By: Pradeep Patel

Agile Software Development

Monitor Progress

Project Progress

Agile Software Development is a group of software development

methods based on iterative and

incremental development, where

requirements and solutions evolve through

collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams.

It promotes adaptive planning, evolutionary

development and delivery, a time-

boxed iterative approach, and encourages rapid and

flexible response to change.

An information radiator displaying the up-to-date summary of status, is placed prominently in an

office

Agile methods break tasks into small increments with minimal planning and do not directly involve long-term planning. Iterations

are short time frames (timeboxes) that typically last from one to four week

A common characteristic of agile development are daily status meetings or "stand-ups". In a brief

session, team members report to each other what they did the previous day,

what they intend to do today, and what their

roadblocks are.At the end of the iteration

a working product is demonstrated to

stakeholders

What is AGILE?

Waterfall Model It is a sequential design process, in which

progress is seen as flowing steadily downwards through the phases of

Conception, Initiation, Analysis, Design, Construction, Testing, Production/Implement

ation, and Maintenance.It places emphasis on documentation (such

as requirements documents and design documents) as well as source code.

Why it fails?If clients change their requirements after the design is finalized, the design must be modified to accommodate the new requirements. This effectively

means invalidating a good deal of working hours, which means increased cost, especially if a large amount of the project's resources has already been

invested in.There are few other models that had been used in the past, however most of

them are based on Water Fall model and will not be discussed here

Pre-Agile Methodologies

Initiation

Planning

Execution

Monitoring and

Control

Closure

AGILE-Iterative and Incremental development

Image Source: Wikipedia

Inception: Identifies project scope,

requirements (functional and non-functional) and risks at a

high level but in enough detail that work can be

estimated.

Elaboration Delivers a working

architecture that mitigates the top risks and fulfills the

non-functional requirements.

Construction: Incrementally fills-in the

architecture with production-ready code produced from

analysis, design, implementation, and testing of the functional requirements.

Transition: Delivers the system into the

production operating environment.

PHASES

AGILE-Manifesto

• over processes and toolsIndividuals and interactions

• over comprehensive documentation

Working software

• over contract negotiationCustomer collaboration

• over following a planResponding to change

Individuals and interactions : Self-organization and motivation are important, as are interactions like co-location and pair programming.

Working software : Working software will be more useful and welcome than just presenting documents to clients .

Customer collaboration : Requirements cannot be fully collected at the beginning of the software development cycle, therefore continuous customer or

stakeholder involvement is very important.

Responding to change : Agile development is focused on quick responses to change and continuous development

Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous deliveryof valuable software.

Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.

Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.

Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.

Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.

The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.

Working software is the primary measure of progress.

Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.

Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.

Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.

The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.

At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

AGILE Principles

AGILE- Methods(Putting Agile to Practice)

Extreme Programming (XP)

Scrum

Kanban

Scrum-ban

Test-driven development (TDD)

Lean software development

Continuous integration (CI)

Feature Driven Development (FDD)

Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM)

Agile Unified Process (AUP)

Agile Modeling

Crystal Clear

Graphical System Design (GSD)

Story-driven modeling

Velocity tracking

Crystal Methods

Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD)

Software Development Rhythms 

AGILE-SCRUM

A Scrum process is distinguished from other agile processes by specific concepts and practices, divided into the three categories RolesArtifacts Time Boxes..

AGILE – Effective User Story Contents

A user story should contain the following main itemsTitle: <a name for the user story>As a <user or persona>I want to <take this action> So that <I get this benefit>

The story should also include validation steps — steps to take to validate that the working requirement for the user story is correct

When I <take this action>, this happens <description of action>

Optional Information that a story can contain

An ID: A Unique identifier for the story.The value and effort estimate: Value is how beneficial a user story is to the organization creating that product.Effort is the ease or difficulty in creating that user story. The person who created the user story: Anyone on the project team can create a user story.For user stories that are too large to be completed in a single iteration or sprint, some teams use Epics. Epics are basically a higher-level story that’s fulfilled by a group of related user stories.

AGILE –Extreme Programming(XP)-Values

Simplicity: We will do what is needed and asked for, but no more. This will maximize the value created for the investment made to date. We will take small simple steps to our goal and mitigate failures as they happen. We will create something we are proud of and maintain it long term for reasonable costs.

Communication: Everyone is part of the team and we communicate face to face daily. We will work together on everything from requirements to code. We will create the best solution to our problem that we can together

Feedback: We will take every iteration commitment seriously by delivering working software. We demonstrate our software early and often then listen carefully and make any changes needed. We will talk about the project and adapt our process to it, not the other way around.

Respect: Everyone gives and feels the respect they deserve as a valued team member. Everyone contributes value even if it's simply enthusiasm. Developers respect the expertise of the customers and vice versa. Management respects our right to accept responsibility and receive authority over our own work.

Courage: We will tell the truth about progress and estimates. We don't document excuses for failure because we plan to succeed. We don't fear anything because no one ever works alone. We will adapt to changes when ever they happen.

AGILE –Extreme Programming(XP)-Rules

Planning

User stories are written. Release planning creates the 

release schedule. Make frequent small releases.

 The project is divided into iterations. Iteration planning starts each iteration

Managing

Give the team a dedicated open work space.

 Set a sustainable pace. A stand up meeting starts each day.

 The Project Velocity is measured. Move people around. Fix XP when it breaks.

Designing

Choose a system metaphor. Use CRC cards for design sessions.

 Create spike solutions to reduce risk. No functionality is added early.

 Refactor whenever and wherever possibleSimplicity

Coding

The customer is always available. Code must be written to agreed 

standards. Code the unit test first.

 All production code is pair programmed. Only one pair integrates code at a time.

 Integrate often. Set up a dedicated integration computer

.Use collective ownership.

Testing

All code must have unit tests. All code must pass all unit tests before it  can

be released. When a bug is found tests are created.

 Acceptance tests are run often and the scoreis published.

AGILE- XP Practices

Coding standard: Team members should follow established and adopted coding guidelines and standards.Collective ownership: Team members may view and edit other team members’ code or any other project artifact. Collective ownership encourages transparency and accountability for work quality.Continuous integration: Team members should check in changes to their code frequently, integrating the system to ensure that their changes work, so the rest of the team is always working with the latest version of the system.Automated CI should be considered using tools like Test-Driven Development (TDD): In TDD the first step is to quickly code a new test basically just enough code for the test to fail. This test could either be high-level acceptance or a more detailed developer test. Functional code is then updated to make it pass the new testCustomer tests: Detailed requirements are captured just-in-time (JIT) in the form of acceptance tests (also called story tests).Refactoring: Refactoring is a small change to something, such as source code, database schema, or user interface, to improve its design and make it easier to understand and modify.Pair programming: Two programmers work together on the same artifact at the same time. One programmer types the code while the other programmer looks at the bigger picture and provides real-time code review.Planning game: This includes high-level release planning to think through and monitor the big issues throughout the project as well as detailed JIT iteration/sprint planning.Simple design: Programmers should seek the simplest way to write their code while still implementing the appropriate functionality.Small releases: Frequent deployment of valuable, working software into production is encouraged. Sustainable pace: The team should be able to sustain an energized approach to work at a constant and gradually improving velocity.Whole team: Team members should collectively have all the skills required to deliver the solution. Stakeholders or their representatives should be available to answer questions and make decisions in a timely manner .

AGILE -Kanban

Stop starting and start finishing!Four basic principles (how you need to think)

Five for properties (what you need to do).

Basic Principles

Start with what you do now

Agree to pursue incremental, evolutionary change

Respect the current process, roles, responsibilities & titles

Encourage acts of leadership at all levels

Core Properties

Visualize the workflow

Limit WIP(Work in Progress)

Manage flow

Make Process Policies Explicit

Improve Collaboratively (using models & the scientific method)

• The Theory of Constraints (the study of bottlenecks)• The System of Profound Knowledge (a study of variation and

how it affects processes)• Lean Economic Model (based on the concepts of “waste” )

http://www.everydaykanban.com/what-is-kanban/

AGILE –Agile Modeling(AM)

Agile Modeling (AM) is a practice-based methodology

for effective modeling and documentation of

software-based systems.  

At a high level AM is a collection of best practices,

depicted in the pattern language map .

At a more detailed level AM is a collection

of values, principles, and practices for modeling software that can be applied on a software development project in an effective and

light-weight manner

With an Agile Model Driven Development (AMDD) approach, typically just enough high-level modeling at the beginning of a project is done to understand the scope and potential architecture of the system. During construction iterations modeling is done as part of your iteration planning activities and then take a JIT model storming approach where modeling is done for several minutes as a precursor to several hours of coding.AMDD recommends that practitioners take a test-driven approach.

Active stakeholder participation: Stakeholders (or their representatives) provide info, make decisions, and are actively involved in the development process.Architecture envisioning: This practice involves high-level architectural modeling to identify a viable technical strategy for your solution.Document continuously: Write documentation for your deliverables throughout the life cycle in parallel to the creation of the rest of the solution. Document late: Write deliverable documentation as late as possible to avoid speculative ideas likely to change in favor of stable information.Executable specifications: Specify detailed requirements in the form of executable customer tests and your detailed design as executable developer tests.Iteration modeling: Iteration modeling helps identify what needs to be built and how.

Just barely good enough artifacts: A model needs to be sufficient for the situation at hand and no more.

Look-ahead modeling: Invest time modeling requirements you intend to implement in upcoming iterations.

Model storming: Do JIT modeling to explore the details behind a requirement or to think through a design issue.

Multiple models: An effective developer has a range of models in his toolkit, enabling him to apply the right model for the situation at hand.Prioritized requirements: Implement requirements in priority order, as defined by your stakeholders.

Requirements envisioning: Invest time at the start of project to identify the scope of the project and create the initial prioritized stack of requirements.Single-source information: Capture info in one place only.

TDD: Quickly code a new test and update your functional code to make it pass the new test.

Agile Modeling practices

AGILE-AMDD continued……

AGILE -Tools

JIRA and it add-ins like GreenHopper, Confluence(Collaboration), Bamboo(Continuous Integration) and Crucible(Code Review) VersionOne Rally and its add-in like AccuBridge Mingle VSTS with Scrum Templates and its add-ins and templates like UrbanTurtle, Conchango etc. Excel and template from Jeff Sutherland PivotalTracker Scrumworks Hudson(Continuous Integration)Scrumpad TargetProcess Agilo BrightGreenOutsystemsRedmineScrumDeskTinypmTracZenCruseControl (Continuous Integration)GoogleDocs spreadsheet template (and also collaboration)SharePoint (Collaboration)SVN- Subversion (Version Control)

AGILE –Tools..Continued….

Agile BenchAgilefantAgile Tracking ToolArpohAssemblaExpressIceScrumLiquidPlannerMendixPangoScrumPlaniglePolarionScrumboardScrum’dScrumNinjaSerena Agile On DemandSilver CatalystSprintometerVirtual SCRUM BoardWRAPBugzilla (Bug Tracking)Cucumber (TDD)CVS – Concurrent Versions SystemElluminate (Web Conferencing)Rspec (TDD)Selenium (Automated Testing)StickySorter (Collaboration)Team City (Continuous Integration)Twiki (Collaboration)WebEx (Web Conferencing)

http://setandbma.wordpress.com/2010/02/17/agile-tool-expert-recommendation/

AGILE –Additional Resources

Agile for Dummies-IBM

Scrum Reference Card

Agile Data

Thank You

Pradeep PatelMCTS, MCPD, PMP

blogs.pdotsolutions.comtechconnect. pdotsolutions.com