Agile Software Development Methods

Concepts

Agile Software Development focuses on delivering business value early though rapid development and deployment of software. So how does it do that? This overview of Agile Software Development will discuss the methods used to achieve those goals.

In this one day session we'll present what it means to be agile, common agile practices, and what a tester's responsibilities are in agile development. It is taught by an instructor with real work experience running successful agile software development projects.

Participants will learn:

• Understand the philosophical underpinnings of Agile practices
• Apply an Agile (iterative and incremental) lifecycle model
• Judge the effectiveness of Agile practices at achieving their goals, especially
  • Progressive Requirements Elaboration
  • Iterative Planning and Adaptation
  • Incremental Product Delivery and Acceptance
• Identify key roles on an Agile team
• Apply the Agile approach to project monitoring and adaptation
• Adapt Agile practices to organizational realities and limitations

Outline

Section 1

• The values, principles and philosophies that underpin Agility
  • The Agile Manifesto
  • The 12 Agile Principles Behind the Manifesto
  • The Essence of Agility
• The iterative and incremental lifecycle
  • The Agile lifecycle model
  • The nature of the Iterative process
  • The purpose and value of Incremental development
  • Lean documentation
  • Continuous Integration
• Contrasting Agility to other software development methods
  • Agile vs. waterfall
  • Agile vs. traditional incremental approaches
• Progressive requirements elaboration
  • Elaborating Requirements detail as needed
  • Vision and Roadmap
  • High level requirements
  • Detailed requirements
  • Writing Agile "Stories"
  • Group Exercise

Section 2

• Iterative planning and adaptation
  • The five levels of Agile Planning
  • Elaborating Plan detail as needed
• Incremental product delivery
  • The focus on Customer value
  • Rapid Feedback
  • Incremental Customer Acceptance
• Self-directed teams
  • The nature of self-directed teams
  • Role and Responsibilities in the Agile team
  • The Team Approach in Agile
  • Coaching Self-directed teams
  • Collaborative Leadership (vs. Command-and-Control Leadership)
  • Group Exercise

Section 3

• Agile project monitoring
  • Delivered Software as the primary measure of Progress
  • Daily statusing
  • Translating team status for other stakeholders
• Welcoming project change
  • Adapting to changing requirements and priorities
  • Adapting to technical surprises and planning errors
• Tailoring Agile methods
  • Suitability of Agile methods in various contexts
  • Adapting Agile methods to organizational realities
  • Hybrid Approach
  • Group Exercises

Final Exercise