles of 2010

23 Dec 2010 18:55:03 GMT

Coburn, Karen | E-Mail Advisors | 23 December 2010 | Agile Project Management

This week, we're taking a look back at five of the most intriguing articles published in Cutter's Agile practice over this past year. As you might imagine, it was no small task to cull the list and pare it down to just five articles. Look for these lists from each of our nine practice areas for a compilation of Cutter's 45 most intriguing articles of the year. And look for the next issue of this E-Mail Advisor on 6 January.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm101223.html

New Forms of Agility: A Letter to Cutter Clients from the New Director of Cutter Consortium's Agile Practice

16 Dec 2010 19:32:18 GMT

Gat, Israel | E-Mail Advisors | 16 December 2010 | Agile Project Management

I am writing this letter to share with you my preliminary thoughts about Cutter's Agile Product & Project Management Practice. In my new role as the Practice Director, I plan to evolve the practice in accord with the needs of Cutter's clients. I have no doubt these needs will change over time. Hence, a primary responsibility of mine is to anticipate the forthcoming changes and prepare the practice to be relevant and meaningful in the context of ongoing changes. I need your feedback to succeed!

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm101216.html

Press Release: Cutter Consortium Announces Dr. Israel Gat as New Director of Agile Practice

10 Dec 2010 19:24:33 GMT

Cutter Consortium | 10 December 2010 | Agile Project Management

Boston, MA, 10 December 2010 -- Cutter Consortium announced today the appointment of Dr. Israel Gat as the new director of its Agile Product & Project Management Practice.

http://www.cutter.com/press/101210.html

Going Agile: Are We Solving Today's Problem or Implementing Yesterday's Solution?

9 Dec 2010 19:22:02 GMT

Marcano, Antony; Palmer, Andy | E-Mail Advisors | 09 December 2010 | Agile Project Management

Many organizations are still trying to solve today's problems with yesterday's solutions. We see this all the time: from clients asking us to help them "go agile" -- a specific solution to an unstated problem and context; to new business managers rebooting projects because the solution implemented doesn't match the solutions they've seen in the past; to the obvious case where large sums of money are spent on complicated solutions, when a far simpler, more effective, and better value solution will do.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm101209.html

Innovation in Software Development: Part III -- How to Build an Innovative Organization

7 Dec 2010 19:14:32 GMT

Bennatan, E.M. | Executive Updates | 07 December 2010 | Agile Project Management

In this, the third and last in a series of three Executive Updates on software development innovation, we will take another look at development organizations' innovation scorecards and how they are planning to change during the coming year to stay competitive. We will then summarize the survey conclusions and, based both on the survey and Pearson's proposals, offer several recommendations for software organizations that want to increase their innovativeness.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2010/apmu1022.html

The 12 Basic Tenets that Characterize Complex Project Management

1 Oct 2010 17:04:53 GMT

Wysocki, Robert K. | Executive Reports | 01 October 2010 | Agile Project Management

In this Executive Report by Robert K. Wysocki, we explore in detail the 12 basic tenets that characterize complex project management (CPM). For readers new to CPM or those considering adopting some form of it, this report will provide an introduction to some of the differences as compared to what you are currently practicing and prepare you for a distinctly different project experience.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/reports/2010/10/index.html

In a Kanban Adoption, Go Lean

2 Dec 2010 17:02:03 GMT

Maeda, Masa K. | E-Mail Advisors | 02 December 2010 | Agile Project Management

I recently worked on Kanban adoption with a new customer, who informed me that Kanban was already underway and wanted me to help finish the adoption.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm101202.html

Lost in Translation: Agile's Technical Practices

24 Nov 2010 16:39:37 GMT

Rooney, David | E-Mail Advisors | 24 November 2010 | Agile Project Management

I've been part of the agile software development world since 2000, when I first found out about XP. I was immediately taken with its high level of collaboration, emphasis on working with the business, and tight focus on technical practices that, when used properly, produce excellent software quality. I started using the practices on several teams early in the decade and had good success. Eventually, around mid-decade, I decided to move from being a player/coach on agile teams to being an agile coach teaching teams how to work in a similar manner. My work in a coaching capacity has allowed me to work with many teams of various experience and talent levels and in diverse business and technical domains. In that work, I've seen a pretty constant pattern:

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm101124.html

Pitfalls of Agile X: Team Commitment

18 Nov 2010 18:12:08 GMT

Coldewey, Jens | E-Mail Advisors | 18 November 2010 | Agile Project Management

"You did not finish the stories you committed to!" a product owner at a client of mine recently raged against the team. "What the hell are you doing all day long? This commitment was pointless!" And he was right. The team commitment Scrum includes as part of the planning ritual is a dangerous practice that needs care -- and committing on a certain number of stories or story points really is pointless. "Commitment" is one of these management buzzwords you have to use carefully. You should be very clear about what you commit on, what the appropriate tools to keep that commitment are, which tools are illegal, and what happens if you don't keep the commitment.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm101118.html

Enterprise-Driven Risk Mismanagement: Jessica Rabbit Projects

18 Nov 2010 18:11:00 GMT

Charette, Robert N. | E-Mail Advisors | 18 November 2010 | Enterprise Risk Management & Governance; Agile Project Management

Two government reports published this past week again highlight the old adage "Any fool can make a project late or overbudget; all he or she need to do is not give the project enough time or money."

http://www.cutter.com/content/risk/fulltext/advisor/2010/erm101118.html

Misleading Measurements

11 Nov 2010 18:01:11 GMT

Maeda, Masa K. | E-Mail Advisors | 11 November 2010 | Agile Project Management

Every good manager knows statistical data is always subject to interpretation. A poor interpretation could be disastrous. For some time, my attention has been drawn to how frequently Standish Chaos Reports are used and how almost nobody who uses or refers to the data remarks on their inadequacy.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm101111.html

Starting Agile Adoption: Part II -- Avoiding Common Pitfalls of Planning

11 Nov 2010 17:59:32 GMT

Berczuk, Steve | Executive Updates | 11 November 2010 | Agile Project Management

Agile software development involves people working together, across disciplines, to deliver business value efficiently. While the Agile Manifesto states that agile development values "responding to change over following a plan" and "working software over documentation," that does not mean plans are not important. A plan allows you to measure your progress, focus your efforts, or, more important, present a target that stakeholders can invest in. Too much time planning is wasteful, and it can be tricky to balance the lean imperative for reducing waste, with the comfort that a complete plan up front gives you. Collaboration makes agile effective and allows you to plan more efficiently and keep the focus on delivering value. This Executive Update, the second in a three-part series about starting agile adoption, discusses how to avoid some of the common pitfalls of adopting agile planning.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2010/apmu1021.html

Avoiding System Bankruptcy: How to Pay Off Your Technical Debt

1 Sep 2010 16:18:19 GMT

Kolsky, Amir | Executive Reports | 01 September 2010 | Agile Project Management

In life we are all familiar with debt, especially financial debt. The longer a monetary debt is left unpaid, the more interest accrues. Eventually bankruptcy may be declared. Similarly, in software development, every time something is executed incorrectly, it may be thought of as technical debt. If the technical debt is not paid up, the system's quality will rapidly deteriorate until it goes "bankrupt"; it then may be decommissioned as the cost of maintaining it will be too high. This Executive Report by Amir Kolsky introduces the concept of technical debt, what practices and attitudes cause it, and what we can do to prevent it or pay it off.

http://www.cutter.com/project/fulltext/reports/2010/09/index.html

Agile SOA

1 Jun 2010 16:14:45 GMT

Dooley, Brian J. | Executive Reports | 01 June 2010 | Enterprise Architecture; Agile Project Management

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) and agile software development have both evolved in recent years toward a combined concept of enterprise agility. Coming from different environments and differing in requirements, they are nonetheless founded in many of the same principles. Bringing them together, however, requires some changes to both. Today, these changes are being accommodated by a "meet in the middle" strategy that requires less capital up front but avoids some of the problems of lean architectural support. As explored in this Executive Report by Brian J. Dooley, the results can provide significant benefits.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/reports/2010/06/index.html

Validating Legacy Code: Modernization Strategies Through Technical Debt Assessments

5 Nov 2010 16:09:01 GMT

Heintz, John | Executive Updates | 05 November 2010 | Agile Project Management

What strategies do you apply to modernizing a product code base? What results do you get with those strategies? This Executive Update takes a retrospective look at a past project, both to describe the strategies my colleagues and I used to rearchitect the product and to validate the effectiveness of those strategies with two technical debt assessments via Cutter's Technical Debt Assessment and Valuation practice.1 The six strategies we used are presented here. The two assessments are used to evaluate the measured impact on the system from the team's efforts and compare it to the actual time spent modernizing the code.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2010/apmu1020.html

Avoid the Nonvirtuous Behavior Cycle Via Agile

4 Nov 2010 16:06:33 GMT

Thomsett, Rob | E-Mail Advisors | 04 November 2010 | Agile Project Management

Fundamentally, agile business is about a dedicated and unremitting focus on two principles: simplicity and transparency. The need for this total focus is easily understood from the perspective of key players in the project process: sponsors, project managers, product owners, teams, and stakeholders. For example, the current situation for the majority of executives undertaking the sponsor role is one of frustration and crisis.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm101104.html

Cutting Epics Down to Size: What Are Your Stories?

28 Oct 2010 15:56:53 GMT

Davies, Rachel | E-Mail Advisors | 28 October 2010 | Agile Project Management

In my work as an agile coach, I find many teams applying agile techniques are puzzled about how to slice epic requirements into user stories. In Planning Extreme Programming, Kent Beck and Martin Fowler define stories simply:

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm101028.html

Innovation in Software Development: Part II -- The Penalty for Conservative Management

28 Oct 2010 15:53:15 GMT

Bennatan, E.M. | Executive Updates | 28 October 2010 | Agile Project Management; Innovation

A recent Cutter Consortium survey studied the potential payback for innovation in software development and found that innovation is a risk well worth taking. Substantial improvements were reported by organizations in such areas as cycle time reduction and development costs, but the most impressive improvement was in product quality.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2010/apmu1019.html

What Is a "Good" Project Manager?

1 Aug 2010 20:47:34 GMT

Hall, Payson | Executive Reports | 01 August 2010 | Agile Project Management

The success of enterprises depends upon their ability to define, prioritize, and execute mission-critical projects successfully. Project management is essential, but which project managers (PMs) best serve the organization? This Executive Report by Payson Hall examines the diverse skills and knowledge necessary to manage complex projects effectively and explores essential aspects of the decision-supporting relationship between an organization's PMs and its executives to offer insights into what constitutes a "good" project manager.

http://www.cutter.com/project/fulltext/reports/2010/08/index.html

Parsing a Strategy for Complex Project Teams: Specialist, Generalist, or Both?

21 Oct 2010 20:26:25 GMT

Wysocki, Robert K. | E-Mail Advisors | 21 October 2010 | Agile Project Management

I'm a firm believer in complex projects having a team composed of both specialists and generalists. The argument in support of the generalist is that he or she has the ability and skills to keep options open and may see solution details that would otherwise be missed. The specialist is constrained to his or her span of knowledge and experiences and can easily miss a clue about the undiscovered parts of the solution. The argument in support of the specialist is that only a specialist can know whether a suggested approach will work in the environment he or she represents. The generalist would not be able to make that call.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm101021.html

Pitfalls of Agile IX: Who Manages the Project?

14 Oct 2010 20:15:35 GMT

Coldewey, Jens | E-Mail Advisors | 14 October 2010 | Agile Project Management

"I really like these agile ideas and our pilot project was quite successful," an executive told me recently, "but now it comes to transforming the organization, and we must not be dogmatic here. Thanks for the org chart suggestion you sent me, but I need a project manager here above the product owner group." I had suggested the somewhat state-of-the-art Scrum approach to establish a product owner group with a chief product owner who is responsible for the overall ROI and the priorities in the overall product backlog. So his inquiry hit me by surprise.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm101014.html

Kanban for Project Management: Should We Buy In?

2 Sep 2010 03:13:14 GMT

Piccoli, Gabriele | Journals | 01 September 2010 | Agile Project Management; Cutter Benchmark Review

The adoption of a new project management methodology as part of our business practices is always somewhat of a gamble. Will it work? Will it be an improvement over the processes we currently have in place? Will the time, energy, and resources that we invest now in implementing it prove worthwhile in the long run? These are all questions each of us as IT and business professionals must consider as we make decisions to move our organizations forward. Keeping operations humming along in the face of change and (sometimes) major budget crunches and keeping business practices current and in line with industry practices and technology progress are perhaps the greatest ongoing challenges we face. In this issue of Cutter Benchmark Review, we discuss one of the most recent methodologies to enter the spectrum of possible choices for systems development: Kanban.

http://www.cutter.com/content/benchmark/fulltext/2010/09/index.html

Why Variability Is Better than Stability

8 Oct 2010 03:11:43 GMT

Maeda, Masa K. | E-Mail Advisors | 07 October 2010 | Agile Project Management; Enterprise Risk Management & Governance

What do you think about variability? Let's say you get a new job offer and the organization you would lead continually deals with variability. Would you take the job?

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm101007.html

Seeking the Best Fit for Project Manager, Business Analyst

12 Oct 2010 02:58:02 GMT

Wysocki, Robert K. | E-Mail Advisors | 30 September 2010 | Agile Project Management

It's time we stopped this debate over the roles and responsibilities between the project manager (PM) and the business analyst (BA) and focused our efforts on realizing the benefits of the PM and BA partnering to deliver maximum business value to their clients. Most contemporary projects are characterized by definitional complexity and solution uncertainty and require the best management effort we can muster to deliver acceptable business value to the client. For those projects whose successful completion is critical to the enterprise, it is essential that a best-fit approach be taken. In addition to choosing the best-fit project management lifecycle (PMLC), this approach will include a special management partnership between the PM and the BA. For most organizations, this partnership is an untapped resource.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm100930.html

Pitfalls of Agile VIII: The Backlog

23 Sep 2010 14:23:58 GMT

Coldewey, Jens | E-Mail Advisors | 23 September 2010 | Agile Project Management

I recently watched a talk by a self-appointed agile "expert" who tried to explain the key elements of Scrum. There were lots of minor and major mistakes in his presentation, but the sentence that struck me most was: "User stories is what we call requirements in agile." The sad thing is not that much that this guy said was completely wrong, but that his view is quite common.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm100923.html

Business Analysis in Agility

23 Sep 2010 14:17:39 GMT

Unhelkar, Bhuvan | Executive Updates | 23 September 2010 | Agile Project Management

This third and last Update in the series examines the relevance of BA with regards to the popular agile approaches to software development and maintenance. Although agility itself is a business need, agile methodological approaches -- such as Scrum, XP, and Crystal -- have evolved from the software development discipline. Therefore, it is relevant to examine how the role of a business analyst can make a positive contribution in the context of these agile methods.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2010/apmu1018.html

CORDS -- A Nurturing HRD Climate for Agile Professionals

22 Sep 2010 14:15:02 GMT

Sampath, Kalpana; Sampath, J.M. | E-Mail Advisors | 22 September 2010 | Cutter IT Journal; Agile Project Management

According to Webster's Dictionary, the word "profession" means business, calling, career, employment, job, line of work, occupation, office, position, sphere, walk of life, and so on. This is also the foundation of the word "professional," which we think of as the person who is employed on the said work or occupation. According to Webster's, professional means adept, competent, skilled, efficient, experienced, masterly, polished, practiced, proficient, qualified, slick, trained, and so on. In a similar way, the word agile is marked by "an ability to think quickly, mentally acute or aware, active, lively, quick and well coordinated movement."1 Both words indicate that a professional is expected naturally to be agile. The question, then, is what kind of human resources climate would enable a professional to be agile?

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/advisor/2010/itj100922.html

Innovation in Software Development: Part I -- Challenging Conventional Wisdom

17 Sep 2010 14:09:23 GMT

Bennatan, E.M. | Executive Updates | 17 September 2010 | Agile Project Management

Apple and Google are two examples of innovative companies, but is their innovativeness typical of software development organizations in general? Surprisingly, a recent Cutter Consortium survey indicates that most software companies do not actively encourage innovation and out-of-the-box thinking -- though a sizable minority do. This is a problem that deserves attention, given that the potential benefit of successful innovation can be considerable.

This first Executive Update in a series of three on software development innovation will look at the benefits of innovation, the extent to which it is being encouraged, and how that encouragement translates into action.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2010/apmu1017.html

Cloud, Mobile, and Social Drive On-Demand Development

16 Sep 2010 14:07:26 GMT

Gat, Israel | E-Mail Advisors | 16 September 2010 | Agile Project Management; Enterprise Risk Management & Governance

The confluence of cloud computing, smart mobile devices, and social networks is usually discussed in terms of its transformative effect. The cloud enables offering products and platforms as services. Smart mobile devices consume those services and contribute to them in an "always-on" mode. Social networks cater to the needs of the various crowds that form dynamically through the use of these mobile devices. Between the three of them, the nature of the business and the concomitant business designs change big time. For example, the consumerization of IT rides to a great extent on the virtuous cycle that these three trends drive.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm100916.html

Creating High-Performance Teams Through Kanban

16 Sep 2010 14:05:40 GMT

Maeda, Masa K. | Webinars/Multimedia | 16 September 2010 | Agile Project Management

In this webinar, Cutter Senior Consultant Masa Maeda will give you the foundation to understand what Kanban is about and why it is such an amazing productivity booster. Masa will describe the what, why, and hows of Kanban, and then open the session up to your questions. Don't miss this opportunity to see if Kanban is a tool that will support your agile methodology adoption.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/webinar/2010/kanban.html

Agile Business: The Final Frontier

1 Jul 2010 21:56:27 GMT

Thomsett, Rob | Executive Reports | 01 July 2010 | Agile Project Management

The agile movement has reached a tipping point. It can either remain a powerful approach to software and business product development, or it can evolve and expand into an even more powerful business and cultural paradigm. In this Executive Report by Rob Thomsett, we will present an integrated model for business agility and, using an ongoing engagement with a major bank implementing agile business as a case study, explore the positive and negative aspects of agile as an organizational model.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/reports/2010/07/index.html

What Is a Requirement, Really?

9 Sep 2010 21:50:53 GMT

Wysocki, Robert K. | E-Mail Advisors | 09 September 2010 | Agile Project Management; Enterprise Risk Management & Governance

I've long felt that the criterion for defining project success as meeting a specification within the constraints of time and cost is misdirected. It really ignores the business, the client, and organizational satisfaction. My criterion is that project success is measured by delivering expected business value. After all, isn't it expected business value that justified the need to do the project in the first place? There are of course some exceptions in the case of mandated and otherwise required projects regardless of whether or not they deliver business value.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm100909.html

Truth and Consequences: A Balancing Act in Disclosing Risk

9 Sep 2010 21:49:44 GMT

Charette, Robert N. | E-Mail Advisors | 09 September 2010 | Enterprise Risk Management & Governance; Agile Project Management

The worst mistake is not telling the boss.

Or so said an article a few years ago in the Washington Post about the importance of immediately disclosing problems or mistakes to your boss.1

I am a great believer in this idea as well, which is part of what the late management theorist and practitioner Peter Drucker called "information responsibility." Without knowing the true state of play, it is pretty difficult to manage enterprise risk effectively.2

http://www.cutter.com/content/risk/fulltext/advisor/2010/erm100909.html

Starting Agile Adoption: Part I -- Quality Assurance

9 Sep 2010 21:44:58 GMT

Berczuk, Steve | Executive Updates | 09 September 2010 | Agile Project Management

Agile software development -- developing an application in small increments, where stakeholders can review the results and reevaluate goals after each time-boxed iteration -- is simple and powerful. However, implementing the practices that enable agile software development can be difficult because adopting an agile approach requires change across the organization. This three-part Executive Update series will discuss how best to start the agile adoption process.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2010/apmu1016.html

Good Managers Make Bad Firefighters

2 Aug 2010 21:36:16 GMT

Maeda, Masa K. | E-Mail Advisors | 02 September 2010 | Agile Project Management; Enterprise Risk Management & Governance

Everybody loves firefighters. As young children, many of us had the desire to be firefighters when we grew up, but very few ever accomplish that goal. For many, firefighters are the real-world heroes. They rescue our pets and save people from car accidents, burning houses, and many other hazards. They are great at taking care of difficult situations.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm100902.html

How Big Are Corporate Data Warehouses and How Fast Are They Growing?

31 Aug 2010 21:18:42 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 31 August 2010 | Business Intelligence; Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Agile Project Management

A survey [1] we conducted in February/March 2010 offers some interesting insights into corporate data warehouse data volume trends. Specifically, when asked, "What is the size of your organization's current data warehouse?" survey participants responded as follows:

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2010/bia100831.html

The Project Manager and the Business Analyst: A Dynamic Duo for Managing Complex Projects

1 Aug 2010 20:54:32 GMT

Wysocki, Robert K. | Executive Reports | 01 June 2010 | Agile Project Management

This Executive Report by Robert K. Wysocki explores the collaborative relationship that can and should exist between a project manager (PM) and a business analyst (BA). Such a relationship assures the business sponsor and the client that the probability of delivering acceptable business value will increase as a result of encouraging their relationship. We spend too much energy tossing responsibilities back and forth rather than looking at the benefits to the client from leveraging the PM and BA capabilities to create a synergistic and dynamic partnership. This is a decision that should be made only by the PM and BA once they are assigned to the project. They are in the best position to weigh the alternatives for sharing the requisite management roles and responsibilities.

http://www.cutter.com/project/fulltext/reports/2010/06/index.html

Do Less

26 Aug 2010 20:50:45 GMT

Highsmith, Jim | E-Mail Advisors | 26 August 2010 | Agile Project Management

Many managers use the mantra, "do more with less." At the recent Agile 2010 conference, Pat Reed from GAP, who copresented with me, shortened this mantra to "do less." The theme of our presentation was value optimization or, as Pat likes to say, "value imagineering" -- determining the highest-valued chunks of functionality to implement next, whether those chunks are projects in a portfolio management process or stories in an iteration planning session. By developing in an agile fashion and deploying features frequently (even continuously, as in the emerging agile practice of continuous deployment), the business can recognize value early and often.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm100826.html

A Lean Approach to Data and Process Integration

24 Aug 2010 20:29:30 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 24 August 2010 | Business Intelligence; Agile Project Management

I've been checking out a new book, Lean Integration: An Integration Factory Approach to Business Agility. As its name suggests, this book examines the application of lean principles to enterprise data and process integration. Although the authors John Schmidt and David Lyle are both now executives at Informatica Corporation, it's important to understand that the lean integration concept is not dependent on Informatica's1 or, for that matter, any other vendor's particular data integration products. The authors strove to make the book vendor-neutral. In other words, lean integration entails implementing process and methodology as much, if not more, than some vendor's technology. That said, lean manufacturing is a fascinating concept that combines practices from lean manufacturing with software development -- the goal being to align functions, eliminate waste, and promote ongoing improvement across an organization's key integration activities.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2010/bia100824.html

Building Trust on Agile Teams

24 Aug 2010 20:26:31 GMT

Davies, Rachel | Executive Updates | 24 August 2010 | Agile Project Management

Building trust lies at the heart of success with agile approaches to software development. The agile philosophy depends on people rather than process to maintain order and quality. We lighten up the development process and dispense with many of the artifacts traditionally used to orchestrate project activities. We bridge the gap with increased collaboration and teamwork. A lightweight process costs less because it cuts down project bureaucracy and uses short feedback cycles to improve quality. However, one can argue that agile methods do not pay off without trust to oil the wheels.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2010/apmu1015.html

The Dual Condition of Data-Driven Decision Making

19 Aug 2010 20:24:35 GMT

Kellen, Vince | E-Mail Advisors | 19 August 2010 | Agile Project Management

IT is sort of caught in the middle of a debate. In one corner stands a group of researchers and enthusiasts who look at the marvels of how the human mind can make quick, accurate judgments and decisions. This group tends to look optimistically at the capabilities of the human mind to work effectively in the environment. In the other corner stands a group that sees our minds as limited, prone to errors, and in need of improvement with logic, training, and tools.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm100819.html

Reining in Technical Debt Webinar

19 Aug 2010 20:20:21 GMT

Gat, Israel; Heintz, John | Webinars/Multimedia | 19 August 2010 | Agile Project Management

Do you really govern the software development process in your IT organization or do its uncertainty and unpredictability leave you, your internal customers and your company's customers aghast? Do you manage to bake in quality in every build? Can you assess the quality of your software in a way that quantifies the risk? Once you participate in the Cutter Consortium Reining in Technical Debt webinar, presented by Israel Gat and John Heintz, you will understand how the combination of recent developments in software engineering and in software governance enable you to tie quality, cost, and value together to form a simple and effective governance framework for software.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/webinar/2010/technical-debt.html

Setting Priorities: Go Beyond Chicken-or-Egg Questions

18 Aug 2010 20:15:43 GMT

Pritchard, Carl | E-Mail Advisors | 18 August 2010 | Business-IT Strategies; Agile Project Management

In client consulting engagements, I frequently find that the root cause of a lot of frustration among managers, team members, and executives stems from the inability (or unwillingness) to choose what's most important. I had the interesting experience of trying to build a value-based priorities model with a client, and had the following exchange:

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2010/bit100818.html

What the Beatles Can Teach Us About Creativity, Discipline

12 Aug 2010 20:20:15 GMT

Maeda, Masa K. | E-Mail Advisors | 12 August 2010 | Agile Project Management

I arrived in my hotel room last night quite tired after a long day giving a workshop on lean-agile for leadership and a presentation on a similar subject at a university. To relax, I turned on the TV and started watching a show hosted by Elvis Costello, who was interviewing Bono and Edge from the band U2. Bono told a personal anecdote about an encounter he had had with Paul McCartney during which Paul told him about The Beatles song recordings that were done in just one day. For example, in the morning they would record the back tracks for Eleanor Rigby, Here There and Everywhere, and some other songs, then take a break for tea (of course, that was in England), then get back to the studio to record the main tracks and be done by 6 PM. Inspired by this, the very next day Bono suggested his band try to start doing some recording at midnight and finish by 7 AM. They went ahead doing that and were done by 4 AM!

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm100812.html

Leadership: Part III -- Knowing Where You're Going

5 Aug 2010 19:58:31 GMT

Nyman, Mark; Stribrny, Scott | Executive Updates | 05 August 2010 | Agile Project Management

Most senior executives want to know when they will get business value from a project, more than when it will be complete and at what cost. Without completed projects, you can't implement the strategy; yet today a chasm usually exists between business objectives and project management activities. Even when projects are on target with respect to time, cost, and quality, all too often they seem to fail to achieve the anticipated business results. Thus, the power of truly great project leaders is in part their ability to be a strategist as well as a tactician -- to help shape the company future through projects that deliver value.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2010/apmu1014.html

Cloud Implications for Agile Development

1 May 2010 14:58:41 GMT

Dooley, Brian J. | Executive Reports | 01 May 2010 | Agile Project Management

Cloud computing and agile development are complementary concepts that have come together in myriad ways to aid in the rapid development and deployment of software to meet real business requirements. Both are currently in a state of evolution, which is creating interesting synergies as the enterprise IT environment continues to advance. The final result is likely to be new avenues of development and a range of new capabilities. In this Executive Report by Brian J. Dooley, we explore the development world ahead.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/reports/2010/05/index.html

Who Best to Tackle Risk?

29 Jul 2010 14:57:13 GMT

DeMarco, Tom | E-Mail Advisors | 29 July 2010 | Agile Project Management

A New York Times op-ed column by Thomas Friedman told of risk managers using a model to assess financial companies' net positions under different assumptions about mortgage interest rates and housing market factors.1 One of the parameters the managers were allowed to enter was year-over-year percentage growth in single-family home value. The model was built to accept only positive numbers for this variable. This is risk management as practiced in the 21st century.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm100729.html

Move to Agile Requirements, Avoid Analysis Paralysis

28 Jul 2010 14:51:52 GMT

Brennan, Kevin | E-Mail Advisors | 28 July 2010 | Cutter IT Journal; Agile Project Management

In the last few years, agile methodologies have rapidly gained acceptance and moved into the mainstream. Currently, it seems like a majority of companies are running at least one agile pilot program and many large organizations have converted completely to agile methods.

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/advisor/2010/itj100728.html

Pitfalls of Agile VII: Planning Steps

22 Jul 2010 14:42:36 GMT

Coldewey, Jens | E-Mail Advisors | 22 July 2010 | Agile Project Management

Fully prioritize your tasks, estimate them, skim them off the top until your current velocity is met, and you’re done. Agile planning is that easy ... but is this really easy?

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm100722.html

Revolution in Software: Using Technical Debt Techniques to Govern the Software Development Process

1 Apr 2010 19:54:44 GMT

Gat, Israel | Executive Reports | 01 April 2010 | Agile Project Management

Recent advances in source code analysis techniques enable us to quantify technical debt. By so doing, software quality can be tied to cost and value through a common denominator: the dollar. This tie enables the governing of the software development process with great effectiveness at both the tactical and strategic levels, as we examine in this Executive Report by Israel Gat. Such governance is applicable to any software method/process, enabling "apples to apples" management across a diverse portfolio of projects. It also lends itself to insightful comparisons with industry benchmarks.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/reports/2010/04/index.html

Webinar: Creating High-Performance Teams Through Kanban

16 Sep 2010 19:49:07 GMT

Maeda, Masa K. | Events | 16 September 2010 | Agile Project Management

In this webinar, Cutter Senior Consultant Masa Maeda will give you the foundation to understand what Kanban is about and why it is such an amazing productivity booster.

http://www.cutter.com/events/multimedia/kanban.html

Webinar: Reining in Technical Debt

19 Aug 2010 19:47:18 GMT

Gat, Israel; Heintz, John | Events | 19 August 2010 | Agile Project Management

The primary goals of this Reining in Technical Debt webinar are to give you a preliminary understanding how quality can be assessed through technical debt techniques, to familiarize you with state of the art tools for measuring technical debt and to demonstrate how value delivery is affected when the technical debt is not "paid back" promptly.

http://www.cutter.com/events/multimedia/technical-debt.html

Value-Added Decisions Need Not Be Cost-Driven

15 Jul 2010 19:45:57 GMT

Maeda, Masa K. | E-Mail Advisors | 15 July 2010 | Agile Project Management; Business-IT Strategies; Enterprise Risk Management & Governance

It's all about the money! This is one of most common ideas in the minds of enterprise executives. It is one of the tenets that has driven enterprises for decades because, well ... of course, businesses want to make money. Although this is true, that doesn't mean the company and its products or services need to be cost-driven.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm100715.html

Software Teams Are Changing: Part III -- Check Your Ego at the Door

13 Jul 2010 19:37:17 GMT

Bennatan, E.M. | Executive Updates | 13 July 2010 | Agile Project Management

This year's survey studied software development teams at more than 100 software development organizations and collected the same type of data as in the survey six years ago. In this, the third and final Executive Update in the series comparing the results of the two surveys, we begin by examining how the role of team leader is changing and how projects are allocated to teams. We then examine the effect of these changes on the success of team performance, and we attempt to determine whether Weinberg's egoless software developer is becoming more of a reality.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2010/apmu1013.html

To Help Agile Grow Up, Some Approaches to Process Maturity

8 Jul 2010 19:29:28 GMT

Cuellar, Roland | E-Mail Advisors | 08 July 2010 | Agile Project Management

In my last Advisor (see "Has Agile Grown Up Yet? Assessing the Maturity of Your Process," 24 June 2010), I discussed the need for assessing agile process maturity. This week, I provide some methods for going about performing assessments.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm100708.html

Governing the Software Process Through SPC Techniques in Conjunction with Technical Debt Metrics

1 Jul 2010 19:49:33 GMT

Gat, Israel | E-Mail Advisors | 01 July 2010 | Agile Project Management

The applicability of statistical process control (SPC) to software development has been debated since 1989, when the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) endorsed its use in the Capability Maturity Model (CMM). Proponents of the use of SPC techniques in software grasped how powerful the techniques could be beyond traditional manufacturing processes. Detractors shrugged their shoulders in exasperation at what seemed like noncompliance with the theoretical underpinnings of SPC. To this very day, the use of SPC techniques in software remains somewhat controversial.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm100701.html

The Challenges to Encourage an Agile HR: A Process of Letting Go

30 Jul 2010 19:42:00 GMT

Sampath, Kalpana; Sampath, J.M. | E-Mail Advisors | 30 June 2010 | Cutter IT Journal; Agile Project Management

A lot of advice has been given about the "how" and "why" of agile. Yet, in human resources (HR), there is still a need for an internal push on several counts. What would enable HR to create and support an agile environment? First, the ability to let go of all the earlier beliefs about people's functions and requirements, and second, a move to experiencing and understanding the agile employee from a different paradigm.

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/advisor/2010/itj100630.html

The Agile Triangle Evolves as a Lean-Agile Prism

29 Jun 2010 19:39:04 GMT

Maeda, Masa K. | Executive Updates | 29 June 2010 | Agile Project Management

A potential customer who owns lots of commercial real estate asked me to make an assessment of the operations automation software system it has been developing inhouse to control, administer, and service clients at an upscale, long-stay business hotel it opened not long ago. John, the systems manager, has been in charge of the project since its inception, and he began showing me the impressive work he has done single-handedly. As he walked me through the system functionality, the tone of his voice shifted between pride and frustration; the volume of his voice increased as well. Finally, John said, "I don't understand why the hotel staff can't use the system as they should; it is pretty straightforward! I am tired of my pager beeping throughout the night because the staff calls me for every little tiny issue. And most times there is no real issue at all!" Then there was the large number of human errors. John was convinced the problems existed because the hotel staff was unable to use the computers properly.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2010/apmu1012.html

Has Agile Grown Up Yet? Assessing the Maturity of Your Process

24 Jun 2010 19:35:27 GMT

Cuellar, Roland | E-Mail Advisors | 24 June 2010 | Agile Project Management

There are good reasons to step back and assess where we are as an organization in our adoption of agile (or any other process model). Executives should concern themselves with these questions:

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm100624.html

Tracing a Continuum of Trust: Compliance, Cooperation, Collaboration

17 Jun 2010 20:20:47 GMT

Highsmith, Jim | E-Mail Advisors | 17 June 2010 | Agile Project Management

In Coaching Agile Teams, Lyssa Adkins discusses the difference between cooperation and collaboration. I'd like to add another interaction dimension to these two: compliance. These three concepts form a continuum, primarily defined by the degree of trust among members of the project community. Agile teams sometimes get into trouble because a particular practice assumes one level of interaction, while the team is actually operating at another. As an example, a well-functioning Scrum team requires that the development team and the product owner have a collaborative relationship. If that relationship drops back a level, to cooperation, then some of the team activities won't go as desired.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm100617.html

Pitfalls of Agile VI: Simplicity

10 Jun 2010 20:04:22 GMT

Coldewey, Jens | E-Mail Advisors | 10 June 2010 | Agile Project Management
One of the beautiful things about agile is its simplicity: Scrum consists of three roles, three artifacts, and three plus one practices; XP provides 21 practices; and FDD comes on a single sheet of paper. In fact, we have printed an overview of Scrum onto a beer mat. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Just drop us an e-mail, receive a beer coaster for each of your team members, distribute them, and tell everyone you're doing Scrum.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm100610.html

Software Teams Are Changing: Part II -- Two Ways to View a Ball Game

10 Jun 2010 19:59:36 GMT

Bennatan, E.M. | Executive Updates | 10 June 2010 | Agile Project Management

This year's survey studied software development teams at more than 100 software development organizations and collected the same type of data as in the survey six years ago. In this, the second in a series of three Executive Updates comparing the results of the two surveys, we begin by examining peer interaction as a team motivator and its effect on team stability. We then look at how software development organizations perceive the importance of team structure and its role in project success. After that, we try to identify areas where software organizations should best invest their energies to improve teamwork.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2010/apmu1011.html

Race to Quality: Replace Rapid Delivery with Early Delivery

27 May 2010 22:49:31 GMT

Maeda, Masa K. | E-Mail Advisors | 27 May 2010 | Agile Project Management One common belief in the industry is that the capability of delivering things quickly is a key competitive advantage. I would like to revisit the way this belief is often used in practice and propose a better way to use it. http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm100527.html

Agile Leadership: Focus and Clarity

27 May 2010 22:48:37 GMT

Highsmith, Jim | E-Mail Advisors | 27 May 2010 | Agile Project Management

In a recent e-mail exchange with Cutter Fellow Lynne Ellyn (SVP and CIO of DTE), she mentioned that one characteristic of agile leaders is providing focus and clarity for an organization or team. Her comments sparked my thinking about why it’s so hard to be a good agile leader. We tend to create lists of what leaders do or their agilelike behaviors, but these lists and the item descriptions obscure the difficulty in actually being an agile leader.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm100603.html

Ace the Design Review Via Improved Communication

26 May 2010 22:43:02 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 26 May 2010 | Enterprise Architecture; Agile Project Management; Enterprise Risk Management & Governance

Recently, I participated in a design review where the tension in the room was palpable. Talk about the business/IT divide; that was nothing compared to the development/architecture divide. The development team was defensive, resented being there, and was less than effusive in its answers to questions. So, what could explain the team's resentment toward the architects who had required the review or the project managers who had called it?

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2010/ea100526.html

A Requirements Management Lifecycle that Works for Every Project

1 Mar 2010 14:44:51 GMT

Wysocki, Robert K. | Executive Reports | 01 March 2010 | Agile Project Management

This Executive Report by Robert K. Wysocki defines a robust requirements management lifecycle (RMLC) that adapts to any project. The report begins with a bird's eye view of the RMLC and then gives a description of the project landscape. This allows for a foundation to discuss how the RMLC and the various project management lifecycles integrate and interact.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/reports/2010/03/index.html

Technical Debt Assessment: A Case of Simultaneous Improvement at Three Levels

21 May 2010 14:42:50 GMT

Gat, Israel | Executive Updates | 21 May 2010 | Agile Project Management

To collect, analyze, and interpret the data required for the business and technical decisions needed, Intrigue engaged Cutter Consortium to conduct a technical debt assessment. Although the assessment was carried out in parallel with other engagements, the two consultants who worked with Intrigue completed the engagement in less than three weeks. The data generated and insights provided by the assessment put Intrigue in a position to make the right kind of decisions at three levels: strategic, tactical, and operational. Moreover, the assessment helped Intrigue improve its software process in a significant manner.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2010/apmu1010.html

The Agile Triangle: Balancing Roles and Responsibilities

20 May 2010 14:41:15 GMT

Highsmith, Jim | E-Mail Advisors | 20 May 2010 | Agile Project Management

The Agile Triangle, shown in Figure 1, was introduced in Agile Project Management 2nd Edition) and has been the subject of several Cutter Advisors. The Agile Triangle encourages teams to be flexible, agile, and adaptable -- it alters how we view success. In this installment in the series, I focus on roles and responsibilities.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm100520.html

If You Want to Succeed, Then Prepare to Innovate

13 May 2010 14:22:05 GMT

Maeda, Masa K. | E-Mail Advisors | 13 May 2010 | Agile Project Management; Innovation

In an upcoming Executive Update ("The Agile Triangle Evolves as a Lean-Agile Prism," June 2010), I introduce the Lean-Agile Prism, the premise of which is to go beyond the agile triangle by giving high importance to design. As I have presented the prism at several talks, some people have commented that it applies only to commercial applications where a nice visual appeal matters. That isn't actually so, and I feel the need to explain a bit further.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm100513.html

To Steer Clear of the Complexity Trap, Take Baby Steps

13 May 2010 14:21:02 GMT

Estes, Don | E-Mail Advisors | 13 May 2010 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Agile Project Management

We have a number of hidden taxes, and complexity is becoming one of the worst ones. Every time we go to an airport, we encounter the Osama bin Laden tax at security, where it costs time and money to ensure our safety. When we pay our fees for our car registration and drivers' licenses, we are paying a bureaucratic tax, because inefficiency pushes costs higher than they need to be to get the job done. The bureaucratic tax is that extra cost due to inefficiency.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2010/btt100513.html

The Model Craftsman: A Cost-Effective Approach to Craftsmanship

13 May 2010 14:19:44 GMT

Voelter, Markus; McGregor, John D. | Executive Updates | 13 May 2010 | Agile Project Management

This Update describes the business and technical implications of a proven strategy for developing software-intensive products in which craftsman-level quality is achieved and products are still realized faster and cheaper than by using traditional development strategies. This strategy evolves the production capability of the organization as more of the craftsman's knowledge is made available to a growing community of journeymen. We conclude with a few case studies.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2010/apmu1009.html