Agile methods

 Dissatisfaction with the overheads involved in software

design methods of the 1980s and 1990s led to the
creation of agile methods. These methods:
 Focus on the code rather than the design
 Are based on an iterative approach to software development
 Are intended to deliver working software quickly and evolve this
quickly to meet changing requirements.
 The aim of agile methods is to reduce overheads in the
software process (e.g. by limiting documentation) and to
be able to respond quickly to changing requirements
without excessive rework.

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The Manifesto for
Agile Software Development
“We are uncovering better ways of developing
software by doing it and helping others do it.
Through this work we have come to value:
•Individuals and interactions over processes
and tools
•Working software over comprehensive
documentation
•Customer collaboration over contract
negotiation
•Responding to change over following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on the
right, we value the items on the left more.”
Kent Beck et al

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What is “Agility”?
 Effective (rapid and adaptive) response to
change
 Effective communication among all stakeholders
 Drawing the customer onto the team
 Organizing a team so that it is in control of the
work performed
Yielding …
 Rapid, incremental delivery of software

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Agility and the Cost of Change

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Plan-driven and agile
specification

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An Agile Process
 Is driven by customer descriptions of what is
required (scenarios)
 Recognizes that plans are short-lived
 Develops software iteratively with a heavy
emphasis on construction activities
 Delivers multiple ‘software increments’
 Adapts as changes occur

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Agility Principles - I
1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and
continuous delivery of valuable software.
2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development.
Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive
advantage.
3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to
a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
4. Business people and developers must work together daily
throughout the project.
5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the
environment and support they need, and trust them to get the
job done.
6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying
information to and within a development team is face–to–face
conversation.

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Agility Principles - II
7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.
8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The
sponsors, developers, and users should be able to
maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good
design enhances agility.
10. Simplicity – the art of maximizing the amount of work
not done – is essential.
11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs
emerge from self–organizing teams.
12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become
more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior
accordingly.

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 Agile method applicability
• Product development where a software company is
developing a small or medium-sized product for sale.
• Custom system development within an organization,
where there is a clear commitment from the customer
to become involved in the development process and
where there are not a lot of external rules and
regulations that affect the software.
• Because of their focus on small, tightly-integrated
teams, there are problems in scaling agile methods to
large systems.

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 Problems with agile methods
 It can be difficult to keep the interest of customers who
are involved in the process.
 Team members may be unsuited to the intense
involvement that characterises agile methods.
 Prioritising changes can be difficult where there are
multiple stakeholders.
 Maintaining simplicity requires extra work.
 Contracts may be a problem as with other approaches
to iterative development.

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 Agile methods and software
maintenance
• Most organizations spend more on maintaining existing
software than they do on new software development.
So, if agile methods are to be successful, they have to
support maintenance as well as original development.
• Two key issues:
– Are systems that are developed using an agile approach
maintainable, given the emphasis in the development process
of minimizing formal documentation?
– Can agile methods be used effectively for evolving a system in
response to customer change requests?
• Problems may arise if original development team
cannot be maintained.
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 Plan-driven and agile
development
Plan-driven development
A plan-driven approach to software engineering is based
around separate development stages with the outputs to be
produced at each of these stages planned in advance.
 Not necessarily waterfall model – plan-driven, incremental
development is possible
 Iteration occurs within activities.

Agile development
 Specification,
design, implementation and testing are inter-
leaved and the outputs from the development process are
decided through a process of negotiation during the software
development process.
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Human Factors
 the process molds to the needs of the people
and team, not the other way around
 key traits must exist among the people on an
agile team and the team itself:
 Competence.
 Common focus.
 Collaboration.
 Decision-making ability.
 Fuzzy problem-solving ability.
 Mutual trust and respect.
 Self-organization.

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Extreme Programming (XP)
 The most widely used agile process, originally
proposed by Kent Beck
 XP Planning
 Begins with the creation of “user stories”
 Agile team assesses each story and assigns a cost
 Stories are grouped to for a deliverable increment
 A commitment is made on delivery date
 After the first increment “project velocity” is used to
help define subsequent delivery dates for other
increments

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Extreme Programming (XP)
 XP Design
 Follows the KIS principle
 Encourage the use of CRC cards (see Chapter 8)
 For difficult design problems, suggests the creation of “spike
solutions”—a design prototype
 Encourages “refactoring”—an iterative refinement of the internal
program design
 XP Coding
 Recommends the construction of a unit test for a store before
coding commences
 Encourages “pair programming”
 XP Testing
 All unit tests are executed daily
 “Acceptance tests” are defined by the customer and executed to
assess customer visible functionality

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16
Extreme Programming
(XP)

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User Stories
Who (often called role) and what
Why (optional)
Easy to understand
Short
Indicates measures of success
 User Story Examples (1 of 2)
As a smart phone user, I As a business owner, I
want to be able to install want to be able to accept
the application. credit cards.

As a smart phone user, I As a business owner, I

want to be able to uninstall want to be able to receive
the application. confidential customer
feedback.
 User Story Examples (2 of 2)
Asa dog owner, I want the Asa dog owner, I don’t
dog to notify me when it want the dog to bite
needs to go out. humans.

Asa dog owner, I want the Asa dog owner, I want the
dog to sit when asked. dog to come when called.
Adaptive Software Development
 Originally proposed by Jim Highsmith
 ASD — distinguishing features
 Mission-driven planning
 Component-based focus
 Uses “time-boxing” (See Chapter 24)
 Explicit consideration of risks
 Emphasizes collaboration for requirements gathering
 Emphasizes “learning” throughout the process

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Adaptive Software Development

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Dynamic Systems Development Method
 Promoted by the DSDM Consortium ([Link])
 DSDM—distinguishing features
 Similar in most respects to XP and/or ASD
 Nine guiding principles
• Active user involvement is imperative.
• DSDM teams must be empowered to make decisions.
• The focus is on frequent delivery of products.
• Fitness for business purpose is the essential criterion for acceptance of
deliverables.
• Iterative and incremental development is necessary to converge on an accurate
business solution.
• All changes during development are reversible.
• Requirements are baselined at a high level
• Testing is integrated throughout the life-cycle.

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Dynamic Systems Development Method

DSDM Life Cycle (with permission of the DSDM consortium)

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Scrum
 Originally proposed by Schwaber and Beedle
 Scrum—distinguishing features
 Development work is partitioned into “packets”
 Testing and documentation are on-going as the
product is constructed
 Work occurs in “sprints” and is derived from a
“backlog” of existing requirements
 Meetings are very short and sometimes conducted
without chairs
 “demos” are delivered to the customer with the time-
box allocated

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Scrum

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Crystal
 Proposed by Cockburn and Highsmith
 Crystal—distinguishing features
 Actually a family of process models that allow
“maneuverability” based on problem characteristics
 Face-to-face communication is emphasized
 Suggests the use of “reflection workshops” to
review the work habits of the team

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Feature Driven Development
 Originally proposed by Peter Coad et al
 FDD—distinguishing features
 Emphasis is on defining “features”
• a feature “is a client-valued function that can be
implemented in two weeks or less.”
 Uses a feature template
• <action> the <result> <by | for | of | to> a(n) <object>
 A features list is created and “plan by feature” is
conducted
 Design and construction merge in FDD

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Feature Driven Development

Reprinted with permission of Peter Coad

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Agile Modeling
 Originally proposed by Scott Ambler
 Suggests a set of agile modeling principles
 Model with a purpose
 Use multiple models
 Travel light
 Content is more important than representation
 Know the models and the tools you use to create them
 Adapt locally

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