Design patterns are often described as “solutions to recurring problems within a context.”But the real power of patterns is to see the forces that each pattern resolves. They should be used as a way to help analyze what’s needed to create a quality design

The most important words of the Agile Manifesto are, “We are uncovering better ways …” This should continue to be true. Agile is often thought of as a way of being. But getting people to “be” Agile is hard. And it’s not clear what “doing Agile” is. “Being

I’ve been having a very interesting two weeks. I would like to say that whenever I go into a client, I am always on, and always get my clients to see new opportunities. But I’d be lying. However, for the last two weeks, that’s been what’s been happening…

In the past, we have tried waterfall, Agile, and Agile at scale to deliver value through product development. Each has been lacking. Here is what the next generation of accelerated value delivery will require. An integration of business and technology bas

In an earlier post, I discussed how attending to the cost of delay helps us focus on removing delays in workflow, feedback, communication, and error detection. This involves a focus on finishing (not starting a new story if you can help somebody else with

Here are some of the things Agile has demonstrated to be of value. Having self-organizing small teams Building incrementally Taking an iterative approach However, an organization is not merely a collection of small teams, it must also do the following: Ha

In previous posts, I discussed that the first leg of emergent design is TDD, which provides code quality and sustainability. The second leg is design patterns, which provides insights into handling variation. The third leg is ATDD, which provides us a way

TDD is the first leg of emergent design or what could be called Agile Design. Design patterns are the second. They’re often described as “solutions to recurring problems in a context.” In this way they can be thought of as recipes that have been learned.

I am heartened by the surge in TDD training. To me, TDD is the second most important thing for devs to learn. ATDD is the first. TDD is not just the automation of unit testing. It’s also intended to improve design and sustainability. TDD’s formulation of

Among the things needed in the Agile space are better training methods and a better way to use frameworks. This pertains to all organizations coming to Agile:  They are rightfully concerned about what the kind of Agile training they’ll get. They want impr