Agile Methodology News, Latest Updates and Recent Announcements on Techminis

A naukri.com initiative

New

Home

Agile Methodology News

Kanbanzone

198

Image Credit: Kanbanzone

The Montessori School of the Berkshires and its Journey Towards Efficiency with Kanban Zone

The Montessori School of the Berkshires aims to help children develop into self-disciplined individuals, led by Todd Covert.
Founded in 2006 by Todd and Meagan Ledendecker, it serves children from 15 months to eighth grade with 130+ students.
The school staff includes lead teachers, assistants, and administrators, focused on Montessori principles.
Todd Covert implemented Kanban to enhance administrative operations and communication among staff.
Kanban helped visualize tasks, promote shared leadership, and boost collaboration within the school.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kanban supported strategic planning and transparent communication.
Kanban Zone facilitated a more collaborative, transparent, and responsive educational environment at the school.
Features of Kanban Zone valued by Todd include flexibility, customizable workflow tracking, and enhanced reporting.
The school has positively impacted the community, producing successful graduates and thriving individuals.
The journey of The Montessori School of the Berkshires exemplifies the value of community and Montessori principles.

Read Full Article

11 Likes

Kanbanzone

114

Image Credit: Kanbanzone

Kanban for School Administration: How The Montessori School of the Berkshires Enhanced its Efficiency

The Montessori School of the Berkshires, led by school head Todd Covert, implemented Kanban to enhance efficiency and productivity.
The school, founded by Todd and Meagan Ledendecker, serves students from toddler age to eighth grade in a community fostering growth and learning.
With approximately 130+ students and 26 full-time staff, the school prides itself on providing a unique Montessori education in Massachusetts.
Inspired by Meagan's Montessori background, the school was established to bring Montessori principles to their local area.
Kanban helped Todd visualize tasks, promote shared leadership, and facilitate communication and collaboration among staff.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kanban aided in navigating uncertainties and fostering transparent communication with families and staff.
By integrating Kanban Zone, the school improved workflow management, strategy-to-tactics alignment, and reporting communication.
Top features valued by Todd include Kanban Zone's flexibility, customizable workflow tracking, and enhanced reporting capabilities.
The Montessori School's positive impact on the community is evident through successful graduates and workforce contributions over the years.
Continuing to uphold Montessori values, the school's administration, with Kanban Zone, strives to provide quality education and efficient operations.

Read Full Article

6 Likes

Scrum-Master-Toolbox

154

Marina Lazovic: How to Introduce Data-driven Decision Making to Skeptical Agile Teams

Marina Lazovic describes her experience introducing data-driven decision making to help teams improve their processes.
Starting with basic metrics like velocity, she gradually expanded to more sophisticated data points.
By examining why items were stuck and for how long, the team uncovered underlying issues they could address.
Marina emphasizes introducing data points naturally, sparking meaningful conversations and empowering teams to develop their own solutions.

Read Full Article

9 Likes

Testim.io

180

Image Credit: Testim.io

Test Automation Pyramid: A Simple Strategy for Your Tests

The test automation pyramid is a framework that guides developers in producing high-quality products and reducing time to detect breaking changes.
It consists of three levels: unit tests at the base, integration tests in the middle, and end-to-end tests at the top.
Unit tests focus on testing small components in isolation, while integration tests validate interactions with external components.
End-to-end tests ensure that the entire application functions correctly from front-end to back-end.
The test automation pyramid is crucial for providing immediate feedback to developers and improving the reliability of the test suite.
Test automation helps save time by automating test execution, preparation, and result reporting for software quality improvement.
Unit tests should run quickly, be written before code, and focus on various scenarios including happy path and error handling.
Integration tests validate interactions with external dependencies like databases and services, ensuring proper functionality.
End-to-end tests simulate user interactions to test the application as a whole, identifying issues with the entire system flow.
Following the test pyramid and best practices can enhance the efficiency of the testing process and quality of software development.
Using the test automation pyramid approach with proper planning, tool selection, clean code, and test integration can lead to faster feature shipping.

Read Full Article

10 Likes

Testim.io

127

Image Credit: Testim.io

Jest Testing: A Helpful, Introductory Tutorial

Jest is a popular test framework for JavaScript, initially created by Facebook for testing React applications.
It has gained popularity for testing both front-end and back-end JavaScript applications.
Unit testing is important for software quality, and Jest helps in verifying smallest parts of an application in isolation.
Jest offers a complete experience with features like zero configuration setup and a comprehensive CLI tool.
Advantages of Jest include easy test control, interactive mode, excellent documentation, and comprehensive mocking capabilities.
Jest's main characteristics include zero configuration setup, isolation of tests, snapshot testing, and a rich API.
To get started with Jest, you need to install it globally, create a project, add Jest as a dev dependency, write tests, and run them.
Jest's vocabulary includes mocks, spies, describe blocks, matchers, setup and teardown functions, and snapshot testing.
Mock functions in Jest help test the links between code, while spies track calls to object methods.
The Jest basics cover describe blocks, it/tests, matchers for assertions, setup/teardown functions, and snapshot testing for React front ends.

Read Full Article

7 Likes

Scrum-Master-Toolbox

Marina Lazovic: How Limiting Work-in-Progress Saved a Struggling Agile Team

A small team of three developers was struggling with multiple challenges, including persistent environment issues and a Product Owner pushing for delivery.
Under pressure, the team fell into the trap of working on too many things simultaneously, resulting in items staying perpetually 'in progress'.
Marina helped the team understand the value of limiting work-in-progress (WIP) through experimentation over several sprints, leading to increased completion rates.
Marina recommends 'The Five Dysfunctions of a Team' as an essential read for Scrum Masters to address team challenges.

Read Full Article

5 Likes

Scrum

Image Credit: Scrum

Invention vs Innovation: Do You Really Know the Difference?

Invention is about creating something entirely new, while innovation is about improving what already exists.
Invention: Thomas Edison inventing the light bulb.
Innovation: Apple refining user experience and revolutionizing mobile technology with the iPhone.
Innovation: Netflix transforming the entertainment industry with AI-driven recommendations and binge-watching.

Read Full Article

3 Likes

Scrum-Master-Toolbox

265

Marina Lazovic: When Nobody Expects the Scrum Master, Overcoming a Rocky Start in a Team New to Agile

Marina Lazovic shares her experience of joining a new Agile team as the Scrum Master.
She encountered a team that was not expecting her and did not fully understand her role.
She handled the situation by being patient, transparent, and not taking defensive reactions personally.
Marina emphasizes the importance of remaining calm and focused on building understanding in such situations.

Read Full Article

15 Likes

Medium

380

Image Credit: Medium

Why Hiring More Developers is the Biggest Mistake for Team’s Performance. Do This Instead.

Hiring more developers to improve team performance is a common mistake in the software industry.
Adding more developers to a low-performance project can make the situation worse.
Excessive working hours and unproductive environment led to the decision of hiring more developers.
Understanding team dynamics and avoiding blind hiring is crucial for effective project management.

Read Full Article

22 Likes

Medium

186

Image Credit: Medium

9 Ways to Undermine Team Autonomy

Leaders not trusting their team members undermines self-organization.
Trust is a prerequisite for successful self-organization.
Teams need to be cohesive and address various factors for successful self-organization.

Read Full Article

11 Likes

Testim.io

398

Image Credit: Testim.io

Unit Test a REST API? Everything You Need to Know

Unit testing is crucial for building apps that are easy to change, with automated tests ensuring the intended behavior is preserved during code changes.
Writing tests is important as it allows for continuous code improvement through refactoring and provides confidence in the codebase.
The three types of tests you should focus on are unit tests, integration tests, and end-to-end (UI) tests forming the test pyramid.
Unit tests verify small sections of code independently, focusing on specific functions like returning values, changing system states, or calling other functions.
Integration tests combine interconnected modules to test their interactions as a group, ensuring components work well together.
UI tests simulate real user actions and test the application as a whole, verifying it meets system requirements but are slower and more expensive.
Having a proper balance of unit, integration, and UI tests is essential for a robust testing strategy in software development.
Unit tests are fast, efficient, and good at pinpointing issues at the code level, while integration tests help in finding conflicts between components.
UI tests are useful for verifying the overall system functionality but should be complemented with more low-level tests for better agility.
In conclusion, a well-structured testing strategy involving unit, integration, and UI tests is key to ensuring the quality and reliability of a REST API.

Read Full Article

23 Likes

Testim.io

Image Credit: Testim.io

XPath vs CSS Selector: The Difference and How to Choose

The battle between XPath and CSS Selector often comes down to personal preference and the environment in which you are working.
XPath is a query language used for navigating elements in XML documents, allowing for flexibility and compatibility with older browsers.
XPath lets you navigate up the DOM and use 'contains' to search for elements when the element name is unknown.
Creating XPath involves identifying elements through a path structure in the XML document.
CSS Selector, based on cascading style sheets, is faster, easier to learn, and widely compatible across browsers.
CSS Selectors categorize elements based on class, ID, attributes, or states like hover effects.
Creating CSS Selectors involves specifying the elements and their hierarchy in a more readable format compared to XPath.
XPath is recommended when familiarity and compatibility are priorities, while CSS Selector is ideal for speed and simplicity.
External tools like Testim with AI capabilities are now simplifying test automation by handling element identification, reducing the focus on XPath vs. CSS Selector.
Using services like Testim enables faster product deployment by streamlining testing processes and allowing for quicker iteration based on test results.

Read Full Article

5 Likes

Hackernoon

110

Image Credit: Hackernoon

The Art of 'No': Navigating Stakeholder Expectations in Agile Teams

In agile teams, navigating stakeholder expectations is crucial, as stakeholders often want everything, posing a challenge for teams to prioritize effectively.
Balancing sprint goals with stakeholder requests requires strategic pushback to maintain focus and quality without being labeled a blocker.
Learning to say no without creating conflicts is essential in agile roles such as BA, PM, or Scrum Master.
Saying yes to all requests leads to missed deadlines, team exhaustion, and a cluttered product roadmap.
Utilizing the 'A.R.O' method (Align, Redirect, Offer) helps in managing stakeholder requests positively and productively.
Acknowledging stakeholder requests, redirecting focus to existing priorities, and providing alternative paths forward are key elements of effective pushback.
Handling difficult stakeholders involves understanding trade-offs, involving leadership in decision-making, and reinforcing agile principles to maintain project integrity.
Setting transparent roadmaps, using data for justification, and making prioritization a shared responsibility can facilitate smoother stakeholder interactions.
Agile BAs play a crucial role in decision-making and value protection, guiding stakeholders towards better decisions without rejecting ideas.
Strategic pushback not only earns respect from stakeholders and team members but also ensures that the right things are built at the right time.
Saying no in agile environments is about protecting value and steering stakeholders towards making informed decisions, ultimately benefiting the project outcomes.

Read Full Article

6 Likes

Scrum-Master-Toolbox

BONUS: Why Your Teams Really Resist Change, The Neuroscience of Leadership That Nobody Taught You With Andra Stefanescu

Andra Stefanescu, a leadership coach, delves into the challenges faced by leaders during transformations, emphasizing the importance of psychological safety and emotional intelligence.
Resistance and overwhelm are highlighted as major hurdles for leaders, with Andra advocating for a deeper understanding of team members' psychological needs to address resistance effectively.
The brain's natural resistance to change is discussed, illustrating how leaders must acknowledge their own fears before guiding others through transformations.
Middle managers often find themselves in a dilemma, caught between demands from upper management and resistance from their teams, leading to feelings of powerlessness.
Emotional intelligence is spotlighted as a crucial leadership skill, with Andra emphasizing the need for leaders to actively cultivate psychological safety within their teams.
Andra introduces the SCARF model for better leadership communication, focusing on key domains like Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness to meet team members' psychological needs.
Prioritizing connection before collaboration is recommended, as it helps build psychological safety and fosters long-term relationships crucial for effective leadership.
Andra encourages leaders to reflect on their communication approach to inspire followers and create environments where both leaders and teams thrive during transformations.
She suggests resources like 'Your Brain at Work' by Dr. David Rock for a deeper understanding of how change impacts the brain.
Andra Stefanescu specializes in brain-based leadership coaching, promoting psychological safety and team collaboration for meaningful growth in workplaces.

Read Full Article

5 Likes

Scrum

421

Image Credit: Scrum

Tired Of The “Start-Stop-Change” Retrospective?

Tired of the 'start-stop-change' Retrospective? Frustrated team members due to lack of value and focus.
Introducing 'Strategy Knotworking' for a more meaningful Retrospective.
Strategy Knotworking is an approach that helps teams develop strategies for challenges.
The format includes answering six core questions: purpose, baseline, context, challenges, ambition, and action & evaluation.

Read Full Article

25 Likes

For uninterrupted reading, download the app

Agile Methodology News

Discover more