One of Agile Modeling's (AM) supplementary practices is Apply Modeling Standards, the modeling version of Extreme Programming's (XP) Coding Standards practice. The basic idea is that developers should agree to and follow a common set of modeling standards on a software project. Clean code that follows your chosen coding guidelines is easier to understand and evolve than code that doesn't.

The team members were reviewing the current project progress. Things were in pretty good shape, except that the project was currently going through a turbulent zone. The usual priority changes and resource allocation clashes were taking place.

In the September and November issues of IEEE Computing magazine, Alistair Cockburn and I wrote two articles on agile software development -- "The Business of Innovation" and "The People Factor." Then, in the January 2002 issue, Barry Boehm wrote a very thoughtful article about where agile methods fit within the spectrum of approaches to software development and project management ("Get Ready for

No one who works in computing can be unaware of the meaningless and constant jargon that we are all forced to listen to. I'd be interested to see a graduate school study of the amount of time IT managers spend just trying to understand the new terms they keep encountering. It's frustrating, of course, because in most cases the new terms just turn out to be some old term, given a slight twist.

As spring is starting to spring around the country and even before the first robin has arrived, spring training has started for professional baseball. So how about a baseball analogy for software development?

Managers often struggle with the decision of whether or not to significantly modify the customer relationship management (CRM) and other software packages they have just purchased. Often companies decide to make changes to the packaged application to meet their business requirements. This is very common and often times necessary, but should be undertaken with foresight and understanding of the consequences.

In several Advisors, I've mentioned my working assumption that a company should not outsource core business processes. As I use the term, a core business process results in a product or service that uniquely defines the company. In other words, the process is one in which the company adds unique value and is critical to the way the company positions itself in its market.

"The talented employee may join a company because of its charismatic leaders, its generous benefits, and its world-class training programs, but how long that employee stays and how productive he is while he is there is determined by his relationship with his immediate supervisor." (Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman in First, Break All the Rules,