From the Editor

Out with the old, in with the new: new world, new market, new economy,... It can be exhausting keeping up with all the unrelenting newness shoved at us these days. And while there's truth in it—and tremendous value in many of these new approaches—there is still value in many of the classics as well. Besides, some of this new stuff is really old stuff in a new package, generating the well-deserved excitement that skipped it over the first time around.

This week, with so many new ventures and ideas floating around the airwaves, we thought it was a good time to shed new light on some old standards like test plans and status reports (old school!), as well as some new ideas for coping with updates to old legacy systems that are being drug, grudgingly, into the 21st century.

Featured Article

You were great! That was inspired! You're the best! No one else could have pulled that off! Everyone was impressed!

Those kinds of accolades are hard to come by. And yet, when we receive them, we often take pause and find ourselves saying, sometimes in faux humility, "Oh, no. Really. It was nothing."

Forget THAT! It was something. It was a moment of high accomplishment. It was an achievement. And we need to learn how to leverage those achievements if we're going to be able to advance our own careers and our goals. A team member at one of my most prized clients recently asked how she might be able to better promote herself and get some of the recognition that she merits in an environment where recognition is hard to come by. This article is largely my response. I told her she needs to invest some time in ensuring that she knows where she notices others and how she can put herself in those positions. Read more »

Agile Corner

"After adopting an Agile process, many teams find that the time boxed iterations are great for developers. By focusing their efforts on the following two weeks, we can limit the effects of student-syndrome and provide more accurate task level estimates. Often, however, another pattern emerges: QA sits idle for the first half of the iteration and gets slammed in the second half. How does that happen?" Read more »

It's tempting to think that nothing could possibly be as complex as shifting business functions to a new system. Legacy system migrations tend to be massive and technically complex—even overwhelming—and they're often considered too big, too unwieldy, or too critical to trust to agile development. But many key agile practices can be even more important in migration projects. This paper by Kent McDonald points out key considerations that most migration projects face, and suggests ways to address those problems. Project preparation, the project team, release and iteration planning, and engineering practices are all addressed. Read more »

Featured Article

Dramatically altering business processes and instilling organizational efficiency typically involves system automation. To succeed at system-related projects, it is important to join business and IT professionals early in the process. Business users typically think in terms of strategy, competitive positioning and how the project will impact their day-to-day operation, whereas IT implementers generally think in terms of analytical logic. Bridging the communication and cultural gaps between these groups can be a challenge, but very rewarding to the project and future joint endeavors.

Ann Drinkwater has practical suggestions for keeping the business and IT teams on speaking terms during critical system automation efforts. Read more »

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