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Methods & Tools - December 2017
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*** Updates ***

Last Articles Published on Methods & Tools Website

Key Factors for a Realistic Internet of Things (IoT) In the midst of excitement and hype, there are several practical deployments of IoT happening today delivering realistic business benefits. However, is it a great success story for all IoT applications? The truth is the count of failed IoT projects has outnumbered successful projects by a huge margin. There may be several reasons for the failures and any emerging technology may face this challenge on its travel to maturity. Read more...

Bugs - Simple Open Source Bug Tracking Tool Bugs is a simple open source bug tracking tool for teams that allows you to easily create and manage defects and issues. This a multilingual tool is perfect for a small project that want to start having a simple shared bug tracking software and is ready to live with the small glitches of an open source tool. Read more...

*** Quote of the Month ***

We can’t measure everything, and because we have to limit our measurements, some things invariably fall between the cracks. For example, we tend to measure project performance based on cost, schedule, and scope targets. But these measurements don’t take quality and customer satisfaction into account. If a conflict arises, they lose out. So what should be done? The decomposition approach would add two more measurements, so now we measure cost, schedule, scope, quality and customer satisfaction. Voila! We have turned the iron triangle into an iron pentagon.

When a measurement system has too many measurements the real goal of the effort gets lost among too many surrogates, and there is no guidance for making trade-off among them. The solution is to “Measure UP” that is, raise the measurement one level and decrease the number of measurements. Find a higher-level measurement that will drive the right results for the lower level metrics and establish a basis for making trade-offs. In the example of project metrics above, instead of adding two more measurements we should use a single measurement – the one thing that really matters. Return on investment (ROI) is a possible candidate for projects. Profit and loss models work well for products. If we optimize the one thing that really matters, the other numbers will take care of themselves.

Source: The Seven Principles of Lean Software Development, Mary & Tom Poppendieck, Addison-Wesley

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Scrum Expert presents Agile articles, resources, book reviews, tools lists, conferences schedule, videos and industry news about Agile software development and project management using Scrum and other Agile and Lean approaches like Kanban, eXtremme Programming or Software Craftmanship with a global perspective.