Stories by Matthew Heusser

Most of the literature on scaling addresses overcoming objections and how best to do it. Matthew Heusser posits that ‘Does agile scale?’ is simply asking the wrong question.

A cable television network requires round-the-clock programming, an agile development team, some impressive software and a whole bunch of project management. CIO.com’s Matthew Heusser sat down with Tara Nicholson at Scripps Networks Interactive to find out how this complicated operation works.

The risk may be high, but the rewards can be even higher. Here are some practical tips for making the leap from employee to independent IT consultant.

When it comes to release management, what sounds great in theory doesn’t always work in practice. Here are four steps to building an effective strategy.

If you've had it with office life – or office life has had it with you – maybe it’s time to become an IT consultant. Here’s how to avoid the pitfalls along your path…and some tips to get started.

As larger organizations scramble to apply agile software development methodologies to the challenges inherent in an enterprise-level company, it’s important to understand the pros and cons of the different approaches.

Release candidate testing takes too long.

The basic idea behind Dev and Ops is to get the two roles working together. This sounds obvious, but think for a moment about how the roles have traditionally been implemented. Operations is responsible for uptime and reliability; the simplest way to keep systems up and running is to lock ‘em down and prevent change. The job of a software developer is to create change. From the beginning, the incentives for one role are misaligned with the other. The first part of DevOps, the very inkling of an idea, is to break down the walls between the roles.

"Size clearly matters. You probably couldn't run an XP (Extreme Programming) Project with a hundred programmers. Nor 50. Nor 20, probably. Ten is definitely doable ..." – Kent Beck, "Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change," 1st Edition, [Publication date: 2000]

ITIL is one of the most common frameworks for IT service management. However, questions and misunderstandings abound regarding this set of popular practices. In this article, we'll address the following (and more):

If you've ever wanted to learn Git, but didn't want to configure a server, GitHub may be the place to do it.

In the world of programming languages, sometimes you don't need the overhead and performance of Java, C#, C++ and other power tools. Sometimes a scripting language, or Swiss army knife, will do.

Years ago, in the bad old days, you had the weekly status meeting. You'd wait for your turn to talk about your status to the project manager; when other people talked, you'd either tune out to think about what you were going to say or, possibly, tune out entirely and think about that upcoming skiing trip.

Story mapping offers a visualization of the steps, or stories, which make up a software development project. This conversation with several experts on the topic discusses how story mapping works, how maps are created and how stakeholders benefit from seeing the lay of the land.

Imagine you're working on a major project such as Healthcare.gov. Suddenly, you realize there's no way the software will be done on time -- or even work. What do you do? Hear how veteran testers, project managers and developers tactfully handle such situations.