"A component must not execute more than 20 SQL statements". A relative new discipline to enforce these types of architectural rules is Dynamic Architectural Validation. We wrote a chapter on the best practices and show how to repurpose your existing unit and functional tests. This allows you to identify architectural regressions that have been introduced with code changes by comparing the dynamic behavior between test runs.

This section in the Painless TDD series looks at object dependencies; when you ask for more than you need, and why the "natural" choices may not always be the best ones.

You can find many resources to help you learn *what* your unit tests should be named. This post instead presents a strategy to help you focus on *when* to name--or re-name--your tests.

Are you looking for a solution to your unit tests modifying data? Perhaps your unit tests are so slow that none of your teammates bother running them? You need mock objects.

Been doing some coding with Neo4J. Pretty interesting experience so far, but one thing is for sure: being able to write seriously sophisticated code that has a large, complex model underneath it, from inside unit tests that run in a few milliseconds is, as the bloodsucking credit card commercial says, priceless. There are still a couple of challenges to consider, but the reality is with a simple custom rule (using JUnit 4), you can have an embedded database that will be ready for each test, and cleaned up after each one.

"Leading the Lean|Agile Enterprise: A Two-day Workshop" held by Dean Leffingwell @ Scrum-Day Dean Leffingwell one of the worldwide most accepted experts about scaling agile in large enterprises - is going to talk at scrum-day about "Leading the Lean|Agile Enterprise" beside this he teaches his two day Workshop about the same theme.

Part 3 in this 6-part-series. Describes all components used in the demo setup, from the CI server to the artifact repository, metrics server and version control system.

In this webinar Dave West, Chief Product Officer at Tasktop, describes what Lean ALM looks like and introduces the 4 tenets of Autonomy, Transparency, Adaptability and Collaboration (ATAC) that unite to maximize flow.

Trac is an open source enhanced wiki and issue tracking system for software development projects. As many open source project, Trac has a plugin architecture that allows to extend the core functionalities. Here is a list of Scrum and Agile oriented plugins available in the Trac ecosystem.

Introducing Agile with YouTrack 4.0 - JetBrains' intelligent and fast-flying bug & issue tracker. Hurry up to book your seat for the exclusive online preview of the upcoming YouTrack version completely devoted to Agile project management. In this one-hour session we’ll walk through the main stages of release/sprint planning, using Scrum/Kanban board along with Burn Down and Cumulative Flow charts that help you visualize your team’s progress. All that with YouTrack’s keyboard-centric navigation, advanced search capabilities and commands. Since this topic is really hot, please register in advance, we've got a limited places available!