…which was not part of the project scope when we started R2. It’s fair to say that when we began implementing in February 2006, the idea of a Guardian America launch was not on the radar. Yet by the middle of 2007 it was being talked about very seriously, and increasingly so. How did we … Continue reading
The traditional way to track a project budget (which is to say, the way I learnt to do it first) is to track the time people spend on the project each day and add it up. I call this bottom-up budget tracking. Agile forces an alternative approach, which I call top-down. I was involved in … Continue reading
I was surprised to see Ken Schwaber talking about burn-down charts, as burn-up charts provide more information and are — for me — the preferred option. So this is a short article about burn-up charts and burn-down charts, both great tools for measuring progress. First, though, a hat-tip to Ian Carroll, a colleague at MEN … Continue reading
When do we need user acceptance testing? And when can we get away without it? User acceptance testing (UAT) is when your software goes in front of the user to get final sign-off — and when they ask for changes if not. In theory you shouldn’t need UAT at all (didn’t they tell you what … Continue reading
There’s more to software development than getting a software project delivered to the users’ satisfaction, on time and on budget. (As if that wasn’t enough.) Sometimes someone has to ensure the system lasts for the long term. But when that happens it’s a balancing act: between the project and the product. The project and the … Continue reading
Quality seems to be widely misunderstood. People often talk about quality being a key variable that a project team can choose to alter to reshape their project — along with other variables such as cost, scope and time. I think that view is flawed. Meanwhile Mishkin Berteig is not unusual when he says “I have … Continue reading
One of the problems with agile development is that it’s subject to changes, so means you’re in danger of changing it into something which isn’t agile. How do you know when you’ve gone too far? This isn’t a problem for seasoned agile practitioners, but it’s a concern if you’re just starting out, or working with … Continue reading
