Inspect and Adapt

Total Project Quality, Construx's course on how to insert quality throughout a work effort, hasn't always gotten the traction it deserves. Why not? In this podcast, we examine the subject of quality and our (perhaps poorly-named) Total Project Quality seminar. Join Construx's Steve Tockey, Earl Beede, and Mark Griffin as they Inspect & Adapt the Total Project Quality course, the topic of quality in general, and the practical things you can do to improve quality and efficiency on your projects.

Earl Beede, a Senior Fellow at Construx and a software development expert, joins the discussion to shed light on team dynamics in software development. The conversation covers the vital distinctions between cohesive agile teams and simply collaborative groups. Strategies for optimizing team organization include time chunking and cross-training to promote efficiency. Earl emphasizes the importance of effective leadership and decision-making in empowering teams, while also stressing the need for trust and communication to enhance overall productivity.

How should you spend your always-limited testing resources? Is one part of the product more important to test than another? Construx's Steve Tockey and Earl Beede join host Mark Griffin in looking at one approach to answering those questions: risk-based testing. Steve and Earl look at how to do risk-based testing along with its pros and cons.

In an earlier webinar, Construx's Earl Beede took on many organizations that create product visions with phrases like, be the world's best ‘x’ or dazzle our customers. Not bad ideas but pretty much worthless in helping you make day-to-day decisions on what work is the most important for your business. This is a follow-up, with Earl and Mark Griffin delving a bit deeper into some of the questions that came up during the webinar.You can find the webinar here: https://youtu.be/yVA-k6aWE0k

Construx welcomes Onorio Catenacci to the microphone to ask questions about software development that continue to puzzle him and perhaps to see whether Construx has the answers. Join Contrux's Mark Griffin and Steve Tockey to see if they can give sound, helpful, and actionable answers to Onorio's questions—and find out whether Onorio can stump Construx!

Construx's Jenny Stuart is retiring from the software industry, and we will miss her! In this podcast, Jenny Stuart looks back on her three decades in the software industry and shares stories and wins from her long career. Joining Jenny are three of her Construx work companions for the last 20 years, Mark Griffin, Steve Tockey, and Earl Beede.

Join experts Earl Beede, a Senior Fellow at Construx, Jenny Stuart, VP of Consulting, and Steve Tockey, Principal Consultant, as they dive into the fascinating Cynefin Framework. They explore its application in software development, highlighting how this sense-making tool helps navigate complex problems. With insights on user-centric ROI and the challenges of disruptive tech, they emphasize the importance of understanding user needs. The trio also discusses key decision-making strategies for Agile teams, ensuring efficiency and clarity in project management.

Most folks know that the product owner, scrum master, and developers make up the Scrum team, but did you know that these roles are also an accountability triad critical to scaling? In episode #52 of our Inspect & Adapt podcast, Construx’s Earl Beede and Jenny Stuart define the triad and describe its role in scaling agile. Earl and Jenny focus on how each abstraction level in a scaled agile deployment replicates the triad while maintaining the single point of truth (SPOT) rule for that level. They also identify some common pitfalls when the triad is not implemented well and help you see how the triad is a critical tool for your agility.

To be a professional usually means a commitment to ongoing professional development. Doctors, engineers, nurses, accountants, and teachers all require periodic training to maintain their professional status, but what constitutes professional development in software? Can we consider ourselves professional without it? The Construx team will look into the state of professional development in software and give their assessment.

Earl Beattie, a senior fellow at Construx with a wealth of experience in Agile methodologies, and Jenny Stewart, VP of Consulting at Construx, dive into the pivotal role of the product owner in software development. They discuss the complexities of staffing this role, emphasizing the balance between technical skills and business insight. The duo shares insights on navigating role transitions within Agile frameworks and highlights the importance of effective communication and trust in remote teams to foster collaboration. Their expertise provides practical strategies for optimizing product owner staffing.