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Methods & Tools - February 2018
Sharing global software development expertise since 1993

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*** Updates ***

Last Articles Published on Methods & Tools Website

How to Get Hired (or Promoted) as a Software Architect Becoming a software architect does not necessarily mean that you must leave your job and start looking for a new one. Most of the time, people transition successfully into architect positions within the same organizations. This is a win-win situation for both employer and employee. The most important asset you have when employed with the same company for a long time is business and culture knowledge. Organizations try to retain long-term employees by offering them promotion opportunities because they have demonstrated that they can successfully do the job but also because they possess business knowledge and intelligence. Read more...

*** Quote of the Month ***

One of the ongoing insights I have discovered from my agile team leadership journey is continually realizing the awesome power of transparency. It's something that cuts through all of the traditional Waterfall management speak, for example: “Let's get this project back on schedule”.

Excuse me, but it was never ON schedule! Instead, it's exactly where it was supposed to be given the challenges and our investment. The key isn't holding to some arbitrary schedule. Instead, the focus should be on adjusting to discoveries as you narrow in on your goal or target, and on delivering the highest value features without quality compromises.

Source: Scrum Product Ownership (2nd edition), Robert Galen, 236 pages, ISBN 978-0-9885026-2-8

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*** Books ***

A Little Book about Requirements and User Stories

User stories can be considered as the most used form to manage requirements in Agile. However, as often with agile concepts Agile that look simple in theory, using them in practice generates many questions: What should user stories contain? When should they be ready to be developed? What is an optimal backlog size? This is the type of issues that Allan Kelly discusses in his interesting Little Book about Requirements and User Stories.

Read the review and quotes from A Little Book about Requirements and User Stories.

Reference: A Little Book about Requirements and User Stories – Heuristics for requirements in an agile world, Allan Kelly, http://leanpub.com/userstories, ISBN 978-0-9933250-5-2