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

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*** Updates ***

Last Articles Published on Methods & Tools Website

Approval Testing: Agile Testing that Scales Did you ever change your software in such a way that it broke the majority of your tests and led to major test maintenance work? Tests are a form of the specification of the software. That is why, in an agile world where software never "stabilizes", tests can quickly move from being a pillar of quality to a burden and hindrance to change. Approval Testing mitigates this risk by removing the need for explicit assertions and instead managing changes to the system behavior. Read more...

*** Quote of the Month ***

We often hear people say "We're agile, we don't need a plan" or even worse "We can't plan". This is just not true. Release Planning in agile is as important as it is in traditional projects, the only difference is there are a few techniques that help make sure the plans bear some relation to reality. We've all worked on projects where you know from day one that you will be late, and yet no one does anything about it. Agile planning is different. We give up the illusion of control of traditional rigid plans, and replace it with a clear view of where we actually are, even if it's badly behind schedule, so that we can make decisions based on what is actually possible.

Source: A Coach’s Guide to Release Planning, Samantha Laing and Karen Greaves, http://leanpub.com/ReleasePlanning

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*** Books ***

What Drives Software Quality

Software quality or the quality of software is a topic that generates many debates within the software development community. Is it about user satisfaction? Does it deliver value to the organization? Do we consider the quality of the code or its capability to change in the future, maybe with some automated tests to make sure nothing breaks? How good is "good enough"? In his book "What Drives Quality" Ben Linders tries to provide an overview of the quality perspectives during the software development life cycle.