I’ve been preoccupied with helping my client assess and visualize a SharePoint 2003 to MOSS migration for the past few weeks, and as a result my blogging suffers. Always something!
Today, a couple of agile resources I wanted to post for posterity and share. First, a white paper by Kent Beck published by Microsoft on the use of tools in agile software development entitled Tools for Agility:
This is an excellent, quick essay by the creator of eXtreme Programming on the value of tooling for enabling agile software development. A consistent theme for Beck is how the evolution of utilities like continuous integration and xUnit frameworks foster faster transitions between tasks that an agile/iterative/lean team encounters over the lifespan of the project. Beck also offer his prognostications on future agile tools and practices.
Next up, the Alt.NET Podcast. Yes, I’m a Johnny-come-lately to discovering this feed, but I’m a huge fan of developer podcasts like Hanselminutes and the Agile Toolkit as a means of obtaining insightful information during my down-time driving to the cottage or enduring a ride on the TTC subway (uggh!).
This morning, I listened to the Adopting Agile episode with Owen Rogers– really good stuff that made me think hard about the philosophies and positions I’ve held about non-agile teams and how to persuade them to make the transition gradually with just a single commitment to deliver a working increment of software once a month. From here, in Rogers’ experience, it’s easier to begin rationlizing the adoption of agile/lean/iterative practices to enable the once-a-month rhythm. Very much in the “stone soup” tradition.
That’s it for today – I’m off to the cottage this evening for the “holiday long weekend” here in Canada. Time to catch up on some Inversion of Control podcasts…
