Section 4: Managing Software Development

Managing Software Development > New breed of software development methods > Agile methods of developing software

• Some of the common agile methodologies include Scrum, Extreme Programming or XP, Crystal and Adaptive Software development.
• We will use Scrum as an example to understand agile methods and how these are different from Waterfall.
• Scrum is borrowed from the Rugby sport, in which the team gains possession of the ball and jointly moves forward with it This approach of a cross-functional team going the distance as a unit, passing the ball back and forth is what agile scrum is about.
• Scrum can be seen as consisting of roles, events and artifacts.
• The three core roles in Scrum are-the Product Owner, the Scrum Master and the Developers.
• The product owner owns the requirements and it is his or her job to ensure that requirements… …from business owners are communicated to the scrum team.
• The scrum is facilitated by the scrum master who is responsible for removing any impediments the team faces.
• The scrum master is not a project manager: the team is expected to self-manage and the scrum master acts as a facilitator.
• A sprint is an iteration that is time-boxed usually from two to four weeks.
• While there could be one week sprints also, it is generally not recommended to have a sprint duration of more than a-one calendar month.
• A sprint commences with a sprint planning meeting which is time-boxed to a few hours-usually 4 hours for a two-week sprint.
• There is a daily scrum meeting which is used to discuss the progress and to collaborate with other team members.
• The sprint ends with a sprint review that is usually a demo of the developed system… …to the end user and concludes with a sprint retrospective.
• Finally, there are a set of scrum artifacts, such as the Product and the Sprint backlogs.
• Finally, there is the product increment-a working software that is developed during the sprint.
• The team meets during the daily scrum to review progress, plan activities and collaborate with each other.
• The output of a sprint is an increment to the software that is potentially shippable.
• In Scrum, requirements are captured as epics and user stories that are maintained in a product backlog.
• A user story describes a functionality that is of value to a user and is usually described in the format: “As a user….
• You will notice that the user story is at a high level and does not capture all the details.
• B) Details about the user story are fleshed out through conversations between the users and the developers.
• There are three epics-one from the user perspective, and two from the librarian perspective.
• A sprint starts with sprint planning, during which, the product owner presents the prioritized list of the product backlog to the team.
• The product owner also articulates a goal for the sprint.
• The scrum developers then analyse the user stories, convert them to tasks, estimate the effort, and self-select tasks.
• Assume that the product owner suggests that the first sprint goal is to create a database of the books and the subscribers.
• After the sprint planning, the scrum team participates in development of the user stories.
• Prof: The sprint concludes with a sprint review which is a demo of the developed functionality to the users of the system.
• The feedback so obtained is entered into the product backlog and shapes the direction of future sprints.
• The last activity of a spr