Author Archives: jeff
Backlog Grooming Bugs Me
Adopting new process language bothers me. I was introduced to the Extreme Programming term “story” in 2000 and it wasn’t until 2005 that I stopped rolling my eyes when I heard the term and could actually begin to use it … Continue reading
Secrets to Automated Acceptance Tests
In the years that I’ve been involved with agile development, I’ve noticed an ongoing crusade for a holy grail that teams have been striving to reach: fully automated acceptance tests. There are some technical reasons why this crusade is difficult, … Continue reading
Kanban Development Oversimplified
Over a year ago now — Feb 25th 2008 to be exact — I wrote this draft article. At the time Kanban development was a cool new thing — bleeding edge Agile. Due to a series of unfortunate events the … Continue reading
The product owner and the product-shaped hole
What the product owner needs to worry about isn’t in the product backlog Continue reading
The new user story backlog is a map
Why the flat user story backlog doesn’t work, and how to build a better backlog that will help you more effectively explain your system, prioritize, and plan your releases. Continue reading
How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Prioritization
One of the more challenging things about moving to agile software development is breaking up your software requirements into small, buildable chunks. Often these chunks are expressed as simple, single-line “user stories” or backlog items that we intend to develop … Continue reading
Twelve emerging best practices for adding UX work to Agile development
How experienced UX practitioners have adapted to work happily in Agile environments Continue reading
An Uncomfortable Truth about Agile Testing
VIP Consulting In organizations that have adopted agile development, I often see a bit of a culture clash with testers and the rest of the staff. Testers will ask for product specifications that they can test against to verify that … Continue reading
The Neglected Practice of Iteration
Hear more about this topic in the StickyMinds SoundByte podcast interview with Jeff Patton. Scribbled on a whiteboard in the Chicago office of my company is the phrase “It’s not iteration if you only do it once.” That sounds obvious, … Continue reading
The Forgotten Side of Quality
When I used to think of quality with respect to software, I thought about bugs—and hopefully the absence of bugs. No bugs equals good quality. But, of course, I knew it wasn’t quite that simple. I own a German car, … Continue reading
