Chapter 3 – Agile Software Development

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Topics covered

 Agile methods
 Agile development techniques
 Agile project management

What is agile?
http
://iansommerville.com/software-engineering-book/videos/ag
ile-methods
/
Agile Vs Waterfall:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zV1yzx_Tso
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Agile development

 Program specification, design and implementation are

inter-leaved
 The system is developed as a series of versions
(increments) with stakeholders involved in version
specification and evaluation
 Frequent delivery of new versions for evaluation
 Extensive tool support (e.g. automated testing tools)
used to support development.
 Minimal documentation – focus on working code

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 Agile methods

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Agile methods

 Dissatisfaction with the overhead expenses 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 documentation
 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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Agile manifesto

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.
http://agilemanifesto.org/

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The principles of agile methods

Principle Description
Customer involvement Customers should be closely involved throughout the
development process. Their role is provide and prioritize new
system requirements and to evaluate the iterations of the
system.
Frequent Incremental The software is developed in increments with the customer
delivery specifying the requirements to be included in each increment.

People not process The skills of the development team should be recognized and
exploited. Team members should be left to develop their own
ways of working without prescriptive processes.

Embrace change Expect the system requirements to change and so design the
system to accommodate these changes.

Maintain simplicity Focus on simplicity in both the software being developed and
in the development process. Wherever possible, actively work  
to eliminate complexity from the system.

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Agile method applicability

 Product development where a software company is

developing a small or medium-sized product for sale.
 Virtually all software products and apps are now developed
using an agile approach

 Custom system development within an organization,

where there is a clear commitment from the customer to
become involved in the development process

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 Agile development techniques

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Extreme programming

 A very influential agile method, developed in the late

1990s, that introduced a range of agile development
techniques.

 Extreme Programming (XP) takes an ‘extreme’ approach

to iterative development.
 New versions may be built several times per day;
 Increments are delivered to customers every 2 weeks;
 All tests must be run for every build and the build is only
accepted if tests run successfully.

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The extreme programming release cycle

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XP and agile principles

 Incremental development is supported through small,

frequent system releases.
 Customer involvement means full-time customer
engagement with the team.
 People not process through pair programming, collective
ownership and a process that avoids long working hours.
 Change supported through regular system releases.
 Maintaining simplicity through constant refactoring of
code.

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Influential XP practices

 Extreme programming has a technical focus and is not

easy to integrate with management practice in most
organizations.
 Consequently, while agile development uses practices
from XP, the method as originally defined is not widely
used.
 Key practices
 User stories for specification
 Refactoring
 Test-first development
 Pair programming

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User stories for requirements

 In XP, a customer or user is part of the XP team and is

responsible for making decisions on requirements.
 User requirements are expressed as user stories or
scenarios.
 These are written on cards and the development team
break them down into implementation tasks. These tasks
are the basis of schedule and cost estimates.
 The customer chooses the stories for inclusion in the
next release based on their priorities and the schedule
estimates.

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A ‘prescribing medication’ story

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Examples of task cards for prescribing
medication

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Refactoring

 Programming team look for possible software

improvements and make these improvements even
where there is no immediate need for them.
 This improves the understandability of the software and
so reduces the need for documentation.
 Changes are easier to make because the code is well-
structured and clear.
 However, some changes require architecture refactoring
and this is much more expensive.

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Examples of refactoring

 Re-organization of a class hierarchy to remove duplicate

code.

 Tidying up and renaming attributes and methods to make

them easier to understand.

 The replacement of inline code with calls to methods that

have been included in a program library.

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Test-first development

 Testing is central to XP and XP has developed an

approach where the program is tested after every
change has been made.
 Writing tests before code clarifies the requirements to be
implemented.
 Tests are written as programs rather than data so that
they can be executed automatically. The test includes a
check that it has executed correctly.
 Usually relies on a testing framework such as Junit.
 All previous and new tests are run automatically when
new functionality is added, thus checking that the new
functionality has not introduced errors.
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Test case description for dose checking

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Test automation

 Test automation means that tests are written as

executable components before the task is implemented
 These testing components should be stand-alone, should
simulate the submission of input to be tested and should check
that the result meets the output specification. An automated test
framework (e.g. Junit) is a system that makes it easy to write
executable tests and submit a set of tests for execution.
 As testing is automated, there is always a set of tests
that can be quickly and easily executed
 Whenever any functionality is added to the system, the tests can
be run and problems that the new code has introduced can be
caught immediately.

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Pair programming

 In pair programming, programmers sit together at the

same computer to develop the software.
 It serves as an informal review process as each line of
code is looked at by more than 1 person.
 Pairs are created dynamically so that all team members
work with each other during the development process.
 The sharing of knowledge that happens during pair
programming is very important as it reduces the overall
risks to a project when team members leave.

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 Agile project management

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Agile project management

 The principal responsibility of software project managers

is to manage the project so that the software is delivered
on time and within the planned budget for the project.
 The standard approach to project management is plan-
driven. Managers draw up a plan for the project showing
what should be delivered, when it should be delivered
and who will work on the development of the project
deliverables.
 Agile project management requires a different approach,
which is adapted to incremental development and the
practices used in agile methods.

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Scrum

 Scrum is an agile method that focuses on managing

iterative and incremental development rather than specific
agile practices.
 There are three phases in Scrum.
 The initial phase is an outline planning phase where you establish
the general objectives for the project and design the software
architecture.
 This is followed by a series of sprint cycles, where each cycle
develops an increment of the system.
 The project closure phase wraps up the project, completes
required documentation such as system help frames and user
manuals and assesses the lessons learned from the project
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TycLR0TqFA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU0llRltyFM
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Scrum terminology (a)

Scrum term Definition

Development (Scrum) A self-organizing group of software developers, which should be no more

team than 7 people. They are responsible for developing the software and other
essential project documents.
Potentially shippable The software increment that is delivered from a sprint. The idea is that this
product increment should be ‘potentially shippable’ which means that it is in a finished state and
no further work, such as testing, is needed to incorporate it into the final
product. In practice, this is not always achievable.

Product backlog This is a list of ‘to do’ items which the Scrum team must tackle. They may be
feature definitions for the software, software requirements, user stories or
descriptions of supplementary tasks that are needed, such as architecture
definition or user documentation.

Product owner An individual (or possibly a small group) whose job is to identify product
features or requirements, prioritize these for development and continuously
review the product backlog to ensure that the project continues to meet
critical business needs. The Product Owner can be a customer but might also
be a product manager in a software company or other stakeholder
representative.
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 Scrum terminology (b)

Scrum term Definition

Scrum A daily meeting of the Scrum team that reviews progress and prioritizes
work to be done that day. Ideally, this should be a short face-to-face
meeting that includes the whole team.

ScrumMaster The ScrumMaster is responsible for ensuring that the Scrum process is
followed and guides the team in the effective use of Scrum. He or she is
responsible for interfacing with the rest of the company and for ensuring
that the Scrum team is not diverted by outside interference.
Sprint A development iteration. Sprints are usually 2-4 weeks long.

Velocity An estimate of how much product backlog effort that a team can cover in
a single sprint. Understanding a team’s velocity helps them estimate
what can be covered in a sprint and provides a basis for measuring
improving performance.

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The Scrum sprint cycle (a)

 Sprints are fixed length, normally 2–4 weeks.

 The starting point for planning is the product backlog, which is the
list of work to be done during the project.
 The selection phase involves all of the project team who work with
the customer to select the features and functionality from the
product backlog to be developed during the sprint.
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The Scrum sprint cycle (b)

 Once these are agreed, the team organize themselves to develop

the software.
 During this stage the team is isolated from the customer and the
organization, with all communications channelled through the so-
called ‘Scrum master’.
 The role of the Scrum master is to protect the development team
from external distractions.
 At the end of the sprint, the work done is reviewed and presented to
stakeholders. The next sprint cycle then begins.

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Teamwork in Scrum

 The ‘Scrum master’ is a facilitator who arranges daily

meetings, tracks the backlog of work to be done, records
decisions, measures progress against the backlog and
communicates with customers and management outside
of the team.
 The whole team attends short daily meetings (Scrums)
where all team members share information, describe
their progress since the last meeting, problems that have
arisen and what is planned for the following day.
 This means that everyone on the team knows what is going on
and, if problems arise, can re-plan short-term work to cope with
them.

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Scrum benefits

 The product is broken down into a set of manageable

and understandable chunks.
 Unstable requirements do not hold up progress.
 The whole team have visibility of everything and
consequently team communication is improved.
 Customers see on-time delivery of increments and gain
feedback on how the product works.
 Trust between customers and developers is established
and a positive culture is created in which everyone
expects the project to succeed.

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