Software Engineering -1

Topic - 4

Agile Process Model

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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 and incremental 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.”

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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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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.
Plan-driven and agile
specification
Extreme programming
 Perhaps the best-known and most widely used
agile method.
 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.
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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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
 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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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 requires architecture
refactoring and this is much more expensive.
 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.
Pair programming
 In XP, programmers work in pairs, sitting together to
develop code.
 This helps develop common ownership of code and
spreads knowledge across the team.
 It serves as an informal review process as each line
of code is looked at by more than 1 person.
 It encourages refactoring as the whole team can
benefit from this.
 Measurements suggest that development
productivity with pair programming is similar to that
of two people working independently.
Extreme Programming (XP)
spike solut ions
simple design
prot ot ypes
CRC cards
user st ories
values
accept ance t est crit eria
it erat ion plan

refact oring

pair
programming

Release
sof t ware increment
unit t est
project velocit y comput ed cont inuous int egrat ion

accept ance t est ing

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 Scrum
 The Scrum approach is a general agile method but its
focus is on managing iterative 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.
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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The Scrum process

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 The Sprint cycle
 Sprints are fixed length, normally 2–4 weeks. They
correspond to the development of a release of the
system in XP.
 The starting point for planning is the product backlog,
which is the list of work to be done on the project.
 The selection phase involves all of the project team
who work with the customer to select the features and
functionality to be developed during the sprint.
The Sprint cycle
 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.
 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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