Top Software Development Quotes

Scrum is like your mother-in-law , it points out all your faults – Anonymous

One test is worth a thousand expert opinions . Bill Nye The Science Guy

As we’ve grown, we need to focus on scale and on large engagements and those are only possible with Agile–there’s no other way. – Anonymous

If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful. – Jeff Bezos

Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower – Steve Jobs

It’s Kind of fun to do THE IMPOSSIBLE – Walt Disney

Defacts are not free. Somebody makes them, and gets paid for making them . – W.E.Deming

The best way to get a project done faster is to start sooner . – Jim Highsmith

Even the best planning is not so omniscient as to get it right the first time. – Fred Brooks

Before software can be reusable it first has to be usable. – Ralph Johnson

Inside every large program, there is a small program trying to get out. – C.A.R. Hoare

Everyone has a plan: until they get punched in the face. – Mike Tyson

A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow. – Proverb

Running a project without a WBS is like going to a strange land without a roadmap. – J. Phillips

If, on your team, everyone’s input is not encouraged, valued, and welcome, why call it a team? – Woody Williams

Project management is like juggling three balls – time, cost and quality. Program management is like a troupe of circus performers standing in a circle, each juggling-three balls and swapping balls from time to time. – G. Reiss

Rewards and motivation are an oil change for project engines. Do it regularly and often. – Woody Williams

Nobody knows how Honda is organized, except that it uses lots of project teams and is quite flexible. – Kenichi Ommae

You can copy structures, methods, rules, etc from another org. You can’t copy their culture though. – Martin Jensen

I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate. – Jeff Bezos

It’s not fail fast, fail often. It’s learn fast learn often. – Anonymous

Solve only the problems you have, not the ones you think you are going to have. – Anonymous

The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic. – Peter Drucker

Top Agile / Scrum Project Management Books

Agile increases quality and decreases time to market but incorrectly implemented Agile will not bring the expected benefit or even can make things worse.

These are some books which helped us understand and implement Agile and Scrum .

 

 

1 .Succeeding with Agile : Software Development Using Scrum – Mike Cohn

This is the definitive, realistic, actionable guide to starting fast with Scrum and agile–and then succeeding over the long haul. Leading agile consultant and practitioner Mike Cohn presents detailed recommendations, powerful tips, and real-world case studies drawn from his unparalleled experience helping hundreds of software organizations make Scrum and agile work.

Succeeding with Agile is for pragmatic software professionals who want real answers to the most difficult challenges they face in implementing Scrum. Cohn covers every facet of the transition: getting started, helping individuals transition to new roles, structuring teams, scaling up, working with a distributed team, and finally, implementing effective metrics and continuous improvement.

Throughout, Cohn presents “Things to Try Now” sections based on his most successful advice. Complementary “Objection” sections reproduce typical conversations with those resisting change and offer practical guidance for addressing their concerns. Coverage includes

• Practical ways to get started immediately–and “get good” fast
• Overcoming individual resistance to the changes Scrum requires
• Staffing Scrum projects and building effective teams
• Establishing “improvement communities” of people who are passionate about driving change
• Choosing which agile technical practices to use or experiment with
• Leading self-organizing teams
• Making the most of Scrum sprints, planning, and quality techniques
• Scaling Scrum to distributed, multiteam projects
• Using Scrum on projects with complex sequential processes or challenging compliance and governance requirements
• Understanding Scrum’s impact on HR, facilities, and project management

Whether you’ve completed a few sprints or multiple agile projects and whatever your role–manager, developer, coach, ScrumMaster, product owner, analyst, team lead, or project lead–this book will help you succeed with your very next project. Then, it will help you go much further: It will help you transform your entire development organization.

 

 

2 . Agile Project Management with Scrum – Ken Schwaber

The rules and practices for Scrum—a simple process for managing complex projects—are few, straightforward, and easy to learn. But Scrum’s simplicity itself—its lack of prescription—can be disarming, and new practitioners often find themselves reverting to old project management habits and tools and yielding lesser results. In this illuminating series of case studies, Scrum co-creator and evangelist Ken Schwaber identifies the real-world lessons—the successes and failures—culled from his years of experience coaching companies in agile project management. Through them, you’ll understand how to use Scrum to solve complex problems and drive better results—delivering more valuable software faster.
Gain the foundation in Scrum theory—and practice—you need to:

• Rein in even the most complex, unwieldy projects
• Effectively manage unknown or changing product requirements
• Simplify the chain of command with self-managing development teams
• Receive clearer specifications—and feedback—from customers
• Greatly reduce project planning time and required tools
• Build—and release—products in 30-day cycles so clients get deliverables earlier
• Avoid missteps by regularly inspecting, reporting on, and fine-tuning projects
• Support multiple teams working on a large-scale project from many geographic locations
• Maximize return on investment!

 

 

3 . The Elements of Scrum – Chris Sims

The Elements of Scrum has gained an international following and a reputation for being perhaps the only book on software development that reads like a page-turner. Written by Chris Sims, a top scrum trainer and pioneer of experiential learning, and Hillary Louise Johnson, a novelist and business journalist, it demonstrates the principles, practices and pitfalls of the scrum framework through lively storytelling and vividly told example.

The Elements of Scrum opens with a blow-by-blow description of a week in the life of a scrum team, then briefly details the history and origins of scrum, comparing it to traditional methodologies and providing context for how scrum applies to the cultural history of the software industry. Next, the principles and practices set forth in the Agile Manifesto are broken down and illustrated with real-world examples, putting the reader inside the heads of the founders of scrum and agile for a thorough grounding in theory.

The meat of the book explains every aspect of the scrum process, including team composition, scheduling and work flow management, in crisp, clear, example-laden prose designed to provide insight to novices and experienced practitioners alike.

The book concludes with a section on supporting technical practices like Test Driven Development and Pair Programming, to help the reader apply scrum at the practical level.

The Elements of Scrum is taught at colleges and universities across the country, including UCLA, George Mason University, Arizona State, SUNY Potsdam, Wofford College, and Becker College. It has been translated into Mandarin, and is soon to appear in other international editions.

 

 

 

4 . The Art of Agile Development – James Shore

The Art of Agile Development contains practical guidance for anyone considering or applying agile development for building valuable software. Plenty of books describe what agile development is or why it helps software projects succeed, but very few combine information for developers, managers, testers, and customers into a single package that they can apply directly.

This book provides no-nonsense advice on agile planning, development, delivery, and management taken from the authors’ many years of experience with Extreme Programming (XP). You get a gestalt view of the agile development process, including comprehensive guidance for non-technical readers and hands-on technical practices for developers and testers.

The Art of Agile Development gives you clear answers to questions such as:

• How can we adopt agile development?
• Do we really need to pair program?
• What metrics should we report?
• What if I can’t get my customer to participate?
• How much documentation should we write?
• When do we design and architect?
• As a non-developer, how should I work with my agile team?
• Where is my product roadmap?
• How does QA fit in?

The book teaches you how to adopt XP practices, describes each practice in detail, then discusses principles that will allow you to modify XP and create your own agile method. In particular, this book tackles the difficult aspects of agile development: the need for cooperation and trust among team members.

Whether you’re currently part of an agile team, working with an agile team, or interested in agile development, this book provides the practical tips you need to start practicing agile development. As your experience grows, the book will grow with you, providing exercises and information that will teach you first to understand the rules of agile development, break them, and ultimately abandon rules altogether as you master the art of agile development.

“Jim Shore and Shane Warden expertly explain the practices and benefits of Extreme Programming. They offer advice from their real-world experiences in leading teams. They answer questions about the practices and show contraindications – ways that a practice may be mis-applied. They offer alternatives you can try if there are impediments to applying a practice, such as the lack of an on-site customer.

–Ken Pugh, Author of Jolt Award Winner, Prefactoring

“I will leave a copy of this book with every team I visit.”

–Brian Marick, Exampler Consulting

 

 

 

5 . Agile Software Development , Principles , Patterns and Practices  –  Robert C.Martin 

Written by a software developer for software developers, this book is a unique collection of the latest software development methods. The author includes OOD, UML, Design Patterns, Agile and XP methods with a detailed description of a complete software design for reusable programs in C++ and Java. Using a practical, problem-solving approach, it shows how to develop an object-oriented application—from the early stages of analysis, through the low-level design and into the implementation. Walks readers through the designer’s thoughts — showing the errors, blind alleys, and creative insights that occur throughout the software design process. The book covers: Statics and Dynamics; Principles of Class Design; Complexity Management; Principles of Package Design; Analysis and Design; Patterns and Paradigm Crossings. Explains the principles of OOD, one by one, and then demonstrates them with numerous examples, completely worked-through designs, and case studies. Covers traps, pitfalls, and work arounds in the application of C++ and OOD and then shows how Agile methods can be used. Discusses the methods for designing and developing big software in detail. Features a three-chapter, in-depth, single case study of a building security system. For Software Engineers, Programmers, and Analysts who want to understand how to design object oriented software with state of the art methods.

 

Traditional Project Management Software vs Agile Project Management Software

Traditional Project Management

In traditional project management processes are sequential. Once deadlines are set you manage the project by seeing the tasks and comparing when the work was done vs the when it was supposed to be done. So project manager’s job is to make sure that all the activities are meeting their deadlines. Project manager prefer to create Work Break Down Structure (WBS) for the work that need to be delivered, using WBS PM not only divide the work into deliverable but also create activities need to be performed by resources. Other tools PM uses are following.

– Cost-benefit-analysis

– Gantt charts

– Value-benefit-analysis

– Risk Register

etc.

 

Agile Project Management

In Agile Project management, project is divided into small 1-4 week iterations. Team select specific work to be performed during an iteration. PM keeps track of the progress of the iteration in terms of work done during the interaction. In agile requirements are named as stories and each story is given a certain weight called point based on the difficulty, complexity or dependency of the Requirements. PM needs to have tools to figure out how many story points are being completed during the iteration (sprint). For that PM keep track of the velocity of the sprint . Velocity is calculated using average work completed by the team during iterations. Every sprint has a burn-down or burn-up chart which shows how many story points were completed during a specific sprint.

 

Some Famous Project Management Software 

– Microsoft Projects

– Atlassian

– HP Project Portfolio Management

– Pivotal Tracker

– RallyDev

– Yodiz

– Version One

What is agile software development methodology ?

Agile is a software development methodology that instead of sequential waterfall like approach uses iterative and incremental approach to manage projects.

Agile is best suited for the project where requirements are not fully known at the start of the project but evolve as project progresses. As is the case with many, if not, most of the IT projects, requirements changes rather quickly because of customer needs, market demands or some other factors which makes agile ideal methodology to run the projects. Agile handles uncertainty and change by creating and presenting working product to the customer in short and frequent intervals called iterations or sprints.

Contrary to Waterfall where change is not always welcomed, agile welcomes change and provide an adaptive framework to deal with the change. Agile also empowers by letting team members choose their own tasks. Agile comes into different flavor to manage project methodologies such as Scrum, XP, FDD, Dynamic System Development Method (DSDM) and Kanban. Scrum is the most famous and widely used agile methodology.

In agile methodology, Project managers role change from authorities and controlling figure to more of a collaborating figure, where PM does not dictate teams to what to perform and how to perform rather PM acts as a servant leader who keeps track of the project, removes the impediments and is responsible to hold activities and meetings that in return help to keep project progress in check. In agile environment, teams are more empowered. Team members choose their work give estimate to complete the work themselves. PM still manage and keep track of the progress of the project and act as a facilitator to the team.

Famous Agile Project Management Software 

1 – Pivotal Tracker 

2 – Rally Dev

3 – Yodiz

4 – Jira Agile

5 – Version One