Author Johanna Rothmann discusses the use of inch-pebbles to breakdown tasks into smaller components to reduce risk in this article.

Kathy Iberle back in 2003 released this article on perspectives of quality and how practices for quality revolve around those perspectives. Kathy describes the different cultures found in the software industry and how each culture works on quality.

Ever wonder how Agile and CMMi could fit together? Aren’t these two ideas overlapping and in conflict with each other? Matt Gelbwaks describes how Agile and CMMi can actually be complimentary to each other in this artcle.

The Architecture Journal has an article by Mario Cardinal about how to test your infrastructure with automation. This article describes how automated tests document the design in an unambiguous way creating a more maintainable system.

Jeff Sutherland, co-creator of Scrum, has a couple of thought provoking articles on time tracking and the waste it generates for software teams here and here. No punches are pulled and the articles take an entirely different approach than the standard time tracking line that most organizations work within today.

Establishing a team’s ability to delivery a steady flow of valuable features to their customer may take time. Jean Tabaka describes some of the roadblocks to establishing flow and ideas on how flow works in this article.

It is great to see some good writings on managing risk that incorporate some interesting historical information, characters, and story lines. Tom Scott has done this in three articles: “Hudson Bay Start”, “Nature doesn’t design upfront, nor should software engineers”, and “Scrummaging for unk unks”.

Ever wonder how a team works with a person in the organization that has been a champion in the past before we moved to a more team-based methodology such as Scrum or Extreme Programming (XP)? Mitch Lacey discusses an option in this article.

Esther Derby describes viewpoints on the use of annual or quarterly performance appraisals, their intent, and ideas on how a ScrumMaster and manager may provide more effective feedback to team members. Please see “Should a ScrumMaster give Performance Appraisals?” and “Performance without Appraisal” articles on the AYE web site.

Jim Highsmith, author of Agile Project Management, describes how performance management systems can affect an organization’s adoption of Agile techniques. One line in this article, “Our traditional project management and budgeting performance management systems were designed to measure conformance to plan (or budget), not adaptability. These systems need to change—not just at the project management level but throughout the organization” gives just a taste about what is contained.