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
OK, your app sounds large! I can share my experiences around an application we engineered recently; it was a GUI talking web services to a server that in turn contacted multiple databases and other web services. The client base was around 15,000 users… Either way – this is a lot of work no matter how … Read more
With a collocated team, I’d always duplicate user stories on index cards. A wall of cards is much more collaborative and simple to use than any software tool. And what’s most important, it’s in your face. The same is true for a burn chart. In my experience, a software chart gets online looked at by … Read more
Keeping testers busy tends to get easier as a project matures (there is more to test!), but the following points apply in the early stages too: Testers can prepare their test plans, test cases, and automated tests for the user stories before (or while) they are implemented. This helps the team discover any inconsistency or … 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
The best template I have found is: As a <user> I want to <do something> so that <I can accomplish goal>.
I work in government. We recently ran a software development procurement process and selected three vendors to work on an Agile project. Some notes: We were already 75% sure we wanted to run an Agile project because we knew our requirements were ambiguous and because it was a public-facing web project with a significant design … Read more