Inspect and Adapt

Sixth in our series in which Steve McConnell describes the 28 key principles in his new book, More Effective Agile (Construx Press, 2019). The principles described this time: "Refine the Product Backlog." Backlog refinement ensures the team is working on the highest priority items, is not filling in gaps in requirements on its own, and is not starved for work. (See page 187 in the book.)...

Join Construx Senior Fellow Erik Simmons and Mark Griffin as they discuss the ins and outs of metrics for software teams. To kick off, they draw a distinction that can help alleviate overarching concerns about metrics and measurement in general: operational measurement (How are we doing? Metaphor: dashboard) and aspirational measurement (What’s our progress toward our goals? Metaphor: map). The re...

Join Construx Senior Fellow Earl Beede and Mark Griffin as they discuss methods for improving the chances of success by driving down inherent uncertainty (common-cause variation) for large software efforts. These methods involve early decision making related to primary consumers, possible technologies, and broad software estimation. The conversation continues with a description of the Cone of Unce...

Join Construx Senior Fellow Erik Simmons and Mark Griffin as they discuss the ins and outs of Construx's organizational assessments, which go beyond software engineering technical practices to also examine organizational structure, the architecture of the system, the way people communicate, and the degree of interteam trust. Culture can play as important a role as technical practices, so Cons...

Construx Software recently surveyed software professionals to determine the effect that working from home (WFH) during the coronavirus pandemic is having on software development. Our survey explored changes in communication and the impact on individuals, on teamwork, on leaders’ ability to lead, and on specific technical practices. The survey was conducted from April 7 to April 22, 2020, with 624...

Fifth in our series in which Steve McConnell describes the 28 key principles in his new book, More Effective Agile (Construx Press, 2019). The principles discussed this time: "Manage Technical Debt." A consistent focus on quality is part of an effective Agile implementation. Managing technical debt supports higher team morale, faster progress, and higher quality products. (See page 131 i...

Fourth in our series in which Steve McConnell describes the 28 key principles in his new book, More Effective Agile (Construx Press, 2019). The principles discussed this time: "Keep Projects Small." Small projects are easier and more often successful. Not all work can be structured into small projects, but the work that can be structured that way should be. (See page 120 in the book.) &q...

Is your team fairly new to Scrum? Construx Senior Fellow Earl Beede and Mark Griffin discuss specific strategies and concepts that will help your first Scrum efforts be successful. Learn about the shift in mind-set from individual contributors to a true team dynamic in which throughput is far more important than being busy in parallel activities. You don’t need to be good at everything, but you ne...

Third in our series in which Steve McConnell describes the 28 key principles in his new book, More Effective Agile (Construx Press, 2019). The principles discussed this time: "Tighten Feedback Loops." Don’t take any longer to learn lessons than you need to; keep the feedback loops as tight as possible. This supports more rapid progress from the "Inspect and Adapt" key principle...

Second in our series in which Steve McConnell describes the 28 key principles in his new book, More Effective Agile (Construx Press, 2019). The principles discussed this time: "Motivate Teams Through Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose." Agile practices inherently support the factors that contribute to motivation. Teams are intended to work with Autonomy and to become better over time (Master...

Teams succeeding with Agile approaches on smaller projects often encounter difficulties when attempting to scale those methods. In this episode, Construx Senior Fellow Earl Beede and Mark Griffin discuss specific strategies for successfully scaling Agile. First, they cover the importance of batch sizing. Overly large batches easily lead to waste, and many scaling issues can be solved by manipulati...

We’re happy to continue the conversation between Steve McConnell and Jeff Atwood. Jeff is a software developer, author, and entrepreneur known for blogging at Coding Horror , co-founding the computer-programming question-and-answer website Stack Overflow , and, currently, developing Discourse , a powerful open-source discussion platform. Over the holidays we recorded Jeff and Steve discussing Stev...

We’re happy to the share the first of two episodes featuring Jeff Atwood, a software developer, author, and entrepreneur known for many things: blogging at Coding Horror , co-founding the computer-programming question-and-answer website Stack Overflow , and, currently, developing Discourse , a powerful open-source discussion platform. Over the holidays we recorded Jeff and Steve McConnell discussi...

Construx Principal Consultant Steve Tockey and Mark Griffin discuss design patterns in a unique way by emphasizing the importance of understanding fundamental design principles when you’re using patterns. Of the top five reasons that software projects get into trouble, the most significant issue that is directly under the control of software developers is the complexity in the code base. Both indu...

In the first of a series of episodes sharing crucial information from Steve McConnell's new book, More Effective Agile , Steve and Mark begin to describe the 28 key principles you need to understand to reap the full benefits of effective Agile. The principles discussed in this episode are "Inspect and Adapt." Agile is an empirical approach that depends on learning from experience. T...

Construx Senior Fellow Melvin Perez-Cedano joins host Mark Griffin to discuss two recent engagements: a Lean-Agile Practices custom workshop with a team using proto-Kanban (a board without work-in-process limits) and a deep-dive Scrum class with experienced Scrum practitioners. In the first case, Melvin describes using a participatory decision-making technique to determine whether everyone on the...

Construx Senior Fellow John Clifford—our Agile Practices lead—joins host Mark Griffin to discuss a repeated theme of multiple recent engagements: how to get Agile teams unstuck. Many teams are struggling with “Scrum adoptions,” they think, but this characterization is inaccurate because the teams aren’t really running Scrum. Instead, they’re doing an approximation based on faulty assumptions—namel...

Construx Senior Fellow Melvin Perez-Cedano and host Mark Griffin dive into developer testing in response to a recent engagement with a telecommunications client trying to improve quality and productivity. As developers, we know that we’re going to make mistakes. The point of developer testing is to discover those mistakes as early as possible so that we can remove them when it is far more economic...