AGILE METHODOLOGY
FEB 2011
Agile Methodologies are based on iterative and incremental software development. Business
value is delivered incrementally in time-boxed cross-discipline iterations.
Twelve principles:
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Customer satisfaction by rapid delivery of useful software
Welcome changing requirements – even late in deployment
Working software is delivered frequently (weeks versus months)
Working software is the principal measure of progress
Sustainable development – able to maintain constant pace
Close daily co-operation between business and developers
Face-to-face conversations is best form of communication
Projects are built around motivated individuals
Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design
Simplicity
Self-organizing teams
Regular adaption to changing circumstances
Basically Agile breaks tasks into small increments with minimal planning. It does not involve
long term planning. Each iteration involves a full development cycle. Team size is typically
small (5-9 people). Each team contains a customer representative appointed by stakeholders
to act on their behalf and makes a personal commitment to being available to developers to
answer mid-iteration problem-domain questions. With working software as the measure of
progress less written documentation is produced. Stakeholders need to prioritize their wants
with other iteration outcomes based on business value.
Comparison: Methodologies exist on a continuum from adaptive to predictive.
ADAPTIVE--------------------------------------------------------------------PREDICTIVE
ADAPTIVE: Agile lies on the adaptive side. Adaptive focuses on adapting to quickly changing
realities. When the needs change on a project, the team changes as well. The adaptive team
will have difficulty describing exactly what will happen in the future. The further away the date
the more vague it is. They cannot report exactly what tasks are being done next week but only
which features are planned for next month. When asked about a release 6 months from now,
an adaptive team may only be able to report the mission statement for the release or expected
value vs. cost.
PREDICTIVE: Predictive methods focus on planning the future in detail. A predictive team can
report exactly what features and tasks are planned for the entire project. Predictive teams
have difficulty changing direction. The plan is optimized for original destination and changing
direction can require completed work to be started over. These types of teams institute change
control boards to ensure only the most valuable changes are considered. Costs are closely
monitored.
DRAWBACKS: Some things that negatively impact the success of an agile project:
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Mission critical systems where failure is not an option
Large-scale development efforts
Distributed development efforts (non-colocated teams)
Forcing an agile process on a development team
AGILE METHODS: Well known agile software development methods include:
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Agile Modeling
Agile Unified Process (AUP)
Dynamic Systems Devl Method (DSDM)
Essential Unified Process (EssUP)
Extreme Programming (XP)
Feature Driven Development (FDD)
Open Unified Process (OpenUP)
Scrum
Velocity tracking
IT Project Delivery: E. Lorenzo Feb 2011