Methodologies
Mitigating Bias By Understanding Diverse Perspectives Recognizing our own biases As human beings, we all have ingrained biases shaped by our upbringing, life experiences, and social environments. These biases often operate unconsciously, influencing our perceptions and decision-making. As PM-resources seeking to provide objective analysis, it is critical that we strive to recognize our own biases….
The Need for Reliable Software As software systems grow in size and complexity, ensuring their correctness and reliability becomes increasingly challenging. With interdependent components and emergent behaviors, even simple changes can introduce subtle bugs that lead to system failures. Comprehensive testing is essential, but testing alone is insufficient to guarantee software quality. Manual testing struggles…
Planning Fallacies Leading to Unrealistic Deadlines and Budgets Many project managers underestimate the time, effort, and resources required to complete projects. These planning fallacies lead to unrealistic schedules and cost estimates. Common reasons for poor planning include optimism bias, anchoring on initial guesses, not accounting for dependencies, and focusing too much on the plan rather…
Defining the Tension Between Control and Empowerment in Scrum Scrum roles and responsibilities The Scrum framework defines three core roles: the product owner, the Scrum master, and the development team. The product owner is responsible for articulating product vision and priorities, managing the product backlog, and accepting completed work. The Scrum master facilitates Scrum events,…
Over-Metrics Undermine Agility Metrics provide critical visibility into the software development process, enabling data-driven decisions about where teams should focus their efforts. However, an over-reliance on metrics can undermine the flexibility and adaptiveness central to agile methodologies. Why Metrics Matter Used judiciously, metrics fuel the agile engine: Velocity tracks a team’s rate of story point…
Synchronizing Development Teams vs Reporting Status Scrum stand-up meetings, also known as daily scrums, serve two key purposes – synchronizing the work of development teams and providing visibility into progress. On one hand, stand-ups facilitate communication and coordination between developers working on interdependent features or components. This alignment of efforts helps minimize blockers, dependencies, and…
Technical debt refers to the implied cost of additional rework caused by choosing an easy software solution now instead of using a better approach that would take longer. In Agile development, technical debt accumulates through defects that are known but not fixed right away. Defects are flaws in the software that cause it to produce…
Understanding Defects and Enhancements Defining Defects and Enhancements Defects refer to issues or bugs in an existing software system that cause it to produce incorrect results or behave unexpectedly. Defects stem from errors that were introduced during earlier stages of the software development life cycle. Common sources of defects include missing or incomplete requirements, errors…
Allocating Resources for Support Work Setting aside dedicated capacity for incoming support requests is crucial for responsiveness. Teams can allocate certain team members to be primarily responsible for support work during each sprint. This ensures there is availability to promptly assist users and address issues. Another approach is creating a separate support team focused solely…
What is Technical Debt and Why Does it Matter? Technical debt refers to the implied cost of additional work caused by choosing an easy software solution now instead of using a better approach that would take longer. It is a metaphorical debt that accrues interest in the form of extra effort needed to maintain and…
