It is remarkable how many people are under the false assumption that companies are either innovative or not. This is a very polarizing and simplistic perspective that does not take into account the different types of innovations that companies can and do pursue. For this post, let’s break down innovation into two dimensions: Technology and […]
Topic: Software Development
Exploring Exploratory Testing
June 22, 2015 by 2 Comments
Exploratory testing (ET) is both conceptually familiar and technically foreign: The idea is widely used – in some form or another – yet the discipline isn’t widely studied. ET can summarily be described as concurrent learning, test design and test execution and while that, to some, may insinuate sloppiness, immeasurability and ambiguity; ET is as […]
Our SCRUM Metrics
June 17, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Here we are, rolling out SCRUM across our teams, having teams practice the process and deliver customer value. We needed to figure out a simple way to measure the effectiveness of our rollout. Measuring the effectiveness has two parts: Part 1 How effective were we in changing team behaviors, making our team members and product […]
SCRUM – It’s the Team and Teamwork
May 18, 2015 by Leave a Comment
As we have continued to rollout SCRUM into our organization I have been reminded how important team behaviors are for the success of SCRUM teams. It seems so simple at 50,000 feet. We employ great engineers; they are all nice people, why won’t this just work? The reality is something far more difficult to achieve. […]
Innovators At Work
March 30, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Given half a chance, anyone can innovate. With the right opportunity, anyone has the ability to make a difference. Whether an idea means to benefit themselves or their companies, they are important. Our team at Constant Contact helps colleagues flex their idea muscles at “Innovation Jams.” InnoJams give employees an opportunity to step away from […]
Design Sprints at Constant Contact
March 2, 2015 by 2 Comments
For the past two years, we have been running design sprints here at Constant Contact. Design sprints are a 5-step process for solving discrete business problems through design and prototyping that end with user testing. Our innovation team works with different areas of the organization in a consultative capacity to facilitate design sprints for many […]
SCRUM and RACI
February 18, 2015 by 1 Comment
As we have been putting SCRUM into the organization, it has me thinking about how to help the teams understand roles and responsibilities in the new SCRUM formation. We use RACI (defined below) internally to help dictate everyone’s understanding of who makes which decisions and why. One of the best articles on the subjects of […]
How to Monetize Your Mobile App
February 9, 2015 by 1 Comment
Mobile application development has grown tremendously over the last few years. Building an app can be a very satisfying endeavor, as you will be able to help people accomplish their goals more efficiently. In addition, you can obtain new customers for your business, which can result in a substantial increase in revenue. But if you’re […]
Losing the Trees through the Forest
February 5, 2015 by Leave a Comment
I have written a number of articles for this blog about our adoption of the SAFe framework for scaling Agile. However, it became obvious in late 2014 that we had a fundamental problem. No matter how well we did release planning, epic prioritization, or release trains, it wasn’t getting us where we need to go. […]
Using JSON Schema to Validate Web Service Requests
February 4, 2015 by 1 Comment
Validating input is one of those programming necessities that we sometimes like to put off. In fact it is much easier to take on faith that the input is correct than to spend many lines-of-code trying to guard against all the ways the input can be wrong. This leap-of-faith approach may make coding faster and […]