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10 Deadly Sins of Software Estimation
The worst ways estimates go wrong, plus time-tested rules of thumb for dramatically improving estimation accuracy.
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10 Keys to Successful Scrum Adoption
The keys to successful Scrum adoption that we've identified during our consulting and training work with clients.
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10 Pitfalls of Enterprise Agile Adoption
The pitfalls organizations commonly experience as they adopt Agile throughout their enterprise.
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20 Years is Enough! It's Time to Update the Agile Principles and Values
Learn why the Agile principles and values need updating to remain relevant.
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5 Common Gaps in Scrum Adoptions
Many teams encounter a consistent set of challenges with Scrum because of these gaps in their Scrum adoption.
Learn more →
5 Misconceptions About Kanban
Some organizations aren't using Kanban because of these misconceptions, but many would be well served by some use of Kanban.
Learn more →
6 Mistakes That Sabotage Scrum Adoptions
How can you avoid Scrum implementation mistakes and achieve the full benefits of Scrum?
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6 Things Every Software Executive Should Know About Scrum
The success (or failure) of Scrum is all in how it’s adopted.
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7 Diagrams Every Software Professional Should Understand
Key insights into how to acquire “professional judgment” in software development.
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7 Unbreakable Rules of Software Leadership
Crucial rules that lead software executives from satisfactory to superior.
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8 Principles of 10x Development
What makes one software development team far more productive than another?
Learn more →
Agile Estimation: Key Principles and Practices
Key principles and practices for effective Agile project estimating and planning.
Learn more →
Agile Scaling Frameworks
Key insights about choosing an Agile scaling framework that is the right fit for your organization.
Learn more →
Balanced Solutions with the Three-Circle Model
Creating solutions to customer problems involves balancing three perspectives: business, usage, and technology.
Learn more →
Blended Learning for Software Professionals
The choice of training modalities does not have to be an either/or choice.
Learn more →
Business Case for Better Software Practices
Improved software practices offer ROIs of 500% or even significantly more in many cases!
Learn more →
Case Studies in Software Engineering Judgment
Sound professional judgment is key to diagnosing past failures and creating future successes.
Learn more →
Cone of Uncertainty - Poster
All software projects are subject to inherent errors in early estimates.
Learn more →
Cost of Estimation Error - Poster
Skillful project planners strive for accurate estimates, and they especially strive to avoid underestimating.
Learn more →
Economics of Nonfunctional Quality of Service Requirements
Nonfunctional “quality of service” requirements specify how well the software is expected to perform.
Learn more →
Effective Test-Driven Development
Learn more →
Establishing a Measurement Program
As a measurement program is established, the organization must first determine its specific improvement goals.
Learn more →
How to Engineer Software, Part 1: Semantic Models
Learn more →
How to Engineer Software, Part 2: A Deeper Dive into Semantic Models
Learn more →
How to Engineer Software, Part 3: Designing and Coding from Semantic Models
Learn more →
How to Engineer Software, Part 4: Low-Code Application Development Using Executable Semantic Models
Learn more →
Making Change Stick
Learn the techniques that help organizations successfully introduce and support change.
Learn more →
Managing Technical Debt
"Technical debt" refers to delayed technical work that is incurred when technical shortcuts are taken.
Learn more →
Managing Technical Debt
Insights into using technical debt strategically and keeping technical and business staff involved in the process.
Learn more →
Overcoming Common Scaling Dysfunctions
Learn more →
Recording: Epic-Feature-Story-Task! What?
Learn more →
Retrofitting Legacy Systems with Unit Tests
Many companies have existing systems with little to no current unit testing. What response makes sense?
Learn more →
Right-Sizing Agile Development
Learn how to right-size agile development for your organization.
Learn more →
Scrum Is - Poster
Scrum is an Agile project management process wrapper with...
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Secrets of the Agile Scaling Gurus
Learn the secrets to succeeding with Agile development on large projects.
Learn more →
Secrets of World-Class Software Organizations
Learn how world-class software organizations operate differently than average organizations.
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Software Development's Classic Mistakes
Software development's classic mistakes are still occurring on software projects.
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Software Development's Cone of Uncertainty
The "Cone of Uncertainty" is a model for understanding estimation uncertainty in software projects.
Learn more →
Software Development's Defect Cost Increase Curve - Poster
Studies have repeatedly shown that it pays to remove defects early.
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Software Estimation in an Agile World
Common impediments to estimation on Agile projects, plus key practices that lead to estimation providing far better results.
Learn more →
Solving the Mystery of Innovation in Tech Orgs
Targeted practices based on well-established principles of human behavior can significantly increase your organization's innovation.
Learn more →
Staffing Scrum Roles
The Scrum roles, critical attributes needed to be successful in the roles, and best practices for staffing the roles.
Learn more →
Succeeding with Geographically Distributed Scrum
The coordination, communication, integration, and architectural work necessary for geographically distributed Scrum.
Learn more →
The 10 Most Deadly Mistakes in Software Development - Poster
An illustration of the 10 most common mistakes that lead to software project failure.
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The Agile Boundary
Creating solutions to customer problems involves balancing three perspectives: business, usage, and technology.
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The Business Case for Better Software Practices
An average software company spends 2–3 times more on each software project than a best-in-class company spends.
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The Cone of Uncertainty
How much of a factor is the Cone and how does it affect both Agile and sequential projects?
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The Journey to Organization-Wide Scrum
How can you realize the full benefits of Scrum in larger teams, geographically distributed teams, and more complex organizations?
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The Scrum Spider Chart
Are your Scrum practices a real Frankenstein of parts?
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The Scrum Wall: An Agile Project Dashboard - Poster
A Scrum wall drives collaboration, shares information, shows progress, and highlights impediments.
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Value-Driven Delivery
Learn the most compelling way to structure and sequence work when creating solutions.
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WFH in the Age of Coronavirus
Learn lessons for today and tomorrow about WFH during the coronavirus pandemic.
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WFH in the Age of Coronavirus: Infographic
How has work changed due to the coronavirus pandemic?
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Why Metrics Programs Fail
Our recommendations for the implementation of successful software metrics programs.
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10 Deadly Sins of Software Estimation

RESOURCE: WEBINAR

10 Deadly Sins of Software Estimation

The average project overruns its planned budget and schedule by 50–80 percent. In practice, little work is done that could truly be called “estimation.” Many projects are scheduled using a combination of legitimate business targets and liberal doses of wishful thinking. In this presentation, award-winning author Steve McConnell presents 10 of the worst ways estimates go wrong and time-tested rules of thumb for dramatically improving estimation accuracy.

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10 Keys to Successful Scrum Adoption

RESOURCE: WHITE PAPER

10 Keys to Successful Scrum Adoption

Scrum is the most common approach to Agile in the industry today. While Scrum has core principles that must be implemented to effectively adopt the approach, there are a number of ways that it can and should be modified and expanded to support the unique needs of individual software development organizations. From our work with hundreds of organizations to implement Agile approaches including Scrum, Construx has identified 10 keys that help an organization identify the changes necessary to ensure that Scrum meets its unique needs, goals, and challenges.

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10 Pitfalls of Enterprise Agile Adoption

RESOURCE: WHITE PAPER

10 Pitfalls of Enterprise Agile Adoption

While many individual teams have transitioned successfully from traditional software development methodologies to Agile, larger organizations struggle with successful adoption across the enterprise. This white paper discusses 10 pitfalls Construx commonly finds in organizations seeking to adopt Agile throughout their enterprise.

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20 Years is Enough! It’s Time to Update the Agile Principles and Values

RESOURCE: WEBINAR

20 Years is Enough!

This half-hour webinar focuses on the very basis of Agile: its principles and values. Join Construx founder Steve McConnell as he, in the spirit of the Agile principle of inspecting and adapting, explains why these principles and values need to be updated.

You’ll hear a quick recap of Agile’s beginnings, what was happening in software development when people got together at that Snowbird conference: primarily code & fix and the SW-CMM (Software-Capability Maturity Model). Steve then describes the current non-agile institutionalization of Agile, working one by one through the Agile values and principles to describe their relevance and lack of relevance to today’s software development practices and culture.

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5 Common Gaps in Scrum Adoptions

RESOURCE: WHITE PAPER

5 Common Gaps in Scrum Adoptions

Scrum is the most widely used Agile framework in the software development industry today. One of Scrum’s advantages is that it provides a significant amount of structure. The framework includes specific roles, events, and artifacts that work together. It aspires to transparency, self-empowerment, and empirical process control. In our work with organizations across a diverse set of industries, Construx finds that many teams encounter a consistent set of challenges with Scrum due to similar gaps in their Scrum adoption. This paper describes those gaps and shares resources that will help you address them.

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5 Misconceptions About Kanban

RESOURCE: WHITE PAPER

5 Misconceptions About Kanban

Although Scrum continues to be the predominant Agile methodology in the industry, Kanban can also be a great fit for teams and organizations. Construx finds many organizations who are not using Kanban because of some common misconceptions about it. This white paper explores those misconceptions so you can better understand what role Kanban might play in your organization. From use as the primary methodology to targeted use for specific teams, most organizations would be well served by some use of Kanban.

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6 Mistakes That Sabotage Scrum Adoptions

RESOURCE: WEBINAR

6 Mistakes That Sabotage Scrum Adoptions

Seventy five percent of organizations using Scrum are not realizing the full potential of their Scrum adoptions. How can you achieve the benefits of Scrum? In this 1-hour webinar, John Clifford shares lessons learned from extensive Agile implementation work to help you plan and navigate a successful Scrum adoption.

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6 Things Every Software Executive Should Know About Scrum

RESOURCE: WHITE PAPER

6 Things Every Software Executive Should Know About Scrum

Scrum is the most commonly adopted Agile approach in the software industry today. This paper explores six important things software executives should understand when their organization is considering adopting the scrum framework or improving their current adoption. It includes information about what Scrum can and cannot provide and advice on executive considerations for a Scrum adoption.

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7 Diagrams Every Software Professional Should Understand

RESOURCE: WEBINAR

7 Diagrams Every Software Professional Should Understand

Steve McConnell, author of the software development classic Code Complete, gives you insight into how to acquire professional judgment by introducing seven essential diagrams that illustrate critical issues in software development.

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7 Unbreakable Rules of Software Leadership

RESOURCE: WEBINAR

7 Unbreakable Rules of Software Leadership

Congratulations. You’ve earned a job as a software executive. Now what? Do you know what it takes to keep it? More important, do you know what it takes to excel? Noted author and software engineer Steve McConnell has found a method for predicting which technical executives will be successful in their organizations and which will end up looking for different positions. In this one-hour webinar, Steve describes the 7 crucial rules that lead software executives first to satisfactory performance and ultimately to superior performance and superior results.

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8 Principles of 10x Development

RESOURCE: WEBINAR

8 Principles of 10x Development

What makes one software development team far more productive than another? Construx has named eight 10x principles that underpin higher productivity. These principles derive from decades of teaming with industry leaders and assisting hundreds of clients and from Construx’s own work. This webinar describes the 10x principles and gives examples of tactics highly productive teams have used in their daily work to implement these principles.

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Agile Estimation: Key Principles and Practices

RESOURCE: WEBINAR

Agile Estimation: Key Principles and Practices

This talk provides an overview of key principles and practices for effective Agile project estimating and planning that have helped many Construx customers greatly increase the accuracy of their project forecasts, enabling them to make better go/no-go decisions, increase the predictability of their projects, and deliver their projects successfully… on time, within budget constraints, and with the desired functionality.

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Agile Scaling Frameworks

RESOURCE: WEBINAR

Agile Scaling Frameworks

Hearing about different scaling frameworks and wondering which one is right for you? In this webinar, Jenny Stuart provides an overview of the popular scaling frameworks SAFe, Nexus, and LeSS, including their strengths and relative weaknesses. We’ll cover core techniques and approaches to provide you with a basis for determining whether one of these frameworks is a good fit. Because not everyone finds one specific framework to be right for them, we’ll also cover common considerations that all the frameworks seek to address.

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Balanced Solutions with the Three-Circle Model

RESOURCE: WHITE PAPER

Balanced Solutions with the Three-Circle Model

Creating solutions to customer problems is a complex balancing act. Effective solutions result from the balanced integration of three fundamental perspectives: Business, Usage, and Technology. Organizations that take a purely user-driven approach are at risk of developing solutions that lack technological or economic viability. Technology-driven organizations risk developing solutions that are not useful or desirable or that lack economic viability.

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Blended Learning for Software Professionals

RESOURCE: WHITE PAPER

Blended Learning for Software Professionals

Instructor Led Technical Training continues to provide the highest quality training experience, but advances in online learning are narrowing the quality gap such that today, the use of training modalities does not have to be an either/or choice. Properly structured, Blended Learning can provide the high-bandwidth, in-depth, focused interactions of Instructor Led Training combined with the low cost, world-wide, on-demand availability of online eLearning. This white paper examines the strengths and weaknesses of Instructor Led Training and eLearning and presents scenarios that are well-served by a Blended Learning approach.

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Business Case for Better Software Practices

RESOURCE: WHITE PAPER

Business Case for Better Software Practices

Among software organizations, the best organizations are dramatically better than the average organizations, while the capability of the average organization is much closer to that of the worst organization than it is to the best. Improved software practices offer ROIs of 500%—and significantly more in many cases. The ROI of improved software practices is dramatically higher than the ROIs offered by virtually any other business investment.

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Case Studies in Software Engineering Judgment

RESOURCE: WEBINAR

Case Studies in Software Engineering Judgment

High-profile software project disasters have been commonplace for decades. Failed projects are followed by hand-wringing and cries of, “Where did we go wrong?” The people involved in the failed projects seem unable to determine the root causes of failure. Postmortem analyses typically settle on conspicuously incorrect answers such as, “We didn’t test enough,” “We should have been more agile,” or “We should have motivated our staff better.” The topic of judgment is ignored in the software engineering literature, yet development of sound professional judgment is key to correct and useful diagnoses of past failures and essential to creating future successes.

In this talk, award-winning author Steve McConnell uses the “Four Factors Model” from his lecture series, Understanding Software Projects, to dissect published reports of software project outcomes. He demonstrates how to use sound software engineering judgment to vastly improve understanding of software project dynamics, which in turn leads to correct diagnosis of failure, more effective corrective actions for projects already underway, and a significantly improved chance of success on every project.

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Cone of Uncertainty – Poster

RESOURCE: POSTER

Cone of Uncertainty

All software projects are subject to inherent errors in early estimates. The Cone of Uncertainty represents the best-case reduction in estimation error and improvement in predictability over the course of a project. Skillful project leaders treat the cone as a fact of life and plan accordingly.

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Cost of Estimation Error – Poster

RESOURCE: POSTER

Cost of Estimation Error

What’s the Harm? “I need the software in three months, so I’ll tell the development staff that I need it in two months. I don’t think they can actually deliver it in two months, but at least that will ensure that I get it in three months.”

This rationale is intuitive and appealing. But it is ultimately destructive to software project costs and schedules. Projects that could have been completed in three months end up taking four or five months because of the problems caused by such reasoning. Underestimation causes a project to be under scoped and under planned. That increases the number of mistakes that occur upstream. These mistakes must be corrected eventually— at much greater cost than if they had been corrected earlier. These mistakes erode cost and schedule and virtually eliminate mid-range to long-range predictability.

Skillful project planners strive for accurate estimates, and they especially strive to avoid underestimating.

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Economics of Nonfunctional Quality of Service Requirements

RESOURCE: WHITE PAPER

Economics of Nonfunctional Quality of Service Requirements

Nonfunctional “quality of service” requirements are that subset of software product requirements specifying how well the software is expected to perform. Examples include response time, throughput, reliability, and accuracy. Common problems are that this kind of requirement is poorly specified—if even specified at all. We propose that these problems could be reduced by considering this kind of requirement from an economic perspective. This paper starts by defining nonfunctional quality of service requirements and elaborating on the common problem. The remainder of this paper examines nonfunctional quality of service requirements from an economic perspective, both individually and collectively, showing how this perspective can reduce these common problems.

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Effective Test-Driven Development

RESOURCE: WEBINAR

Effective Test-Driven Development

Most Test-Driven Development (TDD) books and courses focus on the Red-Green-Refactor cycle and spend little time discussing effective testing techniques. But to ensure the correctness and robustness of the software built using TDD, you also need to pay close attention to what drives it: the tests!

This session describes a TDD kata in which we will interleave effective testing techniques based on Design by Contract, Domain Coverage, Decision Tables, and others. The kata is performed in Java/JUnit, but the techniques are applicable in practically any language.

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Establishing a Measurement Program

RESOURCE: WHITE PAPER

Establishing a Measurement Program

When beginning a measurement program, it can be confusing to know what to measure, how to measure, and where to start measuring. A number of common measures are used within the software development industry, but not all measures are useful and appropriate for all organizations.

This white paper describes how to establish a measurement program. The organization must first determine its specific improvement goals and the questions that need to be asked. It can then determine whether it is moving toward or away from its goals and the specific measures that need to be collected to answer those questions.

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How to Engineer Software, Part 1: Semantic Models

RESOURCE: WEBINAR

How to Engineer Software, Part 1: Semantic Models

In spite of applying popular software practices such as Scrum, many software projects continue to be chronically late or over budget or to underdeliver functionality. Code is riddled with defects; long-term maintenance is costly and labor-intensive. The root causes of software project difficulty are known: weak requirements, overdependence on testing, and code not being self-documenting. At the same time, the term “software engineering” is commonly bantered around without really understanding what it means (e.g., to Civil Engineers, Chemical Engineers, Industrial Engineers, etc.). Software should be engineered, but true engineering of software requires more than just claiming “software engineer” as a job title.

Join Steve Tockey for a webinar based on his latest book that shows how semantic models bring true engineering discipline to software development and maintenance while directly addressing the root causes of software difficulty. Semantic models have been used across a wide variety of industry verticals and have shown consistent success. If you’re tired of the same old poor results, tune in to see a true engineering discipline for software that actually solves the problems that need to be solved.

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How to Engineer Software, Part 2: A Deeper Dive into Semantic Models

RESOURCE: WEBINAR

How to Engineer Software, Part 2: A Deeper Dive into Semantic Models

Join Steve Tockey for Part 2 in a series of webinars that show how semantic models bring true engineering discipline to software development and maintenance while directly addressing the root causes of software project difficulty. This session takes an in-depth look at the content of semantic models—and the process for building them—to show in detail how those root causes can be efficiently and effectively addressed.

If you’re tired of the same old poor results, tune in to see a true engineering discipline for software that actually solves the problems that need to be solved.

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How to Engineer Software, Part 3: Designing and Coding from Semantic Models

RESOURCE: WEBINAR

How to Engineer Software, Part 3: Designing and Coding from Semantic Models

Join Construx Principal Consultant Steve Tockey for Part 3 in a series of webinars that show how semantic models bring true engineering discipline to software development and maintenance while directly addressing the root causes of software project difficulty. Parts 1 & 2 described the ins and outs of semantic models (and watching them will give you a head start on Part 3). This webinar provides an in-depth look at just one of the many ways to derive design and code from a semantic model. Specifically, you’ll see a seven-step process applied to a small but representative semantic model that develops the Model region of a Model-View-Controller–style software architecture.

If you’re tired of the same old poor results, tune in to see a true engineering discipline for software that actually solves the problems that need to be solved.This webinar is based on Steve’s book How to Engineer Software (Wiley / IEEE Press, 2019).

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How to Engineer Software, Part 4: Low-Code Application Development Using Executable Semantic Models

RESOURCE: WEBINAR

How to Engineer Software, Part 4: Low-Code Application Development Using Executable Semantic Models

Low-code application development has been gaining popularity in recent years. Today’s low-code approaches to automating business process functionality, however, tend to suffer from at least two important issues. First, they target only one or a very small set of technology platforms. Second, to get adequate performance in one technology platform, the business process description requires platform-specific adaptations that make it difficult to re-target that description to other platforms.

Parts 1 and 2 of this webinar series explained the details and advantages of semantic modeling on most software projects. Part 3 explained how a semantic model can be translated by hand into design and executable code. In this fourth part, we explore how that translation process can be automated, resulting in executable semantic models that require very little developer-written code while at the same time being both high performance and re-targetable.

Join Construx Principal Consultant Steve Tockey as he shows how executable semantic models are an effective, open, and flexible approach to low-code app development.

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Making Change Stick

RESOURCE: WHITE PAPER

Making Change Stick

From increased quality to reduced time-to-market, organizations have numerous reasons to make changes to their processes and practices. Many organizations succeed in making some changes, some succeed in making significant change, and some fail outright. This white paper outlines key techniques that help organizations more successfully introduce and support change.

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Managing Technical Debt

RESOURCE: WHITE PAPER

Managing Technical Debt

Technical Debt refers to delayed technical work that is incurred when technical shortcuts are taken, usually in pursuit of calendar-driven software schedules. Just like financial debt, some technical debts can serve valuable business purposes. Other technical debts are simply counterproductive.

In this white paper, Steve McConnell explains the different types of technical debt, when organizations should and shouldn’t take them on, and best practices for managing, tracking, and paying down technical debt. You’ll gain insight into how to use technical debt strategically. You’ll also learn how to keep technical and business staff involved in the process of managing this debt.

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Managing Technical Debt

RESOURCE: WEBINAR

Managing Technical Debt

Technical Debt refers to delayed technical work that is incurred when technical shortcuts are taken, usually in pursuit of calendar-driven software schedules. Technical debt is inherently neither good nor bad. Just like financial debt, some technical debts can serve valuable business purposes. Other technical debts are simply counterproductive. However, just as with the financial kind, it’s important to know what you’re getting into.

In this webinar, noted author and software engineer Steve McConnell explains in detail the different types of technical debt, when organizations should and shouldn’t take them on, and best practices for managing, tracking and paying down debt. You’ll gain insights into how to use technical debt strategically and how to keep technical and business staff involved in the process.

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Overcoming Common Scaling Dysfunctions

RESOURCE: WEBINAR

Overcoming Common Scaling Dysfunctions

Scrum at the single team level is simple compared to using Scrum on projects with hundreds or thousands of staff. At Construx we have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of scaling Scrum.

Successful companies scale Scrum in ways that ensure they deliver high quality working software frequently. This course defines strategies and approaches that will help you avoid common scaling dysfunctions and be successful.

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Recording: Epic-Feature-Story-Task! What?

RESOURCE: WEBINAR

Epic-Feature-Story-Task! What?!

The Azure DevOps default template and SAFe requirements model suggest a requirements hierarchy of Epic-Feature-Story-Task. Collectively, these describe the work to create a solution’s intended behavior. People working with this hierarchy struggle because they’re not sure of the differences between the artifacts and who should be creating/owning each one. In this webinar, Earl Beede will help you understand the differences and map out a better strategy than the one provided by the default templates. You’ll learn how to enhance the Epic-Feature-Story-Task breakdown to increase value and clarity for your agile team.

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Retrofitting Legacy Systems with Unit Tests

RESOURCE: WHITE PAPER

Retrofitting Legacy Systems with Unit Tests

Automated unit testing directly impacts an organization’s efficiency. The sooner defects are found, the more efficiently developers can fix them. However, many companies have existing systems with little to no current unit testing.

Completely retrofitting an existing system with comprehensive unit tests is impractical. The time and effort required to perform a complete retrofit make it difficult to justify doing it. This white paper describes how software organizations can get a positive return on investment by adding a degree of unit testing to legacy systems.

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Right-Sizing Agile Development

RESOURCE: WEBINAR

Right-Sizing Agile Development

The average project overruns its planned budget and schedule by 50–80 percent. In practice, little work is done that could truly be called “estimation.” Many projects are scheduled using a combination of legitimate business targets and liberal doses of wishful thinking. In this presentation, award-winning author Steve McConnell presents 10 of the worst ways estimates go wrong and time-tested rules of thumb for dramatically improving estimation accuracy.

Get in Touch

Scrum Is – Poster

RESOURCE: POSTER

Scrum Is

Scrum is an Agile project management process wrapper with three roles, four meetings, four artifacts and three steps to commitment.

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Secrets of the Agile Scaling Gurus

RESOURCE: WEBINAR

Secrets of the Agile Scaling Gurus

As small-team success becomes more commonplace with Scrum and Kanban, organizations are shifting their focus to succeeding with Agile development on large projects.

Many organizations have tried SAFe, and others have experimented with Nexus/SoS, LeSS, DaD, and other approaches. Yet few organizations appear to be fully satisfied with any of their approaches. Why not? What are these organizations missing?

In this presentation, award-winning author Steve McConnell unpacks more than 20 years of experience guiding organizations as they transition from small projects to large. He explains the key principles underlying all successful scaling approaches, identifies common scaling pitfalls and explains what is really different about scaling projects in Agile environments.

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Secrets of World-Class Software Organizations

RESOURCE: WEBINAR

Secrets of World-Class Software Organizations

Construx’s consultants work with hundreds of software organizations each year. Among these organizations, a few stand out as being truly world-class. They are exceptional in their ability to meet their software development goals and exceptional in the contribution they make to their companies’ overall business success.

Do world-class software organizations operate differently than average organizations? In Construx’s experience, the answer is a resounding “YES.” In this talk, award-winning author Steve McConnell reveals the technical, management, business, and cultural secrets that make certain software organizations great.

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Software Development’s Classic Mistakes

RESOURCE: WHITE PAPER

Software Development’s Classic Mistakes

Classic mistakes are ineffective software development practices that have been chosen so often by so many projects with such predictable results that they deserve to be called classic mistakes. Steve McConnell first introduced this concept in Rapid Development in 1996. We’ve updated McConnell’s original list of classic mistakes and conducted a survey to assess the prevalence and impact of these mistakes. This white paper shares the survey’s results—both expected and surprising—and analyzes its findings.

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Software Development’s Cone of Uncertainty

RESOURCE: WHITE PAPER

Software Development’s Cone of Uncertainty

The Cone of Uncertainty is a model for understanding estimation uncertainty in software projects. Estimates inherently contain high uncertainty early in projects. Uncertainty can be reduced once the project is underway, but project leadership must take specific steps to cause this reduction. Organizations should avoid making commitments until the Cone has been reduced because until then commitments will not be supportable. This white paper also describes how the Cone applies to Agile and iterative development.

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Software Development’s Defect Cost Increase Curve – Poster

RESOURCE: POSTER

Software Development’s Defect Cost Increase Curve

The Defect Cost Increase Curve applies whether the project is highly sequential (doing 100 percent of requirements and design up front) or highly iterative (doing only a small percentage of requirements and design at a time). By focusing on correcting defects earlier rather than later in the development of each feature, you can cut development costs and schedules by factors of two or more. Schedules become more predictable, too.

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Software Estimation in an Agile World

RESOURCE: WEBINAR

Software Estimation in an Agile World

“Agile projects can’t be estimated accurately,” some agile practitioners say. “Estimation is not Agile.” Are they right? To take advantage of Agile development, do you have to give up the estimation that your business needs?

In this talk, the award-winning author of Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art cuts the Gordian knot of Agile Estimation. Differentiating between agile practice and agile culture, Steve McConnell describes common impediments to estimation on Agile projects and highlights key practices that lead to a Bold New World of Agile Software Estimation, providing far better results.

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Solving the Mystery of Innovation in Tech Orgs

RESOURCE: WHITE PAPER

Solving the Mystery of Innovation in Tech Orgs

Construx research has found that innovation initiatives generally fail because they don’t account for internal consequence systems that can either foster or inhibit innovation. This white paper takes a unique view of the innovation process by recognizing that innovation is a product of a series of human behaviors.

Innovative organizations provide positive reinforcement for these critical behaviors but often without a complete understanding of the key role the behaviors play. Targeted practices based on well-established principles of basic human behavior can significantly increase organizational innovation.

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Staffing Scrum Roles

RESOURCE: WHITE PAPER

Staffing Scrum Roles

Scrum is the most commonly adopted Agile approach in the software industry. However, many organizations are not seeing the benefits they expected from Scrum.

This white paper discusses the Scrum roles, critical attributes needed to be successful in the roles, best practices for staffing the roles, and how some traditional organizational roles are impacted by a move to Scrum.

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Succeeding with Geographically Distributed Scrum

RESOURCE: WHITE PAPER

Succeeding with Geographically Distributed Scrum

When organizations adopt Agile throughout the enterprise, they typically apply it to both large and small projects. The gap is that most Agile methodologies, including Scrum, are team-level workflow approaches. These approaches can be highly effective at the team level, but they do not address large project architecture, project management, requirements, and project-planning needs.

Our clients find that succeeding with Scrum on a large, geographically distributed team requires adopting additional practices to ensure the necessary coordination, communication, integration, and architectural work. This white paper discusses common considerations for success with geographically distributed Scrum.

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The 10 Most Deadly Mistakes in Software Development – Poster

RESOURCE: POSTER

The 10 Most Deadly Mistakes in Software Development

This poster illustrates the 10 most common mistakes that lead to software project failure.

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The Agile Boundary

RESOURCE: WHITE PAPER

The Agile Boundary

The Agile boundary demarcates the parts of an organization that are using Agile practices from the parts that are not.

The boundary is dynamic, and the percentage of the organization inside the Agile boundary typically expands over time as more people and groups adapt to working in Agile ways. However, this expansion is often haphazard and relatively unplanned, which can lead to uneven progress, frustration, lack of perceived benefits, and efforts that die on the vine.

To help organizations avoid such problems, this white paper addresses the following topics:

• Defining the Agile boundary
• Creating a strategy for Agile boundary expansion
• Working across the Agile boundary

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The Business Case for Better Software Practices

RESOURCE: WEBINAR

The Business Case for Better Software Practices

The average software company spends 2–3 times as much on each software project as best-in-class companies spend to deliver similar capabilities. The average organization wastes 25% or more of its software budget on projects that are ultimately cancelled. Technical staff members are certainly aware of the need for improved practices, but how do you make the case to upper management?

In this webinar, best-selling author and industry leader Steve McConnell explains the dollars and cents of software process improvement and maps out the need for improved practices in a way that is meaningful to business executives.

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The Cone of Uncertainty

RESOURCE: WEBINAR

The Cone of Uncertainty

Uncertainty feeds into software teams from multiple sources: product envisioning, feature details, design approaches, team productivity, and more. The cumulative effect of all this variability is called “The Cone of Uncertainty.”

The Cone has repercussions for software estimation, and it affects other software dynamics too. In this webinar, you’ll learn how much of a factor the Cone really is and how it affects Agile projects as well as sequential projects. You’ll also learn the historical basis for the Cone and see an updated empirical basis for the Cone.

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The Journey to Organization-Wide Scrum

RESOURCE: WEBINAR

The Journey to Organization-Wide Scrum

Scrum practitioners know what a successful Scrum project looks like. After a few successful pilot projects, many organizations struggle when they try to roll out Scrum more broadly.

In this webinar, award-winning author Steve McConnell shares a typical organization’s gap analysis between small-pilot-project success and consistent-large-project success. He describes the path that has allowed Construx’s clients to realize the benefits of Scrum in larger teams, geographically distributed teams, and more complex organizations.

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The Scrum Spider Chart

RESOURCE: POSTER

Scrum Spider Chart

Are your Scrum practices a real Frankenstein of parts?

Plot your scores on the chart and draw lines to see what your web looks like. Are you doing #ScaryScrum or something else?

The spider chart is adapted from Steve McConnell’s latest book: More Effective Agile: A Roadmap for Software Leaders.

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scrum spider chart

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The Scrum Wall: An Agile Project Dashboard – Poster

RESOURCE: POSTER

The Scrum Wall: An Agile Project Dashboard

Building a Scrum Wall around the team’s Sprint Task Board drives collaboration, shares information, shows progress, and highlights impediments…even if your organization also uses a software based work item tracking tool.

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Value-Driven Delivery

RESOURCE: WHITE PAPER

Value Driven Delivery

By delivering value to stakeholders in short, regular intervals—and in the order the stakeholders prefer—teams learn about the problem at hand and how the solution elements perform. This approach, known as Value-Driven Delivery, also enables potential business results from early use of parts of the system.

This white paper describes this crucial approach to structuring and sequencing work when creating solutions.

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WFH in the Age of Coronavirus

WFH in the Age of Coronavirus: Lessons for today and Tomorrow

Report

Software development has experienced one of the biggest disruptions in its history. What are the best ways teams are getting through this?

Find out through our report, WFH in the Age of Coronavirus, to better understand the different ways that teams are handling this disruption.

WFH in the Age of Coronavirus: Infographic

RESOURCE: INFOGRAPHIC & REPORT

WFH in the Age of Coronavirus

How has work changed due to the coronavirus pandemic? Construx Software, led by industry thought leader Steve McConnell, surveyed hundreds of software professionals to determine the effect that working from home during the coronavirus pandemic is having on software development. Our survey explored changes in communication and the impact on individuals, teamwork, leaders’ ability to lead, and specific technical practices.

We’ve highlighted some of the lessons we gained from more than 8000 comments on what is working today and tips for the future.

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Why Metrics Programs Fail

RESOURCE: WHITE PAPER

Why Metrics Programs Fail

The success of software metrics programs can vary significantly from one company to the next. There is more involved than just defining the right metrics. People at one company might embrace the metrics, track progress, and use the metrics to demonstrate real improvement. They might even propose new metrics without being prompted. At another company, people come up with reasons for why the metrics are invalid and resist measurement, even though the metrics might be very similar.

This white paper relates these differences to a well-established behavior model and provides recommendations for implementing successful software metrics programs.

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