Working with Agile technologies and SCRUM

WORKING WITH AGILE TECHNOLOGIES AND SCRUMSCRUM + Visual Studio, Kanban, Team Foundation Server, Source Control, Git

AndreaTino

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Who is this presentation for?

Everyone with a minimal background

on programming

What topics does it cover?

See previous slide :)

Oh yeah... But how detailed?

I will follow an horizontal approach without many details

WHAT’S SCRUM?Introducing the most popular software development model in industry as a replacement to old Waterfall.

1.1

Murphy’s Law

“Anything that can go wrong, will do!”

Requirements

Design

Implement

Verification

Maintenance

Once upon a time... WaterfallSoftware Industry has radically changed from a heavvy, hierarchical, vertical, document-based, long-term centered model to a lightweight, flattened, horizontal, zero-document, short-term centered process.

Why? Basically the reason is simple: Waterfall took time, was very resource demanding and lacked flexibility.

Waterfall (Royce) is, briefly, unable to respond to unexpected problems that may arise at every possible stage. Once a stage is secured and closed, it is not possible to go back.

In real life, Waterfall was almost 99.9% violated.

Agile The stiffness of such models was a proper fuel for the community to start putting effort in finding an alternative. We call this Agile Development and it is much more flexible + makes a better use of resources.

Up: The Waterfall model. Each stage cannot be

executed until the previous one has been completed.

Specification forbids going back to a previous phase

but some modified versions allow this (only one step

though).

SCRUM = AGILE DEVELOPMENTThe most foundamental concepts revolving around

SCRUM methodologies.

1.2

SCRUM is...

A methodology to SW development with different

variants and flavors

SCRUM is NOT...

A collection of rules or protocols to coordinate

developers and teams

Roles Events

Artifacts Tooling

Take it easyInstead of providing a set of rigid rules, SCRUM defines a collection of concepts that should be observed and adapted in the best way on the context in exam.

That’s why there is not one single way of implementing SCRUM in a company. An organization decides to adopt SCRUM at its own pace and considering its own needs and possibilities.

Key features Those few concepts are actually the core features of SCRUM. They are grouped into 3+1 categories:

ROLESDo not focus too much on hierarchy, rather define few

figures and rely on those.

1.3

Product Owner

The representative for the customer. SCRUM is a methodology that places stakeholders in

the development process. The customer needs to have its voice heard.

Development Team(s)

The group of developers responsible for delivering the product. Note that SCRUM does not provide restrictions here, teams

can be arranged in whatever way.

SCRUM Master

A person among developers responsible for facilitating the SCRUM process and remove all possible obstacles threatening the agile process. He doesn’t need to be a Lead, nor a Manager.

SCRUM defines 3 core roles (pigs). There is also a set of ancillary roles (chickens) which are not really needed in real life scenarios.

Hierarchy free Note how these roles do not touch an organization’s structure. SCRUM prefers dealing with horizontal orgs, but it is not a requirement.

EVENTS & TIME FRAMESSCRUM defines a very short horizon: one day. The Team might need to change approach or focus the next day

so it is useless planning on a long-term basis.

1.4

Sprint

Basic iteration unit of timeboxed focused effort for developers.

Typically lasts 1,2 or 3 weeks. But no more.

S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 ...

Morning SCRUM

Very important. Occurs before starting the day. The WHOLE Team gets together in one

room and each developer reports on:

1. What he did the previous day.2. What he is going to do in current day.3. Problems, difficulties, help if needed.

Meetings To achieve a common goal one thing is necessary: communication. SCRUM Teams talk a lot and have many meetings.

SCRUM is iterativeGiven its flexible nature, SCRUM encourages developers to put their focus od few problems at a time. A unit of development time is defined and it iterates until software is finally released.

Typycally who arrives late at morning SCRUM has to do penance: buy cake or run naked in every office :)The whole year is divided into sprints and developers will reason in

terms of sprints only. It is actually a good way to set time.

MEETINGS MEETINGS MEETINGSMeetings are important in Agile metodologies.

Developers meet regurarly in order to share ideas and keep product development on track.

1.4.1

Sprint Planning

The Team assembles together at the beginning of the Sprint and decides what to

focus on during that Sprint. This meeting defines activities ans strategies.

Sprint Review

Managers (and the product owner in some cases), review the product iteration at the

end of the Sprint. Developers demo new features and receive feedback.

In Agile Development, managers and developers interact in some important events that define key changes in the final product.

Demo & get feedbackAfter each Sprint, somebody external from the Team should review how the work is proceeding. Sprint Reviews are a powerful tool to keep the Team focused and have its members show what features were pushed into the product.

According to the size of the organization, at these meetings must attend developers, managers, product owners, designers and almost all people involved in the product.

Good demos are essential to show new cool functionalities and get positive feedback.

Sprint Review Planning and Sprint Review Retrospection meetings are also important chances to plan and analyze feedback on demos.

ARTIFACTS AND WORK ITEMSIn order to get work assigned, managed and done, SCRUM defines a few concepts which enable work

structuring and distribution across team members.

1.5

Deliverable

A unit of work representing a (new) feature to

implement in the product Bug

A problem in the current released product that

needs to be fixed

Product BL Sprint BL

Backlogs Deliverables are defined by managers and managers also decide which one of them should be implemented by the Team. Backlogs are used as buffers to groom activities and focus on them.

SCRUM is incrementalThe other side of SCRUM is the fact that it proceeds on an incremental flavor. Thus, the development process scans different iterations of the product until goals are reached.

In order to organize work across team members, SCRUM considers 2 different types of Work Items.

A deliverable can also be a feature to push in the product as part of an extension to an existing functionality.

A bug is a problem that is generally filed by customers. Escalation process ensures that the

Team receives bug notifications. The Team must fix the bug and ship a patch for the current version.

Grooming The operation of selecting which deliverable the Team should focus on is called Grooming. Managers might organize Grooming Meetings at the beginning of every sprint.

Bugs Bugs can be organized using backlogs as well, however no more than 1 is typically used.

ORGANIZING WORK ITEMSThere is laways a lot to do, Agile methodology

offer a way to keep all work items in track.

1.5.2

EPIC

SLICE

Deliverable

MOVE TO CLOUD

MIGRATE CLIENT COMPONENTS

Enable AJAX controls

MIGRATE SERVER COMPONENTS

More lightweight Metadata

Update tests

Migrate REST components

Migrate database

Update tests

Epics and slicesAn Epic is a work item which maps a goal to be reached at the end of the overall release process. Epics are made of Slices, a Slice is a subunit of work focusing a specific feature to be implemented.

Slices are broken down into Deliverables to map each single work unit assignable to a team member.

A realistic example of epic/slice/deliverable work breakdown in the context of a company developing an application that needs to be moved into the Cloud.

APPROACHING RELEASE TIMEWhen approaching release time, the Team undergoes certain stages that ensure the product to be correctly

released with the least number of bugs.

1.6

Tell Mode

Teams are allowed to change the code, but they must notify

managers or supervisors

Ask Mode

Teams MUST ask managers for changing the code. Detailed

description is required.

Shiproom The Team has a daily meeting called Shiproom where the current status of the product is evaluated. All bugs on new features are considered and members decide whether it is worth fixing them basing on a risk/cost analysis.

When all bugs have been handled, Shiproom calls for a Release Candidate (RC). RC is fully tested and if no bugs are found that becomes the Release Build. Otherwise the process starts over until a new RC is identified.

EndgameWhen it is time to release, the development process changes. Pushing new features is not allowed anymore and more meetings occur. This process is called: Endgame.

Bug Bar Bugs are normally classified using a Severity Index (higher index = higher severity). As Shiproom goes on, bugs allowed for fixing must comply the Bug Bar which increases as RC are iteratively defined.

Endgame typically starts during the final 2-3 Sprints of the whole lifecycle.

TOOLS FOR AGILE AND SCRUMTools and instruments for implementing SCRUM and

Agile process in teams and facilitate the development model

2

SCRUM KANBAN (看板)SCRUM has a few variants (dialects), one of this is

called Kanban.

2.1

Work ItemWork item

description with details on bug

and status.

Work ItemWork item


and status.

BACKLOG

Work ItemWork item


and status.

APPROVED

Work ItemWork item


and status.

Work ItemWork item


and status.

VERIFIED/CLOSED

Work ItemWork item


and status.

IN PROGRESS

Work ItemWork item


and status.

RESOLVED

Work ItemWork item


and status.

Good at morning SCRUM Usually Kanban is used at morning SCRUM. The board will show work items’ statuses and the team can understand how good is general progress.

Tracking team’s workKanban is an approach for visually tracking what team is focusing on and what work item each member is currently working on. It also allows managers to keep tracking on each work item’s status.

How a Kanban board typically looks in a bug configuration.

Each work item has a team member

assigned to it and a status represented by the lane it is placed in.

KANBAN IS NOT JUST FOR BUGSKanban board can be personalized in order to keep track of whatever work item type, even deliverables.

2.1.2

Work ItemWork item


and status.

BACKLOG

Work ItemWork item


and status.

Work ItemWork item


and status.

COMPLETED

Work ItemWork item


and status.

IN PROGRESS

Work ItemWork item


and status.

BLOCKED

Work ItemWork item


and status.

Tracking deliverablesKanban can be used for deliverables as well. The Kanban board configuration changes as deliverables can be in different states than bugs. Most common tools out there offer customization features.

For deliverables, Kanban boards can be typically configured as

shown here. A very important state is “blocked”, where a work item is

waiting for another one to be completed first in order to proceed.

KANBAN TOOLSThere are many OSS offering Kanban, some more

integrated solutions offer a whole environment. Visual Studio has Kanban as well in TFS.

2.1.3

Microsoft ALM

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/fda2bad5.aspx

Visual Studio Kanban

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj838789.aspx

JIRA

https://jira.atlassian.com

Kanbanize

https://kanbanize.com

TRELLO

https://trello.com

Visual Studio and TFSMicrosoft and Team Foundation Server offer Kanban as part of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM).

Other solutions for KanbanOther applications offer Kanban as part of their release management environments, check them out.

CODE REVIEWBasically it is Agile’s own “One for All, All for One”.

2.2

Review policy

If a reviewer asks for a change, the author must provide at least a comment.

Programmers are humanThus they make mistakes. How is it possible to prevent bugs and code defects? Pair programming bas identified as a possible solution but it uses two team members for one work item: it is a waste of resources. Code Reviewing is today’s most common solution for preventing mistakes and producing better code.

How does it work? When a programmer completes his development activity for a bug fix or a deliverable, it sends out a review which contains only his changes to the code. The developers selectes few other team members which will look at the code and provide feedback.

Author

http.createServer(function (req, res) { res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/xml'}); res.end('<id>14394955</id>');}).listen(1337, '127.0.0.1');

Reviewer 1

“We use port 1337! Use another one!”

... res.end('<id>14394955</id>');}).listen(1337, '127.0.0.1');

Author

“We don’t use 1337 anymore! Will keep it :)”

... res.end('<id>14394955</id>');}).listen(1337, '127.0.0.1');

TOOLS FOR CODE REVIEWThere are several applications on the Internet for

handling code reviews. Some projects are also OS and available in Git.

2.2.2

WinMerge

http://winmerge.org

Microsoft WinDiff

http://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/159214

Wiki: Comparison of diff tools

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_comparison_tools

meld

http://meldmerge.org/

Notepad++ compare

http://sourceforge.net/projects/npp-compare/

Focus on differences onlyA review typically does not show involved files only, it is also able to highlights those parts of the code which underwent changes by the author, so that reviewers can understand where to look at.

Diff To have this, diff tools are necessary. A diff program simply compares two text files and highlights differences focusing on what was removed, what added and (only advanced tools) what moved.

Code reviewing applications use diffing tools, but those can be used also to compare two generic files. Windows used to have WinDiff.exe as default diff tool. Today we can find many solutions among OSS.

CHANGESETSA team is free to edit the codebase freely. However to

keep track of changes, changesets can be a very good tool to organize your code modifications.

2.3

CODEBASE

Contains all the code for the application under development, together with branches if any.

Changeset

Changeset

Changeset

One pack at a timeUsers share the same codebase which is stored and kept safe on one or (hopefully) multiple servers. When a developer wants to change something, he prepares a pack or changeset and submits it to the codebase.

Keeping things in order Such a system helps developers track changes. Also, every change is assigned to the team member who introduced it, so it is easy to understand who changed what!

commit syncrevert info

The role of testsFor every new feature pished into the codebase and every component, the Team should ensure to have unit tests and tests covering those! But when should these tests be executed? Exactly when a changeset is being merged in the codebase.

MICROSOFT UNIT TEST FRAMEWORKMicrosoft Visual Studio offers an integrated solution for

running tests and getting results.

2.4

ATTRIBUTE BASED

EXTENDABLE

TEST RESULTS

XML SUPPORT

VS Unit Test Fwk

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms243147%28VS.80%29.aspx

MSTest reference

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms182489.aspx

Writing tests in .NETPart of the Visual Studio Development Kit, the Unit Test Framework lets .NET developers write unit tests and tests in every .NET compatible language.

MSTest.exe /testcontainer: “<path-to-dll>” /test: “test-name” /resultsfile: “path-to-trx-dst”

Command line The executable will run all or specified tests that can be found in the provided dll.

AGILE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENTSSolutions to develop applications with Agile

methodologies and for a better development experience

3

TEAM FOUNDATION SERVERMicrosoft’s technology for developing application in collaboration contexts. It supports SCRUM and Agile.

3.1

CLOUD READY

KANBAN

SOURCE CNTRL

AGILE SUPPORTSCRUM SUPPORT

TEST MGMT

REPORTING

ISSUE TRACKING

CUSTOMIZATION

All in Visual StudioVisual Studio has everything needed when relying on Microsoft for developing solutions.

Deployment TFS requires deployment on a server which acts as the central datastore for all data. The architecture is pretty flexible and, once the server is ready, it can host the code, its branches and also handle work items.

Customization Work items can be configured with custom fields and rules in order to better handle automatic operations and save time.

GITToday’s most famous code repository, version control

and collaboration tool on the web.

3.2

CLOUD READY SOURCE CNTRL

AGILE SUPPORT

SCRUM SUPPORT REPORTING

ISSUE TRACKING

FREE (PUBLIC)

Git it!Git is a source control system which started becoming very popular in the last 5 years. Its hosting service, GitHub, today includes the greatest majority of OSS. Althought one of the first VC was Google Code, Google is now cutting in favor of GitHub.

Git offers many services for free, however private repositories require a “premium account” which is not free.

THANK YOUTwitter: @_atinoE-Mail: [email protected]

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Working with Agile technologies and SCRUM

Technology

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