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Johanna’s Books
Tag Archives: technical debt
How Short Can Your Iterations Be?
One of the problems many people encounter when moving to agile is that they (literally) cannot imagine iterations shorter than 4 weeks. I rarely recommend an iteration as long as 4 weeks now, and if people insist on 3 weeks, … Continue reading
Management Debt, Technical Debt, and Decision-Making
Dave and Bob have great comments on my post, Might Three Backlogs Be Better Than One?. Dave is describing situations where management is making reasonable decisions, not incurring management debt, and by extension, technical debt. Bob and I have experience … Continue reading
Might Three Backlogs Be Better Than One?
I’ve been working with several clients on their transition to agile approaches to their projects. They all have a common state: Many features to implement Huge technical debt Many defects They want to get a handle on all the work … Continue reading
Expressing Technical Debt as User Stories Helps with ROI
I’m not a fan of ROI (Return on Investment) measures for software, except in the case where you have waste. Several of my clients have huge technical debt which creates waste for the development staff (not just developers, anyone involved … Continue reading
Musings About Management Debt
I’m editing the project portfolio book. Yes, I’m trying to get ready for beta. No, I have no idea when I will be ready. I’ll have more information before Wednesday, if you want to know. I realized that when managers … Continue reading
Posted in portfolio management
Tagged management, management debt, project portfolio management, technical debt
7 Comments
Is Your Product Development Half-Actions?
Via Jack Vinson, I found this gem: Stop doing half-actions. All of you who are separating your developers from your testers? You are doing half-actions. Separating the writers from the developers and testers? Half actions there, too. Even when you … Continue reading
Make Technical Debt Visible
Some folks have told me in their agile projects that they are able to deal with technical debt as they find it. They are a lucky few. But more have been stumped: “I find something. I really can’t fix it … Continue reading
What Does Done Mean for Your Project?
One of the problems I see in projects is that there is not a sufficient definition of done. For agile teams, it’s not clear what done means for a timebox. For non-agile projects, the team may not agree on what … Continue reading
Posted in agile
Tagged project management, project success, release criteria, technical debt, timebox
5 Comments
When Requirements Spawn Requirements
A colleague asked me what to do when you’re in an iteration and you realize that the story you’re working on spawns other requirements. I suggested that the person add them to the product backlog (the backlog of everything … Continue reading
Posted in requirements
Tagged agile, feedback, iterative planning, project team, technical debt, transition to agile
1 Comment
Paying Off Technical Debt
I’ve had technical debt on my mind recently, so I’ve been writing about it. This week, the good folks at Stickyminds published my column, An Incremental Technique to Pay Off Testing Technical Debt. Enjoy!
