Agile Pain Relief

December 19, 2008 in Software Development by Mark Levison

Just for some fun I thought I would toss together a couple of top ten lists for 2008 (hey it works for Letterman, why not me?). There are three lists here: Top Ten Posts (my picks), Top ten items I wrote for InfoQ and Top Ten by Traffic.

My Picks

in chronological order

• Tools, Tools, Tools As software developers we have this innate belief that another tool will solve all our  problems. To that end many agile practitioners search for a tool to track their projects for them.
• Minimally Agile What is the minimum it takes to be Agile?
• Agile/Scrum Smells an initial catalog of common things that go wrong on Agile projects. It needs your help to make it better.
• Minimalist Coding Style when I sit down with you to pair, I'm likely to make some comments about your code – now you know what is going on my brain.
• Coaching Self Organizing Teams – one of the best sessions I attended at Agile 2008
• TDD Coding Dojo (Randori Format) our first attempt at a coding Dojo.
• Advantages of TDD
• TDD Coding Dojo (Randori Format) Round II – where we apply the lessons applied the first time.
• Scrum Case Studies – given the frequent requests I hear for Scrum Case Studies I gathered a bunch up.
• Misconceptions with Test Driven Development – sensing a theme? I hear a lot of objections saying TDD can't work in XXX case or it won't scale.

InfoQ

In a random order

• Can Product Owner and Scrum Master be Combined?
• Scrum Certification Test
• Kanban as Alternative Agile Implementation
• Rewards to Improve Team Habits?
• Performance Reviews Banished
• Questioning Servant Leadership
• Co-location Transition, Tips and Concerns
• What are the Qualities of a Good Test?
• Well Formed Teams: Helping Teams Thrive, not just Survive
• Touchy Feely Impediments to Agile Adoption

Google Analytics Picks

These prove that the world cares more about photography and vista woes than Agile Software Development. Obviously a list like this will favour older posts.

1. Aperture vs. Lightroom – best comparisons
2. Agile/Scrum Smells
3. Nikon D3 vs D300
4. Driver woes on Vista? Sonic Solutions DLA problem solved
5. Scrum in a Nutshell or 5 minutes to learn scrum BTW the presentation here is a little dated, it needs a good rewrite based on what I'm learning about changing brains.
6. Customer Retention Department – Vonage Customer Service Sucks
7. Scrum Case Studies
8. Lightroom Tip: How to Successfully Import your Photoshop Elements Catalog
9. Minimalist Coding Style
10. Writing Clean Testable Code
11. Multiple Returns from a Single Method

Because 11 is better than 10.

Finally just for pure ego's sake some stats for the year:

• 70,000+ page views this year
• 42,000+ visitors with half the visitors from three countries: US, UK and Canada
• 1250+ readers (according to feedburner and that doesn't the readers who found me through Agile Planet), up from ~450 on Jan 1.

Thanks for reading in 2008.

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