Agile Business Change Blog

MAY

The Importance of Business Agility

16 MAY 2012 | Posted in agility, business strategy, IT strategy | Author Alex McLachlan

Today's highly competitive and rapidly changing markets that see the rise and fall of the likes of Nokia and MySpace places business imperatives on companies. In particular, companies need to be innovative, introducing new products, updating others to react to changes in the market (or predicting or even creating these market changes).

MAY

HTML5 in the Headlines

08 MAY 2012 | Posted in HTML5, internet, semantic web, web 3.0 | Author Alex McLachlan

It's not often that a technical subject like HTML5 hits the headlines, so I was interested to see that a BBC article "HTML5 takes the internet by storm" was in today's top 10 most read articles.

HTML5 will include a number of new features such as video and dynamic graphics allowing animation without Flash plug-ins and semantic web mark-up.

MAY

Likes Delayed Trains

08 MAY 2012 | Posted in planning | Author John Wright

I set out this morning with a specific plan, a specific goal. The 516 from Bishops Stortford, the 645 from Paddington, at work in Cardiff for 9.

Well, for those who commute regularly, it's been one of those days! So far nothing has gone to plan. I find myself in a different place at a different time.

APR

What's in a Story (Part 2)?

27 APR 2012 | Posted in agile value, incremental process, story | Author James Yoxall

In a previous blog I raised some objections to the acronym INVEST, a widely-used definition of what a good story should be. In this post I introduce the alternative acronym that we use: VISIT. But more importantly I provide a concrete and rigorous definition of a story.

The acronym VISIT stands for:

APR

Am I Agile?

26 APR 2012 | Posted in Agile basics, Agile FAQ | Author Michael Robinson

I've had the pleasure of introducing Agile and its RAD/JAD predecessors into a number of projects over the last 20 years. Today, the questions I hear from clients in the early stages of adoption are much the same as they always have been, but they are framed differently. I think this reflects that Agile has entered the mainstream of business thinking, and the questions are now coloured by expectations set as a result of reading books, seeing presentations and meeting practitioners.

APR

Head in the Clouds?

26 APR 2012 | Posted in business value, cloud computing | Author Rob Newman

The launch of Google Drive this week (Google’s cloud storage offering) has generated a lot of interest and comparisons with other cloud storage providers such as DropBox, Microsoft’s SkyDrive, and Apple’s iCloud. Some of the blogs and news articles, such as one by the Guardian, have focussed on showing the cost structures of each of the offerings and on wondering how well Google will be able to compete against the more established service providers.

APR

Crossing the Chasm

25 APR 2012 | Posted in ADAPT, agile adoption, agility | Author John Wright |

1 Comment

Ok, so its probably an over-used senior management phrase, but I can't help but think adopting Agile is a bit like starting up and growing your own business.

APR

New Microsoft Dynamics CRM Features

25 APR 2012 | Posted in CRM, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, social CRM, testing | Author Alex McLachlan

Microsoft's recently announced Q2 2012 service release of Dynamics CRM 2012 will have some very interesting features, including mobile access, multi-browser support and industry templates.

APR

Achieving the impossible? NFT in early sprints

24 APR 2012 | Posted in nft, testing | Author Stan Wade

Doing non functional testing early in a project has obvious advantages. It’s also a challenge of course to be able to get meaningful outputs based on the current state of the project. This has created an interesting issue on several projects that I am currently working on.

OK, so let’s be more specific here. I was initially looking specifically at performance issues and not looking at stress/load, security and soak testing and any other NFT issues we could discuss.

APR

When is the Cloud Right for You?

18 APR 2012 | Posted in business strategy, business value, cloud computing | Author Alex McLachlan

The Cloud is a huge opportunity for organisations to improve speed to market, provide operational resilience and increase value for money. However, there are complexities that need to be considered and you need to be careful to select a solution that is appropriate for your business.