In this video, the first of our Introduction to Agile and Scrum series, we look at the pros and cons of “the old way” of developing software, discuss the Agile Manifesto, tackle Agile myths, answer the questions “What is Agile?” and “What is Scrum?”, delve into Scrum roles, and end with an overview of the Scrum framework.
Talk Outline
The Old Way
Waterfall
- Requirements
- Design
- Implementation
- Verification
- Maintenance
Waterfall Pros
- Find bugs early in the process
- Correct requirements now, less problems later (in theory)
- Emphasis on documentation – developers hate doing this
- Simple and disciplined
- Good for stable projects
Waterfall Cons
- Each step is not mutually exclusive
- Developers are usually not clairvoyant
- Documentation overhead
- Rigid and inflexible
- Stable project?!
Reality
- Development phases overlap
- Software is emergent – the farther along we go the more we know
- “Done” is a moving target
- Flexibility is required – business requirements and the environment changes
- Collaboration is essential
Agile Manifesto
Lays out the philosophy for agile development
- Individuals and interactions over process and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
Agile Myths
- Lack of discipline – “self-managing” = do whatever you want, when you want
- Lack of visibility
- “That won’t work here”
What is Agile?
Group of philosophies and practices that provides the ability to handle changing requirements
- Iterative development
- Large amount of collaboration between the business and development team
- Have self-organizing and self-managing teams
- Stressing leadership over management
Utilizing these and a set of practices, a team gains the ability to continuously adapt.
Agile Methods
- Extreme Programming (XP)
- Test Driven Development (TDD)
- Feature Driven Development (FDD)
- Behavior Driven Development (BDD)
- Scrum
What is Scrum?
A framework for developing complex products and systems, grounded in empirical process control theory
- Transparency
- Inspection
- Adaptation
Three inspect and adapt points
- Sprint Review and Planning meetings
- Daily Scrum
- The Retrospective
The Scrum Team
- Product Owner
- ScrumMaster
- The Team
Called pigs: they have their bacon on the line.
Chickens
- Involved, but aren’t committed
- Users, stakeholders (customers, vendors), managers, and business units
ScrumMaster
- The driving force behind the process
- Helps the team and organization adopt and use Scrum
- A leader, not a manager
- Roles they play: coach, teacher, and supporter
Product Owner
- Manages and controls the product backlog
- Responsible for the value of the work done
- Keeps the product backlog in priority order, visible to everyone
- A single person, not a committee
- Must have authority, and the respect of others to succeed
- Single point of contact for the team
The Team
- The ones turning product backlog items into increments of potentially shippable functionality
- Cross-functional: everyone that needs to be on the team to make the stories happen
- Self-organized: everyone contributes
- No job descriptions, no titles, no exceptions
- Sink or swim as a team
- Optimal team size: 7, +- 2
- Team composition may change at the end of a sprint; be careful in doing so
Overview of the Scrum Process
- Product backlog
- Release planning
- Sprint + daily scrum
- Increment
- Sprint review
- Sprint retrospective
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