First, go read the Twelve Principles of Agile Software. Second, figure out from what you know how to achieve the principles that are most important to you. People constantly make the mistake of expecting Agile development to be a Silver Bullet or a rigorous set of processes that you need to adhere to that will … Read more
You seem to be coming at this from a work experience point of view; if you are looking to build relevant experience to get you a job on an agile project I would probably think a little more laterally. Firstly could you work with others, maybe on an open source project? That would be a … Read more
“Working software over comprehensive documentation” means you do not need a functional spec… Wrong!!! It just means that you can iron out the wrinkles iteratively with the users – speaking as a vendor, you still need good documentation to assist with the QA and sign-off phases…
Actually, neither Agile nor Lean have a precise definition. Both cases are rather about a set of principles and practices – in the former case, basing on Agile Manifesto, whilst the latter is based on the Toyota Production System adapted to software/IT industry. I would say that both Lean and Agile are two flavours of … Read more
How do you know your unpaired programmers are any more efficient ? I sometimes think the single/pair is comparable to the old fairytale of the rabbit and the tortoise. Pairing doesn’t drift off into days of counter-productive work. I have no idea of how often I’ve seen developers spending weeks working on stuff that later … Read more
Iterative – you don’t finish a feature in one go. You are in a code >> get feedback >> code >> … cycle. You keep iterating till done. Incremental – you build as much as you need right now. You don’t over-engineer or add flexibility unless the need is proven. When the need arises, you … Read more
A whiteboard and Post-it notes! alt text http://blogs.imeta.co.uk/images/blogs_imeta_co_uk/tquinn/WindowsLiveWriter/KanbanBoard_E65B/KanbanBoard_2.jpg
First off – ask yourself are you really doing Agile? If you are then you should have already delivered a large portion of usable functionality to the client which satisfied their requirements in the earlier sprints. In theory, the “damage” should be limited to the final sprint where you discovered you needed large design changes. … Read more
Yes, something like a subset. This article is a good read: Features vs Stories Excerpt: I realized today that I hadn’t made explicit the difference in my mind between features and stories and it’s an important difference. Essentially, a feature is a group of stories that are related and deliver a package of functionality that … Read more
All sprints are iterations but not all iterations are sprints. Iteration is a common term in iterative and incremental development (IID). Scrum is one specialized flavor of IID so it makes sense to specialize the terminology as well. It also helps brand the methodology different from other IID methodologies 🙂 As to the sprint length: … Read more