Introduction to Agile Development - Essay Example

Name Professor Title Date [] Introduction to Agile development Agile is group of software development methods on the basis of iterative and incremental development. It involves evolution of requirements and solutions through teams. It promotes planning for adaptation, evolving and delivery, time limited and rapid responses to change. There are foreseen transactions through development cycle. The prototyping approach incorporates the commencement of construction and additional development (Craig 9) The values for agile incorporate individual interrelations that encompass organization and motivation, delivery of working software rather than documents to clients during meetings, stakeholder involvement in software development cycle and response to change (Craig 16). The principles of Agile include customer satisfaction, willingness to change, weekly delivery of working software, measure progress on the basis of operating software, sustainable development. Agile prefers using face-to-face communication; motivated and trustworthy individuals build the project, simplicity and self-organization (Craig 26). Agile applies a method called scrum that uses techniques of team and backlog creation, project segmentation meetings and charts. The phases include analysis, sprint, sprint review and closure. The drawbacks for agile include reliance on active and frequent user participation which is not possible. With the evolving requirements, there is difficulty in justification of projects upfront in terms of goals and costs. Availability of team to meet is a riddle too. Agile business needs and requirements Establishment of a business model, there must be comprehension of sufficient coverage of the problem but no modelling everything appearing problematic. The business model defines the business activities und creates understanding of the requirements. The business model specifies the chronology of undertaking owners and user activities. Process improvements occur through functionality, opportunities and bottlenecks removal. The company needs to state its unexploited potential, suitability of the new product to solve consumer problems and the future concern. The new system encompasses functionality and the expected constraints. The external requirements include the government policies, legal and industry requirements (Craig 37). Quality reports must describe the expected functionality, with reference to correctness as a source of the requirement. The software users and their representatives give user requirements. Otherwise, they are guesses. Feasible quality requirement statements require possibility of implementation and consider the future needs of the organization. Requirement statements must address actual consumer requirements and adhere to the external standards (Craig 2). They must have proper and identifiable features such as origin, usage, system regulation and stakeholder input. Provision of priority of quality is through the customer's attached value and implementation costs. Equally important requirements are hard to implement. Explicit quality reports must have universal ease of interpretation. It is necessary to avoid words such as smooth, rapid, efficient maximise and improved. Valid quality statements must provide for testing and to determine whether they are practical. Possible reports are feasible, consistent and transparent. Prediction of support is nor verifiable. The general set of requirements incorporates consistency and traceability. In order to discover a requirement, one needs to determine the interested parties, user goals, relevant documents, necessities of obtaining information and prototypes such as the sample screen shots from existing software. The developments encompass working backwards from the current software to identify client interests. The non-functional requirements include performance, constraints, legal requirements, interoperability, extensibility maintenance, security, use and testability of the software (Craig 46). Verification of the requirements involves determination of client needs, communication with other interested parties to confirm the requirements and reveal the possible conflicts, and develop the prototypes of the software to clarify the demands of the customers (Craig 48). Agile Project management Management involves the identification of the customer problem and using BOSCARDI acronym to prepare a development plan .The plans must have an origin, goals of the project and the scope of the processes and products incorporated. The constraints include available technology and time hence the need for inclusion of development assumptions. The possible risks the project success, client deliverables and outstanding or unclear issues are a necessity. The project plan outlines the organisation of the project and responsibility of each stakeholder (Ambler et al. 63). There is outlining of the link between the project managers and clients dealing with the possible requests for changes. Creating of a dynamic program provides for changes with circumstance. The level of plan detailing depends on the effort put. The details must deliver the value of the project. The schedule orders tasks performance in the expected way and meeting the supervisor's expectations. Too much detail is not necessary, and Microsoft project is appropriate (Craig 23). Minutes and plans of action of Agile The action plan describes the short-term future activities. It specifies the tasks and their respective performers and expected task duration. The plans need review for completion, progress or cancellation. Teamwork with effective communication is important. Honesty in case of issues, sticking to commitments, minimal blame and understanding teammates is necessary. Communication with customers at all stages of development is necessary for efficient solution of the problem. Alerting and negotiating with the clients helps to obtain essential information. The minutes prepare customers for outcomes to avoid disappointments. Problem definition and scoping Problems occur when there is a disparity between the current state of the project and the expectations. Discovery of the problems occurs during comparative studies, SWOT analysis, customer complaints and surveys. The organisation must detect occurrence of the problem by use of client perceptions. However, overreliance on clients can mislead by stating a nonexistent problem or lack techniques of identifying, analysing and designing the problem. Problems improve development focus by establishing the analytical process. After description, analysis helps to shape and redefine the problem. Probing by cause analysis helps to identify real problems. The cause must be distinct, identifiable and controllable by management. The fishbone diagram details describe the categories of many potential problems and root causes. Other methods of determinant the cause include the scatter diagrams, process mapping, benchmarking and field analysis. Questions such as who, what, how, why, where underlie the problem definition. Scoping defines objectives and ways of attaining them. The breakdown of Intermediate and final deliverables such as recommendations, prototypes, functionality and state of affairs occurs after project completion. Scope is dynamic and must be carefully written because they are a contract with clients (Ambler et al., 147) Communication with clients There is a need to define stakeholders, style of communication, and determination of attitude through changing the project, conflict resolution organisational culture and focus on objectives. Interacting encompasses people, communications and engagement. The stakeholders include management, sponsors, end users and research groups. After interviews, stakeholders react differently to project change outcomes (Ambler et al., 365). It is essential to establish a proper channel for communication and maintain courtesy, interest and professionalism advance problem solution strategies. According to McKay and Kindler, the world of IT is full of assumptions in terms of communication. According to Kelly, personality is not quantifiable or general across individuals. The model of Kelly takes people as scientists that can create a model of the world through event forecasting and environment mastering. Each person forms a subset of viewing the world and gives a unique model of the world (Ambler eta al., 22) Weltchaung Model views the world is in the perspective of gender, culture, society, family, self-concept, experience, education, attitudes values and beliefs. Problems depend on people's perceptions of the situation and thus the perspective and preferences. It is essential for business analysts to understand the problem, work with people and win the confidence of problem owners. Personality encompasses culture, expectations, nature of tasks and attitudes towards technology. The situation implies that the problems lie under individual and social constructions (Ambler et al., 274). There are production and interpretation of language games. Conflict management by Agile Conflict occurs where one's interests interfere with another's. Conflicts cause misunderstanding and miscommunication, disrespect, impatience, fear and insecurity, clash of roles and different evaluations of the same problem. There must be establishment of the most appropriate strategies to resolve the conflicts. The strategies include competition, accommodation, avoiding, compromising and collaborating. The style can be push or pull (Ambler et al. 282). Interviews An interview enhances collection of primary data to enhance solving problems (Ambler et al., 53). Their design is either formal or informal depending on guidelines to suit the project. The level of interviewer preparedness matters in the level of comfort of the respondent. Preparation is through confirmation of availability, conducting background research of the topic, and brainstorming about questions to ask for familiarity. Open-ended questions that are clear and direct, balancing of opinions with facts, straightforward, genuine and relevant questions increase interview success probability (Ambler et al., 53) Punctuality, reminding the respondent about the purpose, taking note of the conditions of the interview is a driver to a successful interview. Chronological questions, good listening and speaking to the responses, seeking clarification when in need and thanking the interviewee are necessary. Researchers must acknowledge the interview as a source of information for the project (Ambler et al., 492) Works cited Larman, how Agile applies Iterative Development: A guide for Managers. Boston: Addison-Wesley, 2004. Print. Ambler, Scott & Mark Lines. The Discipline of Agile during Delivery: A Practitioner's Guide to Agile Software Delivery in the Enterprise. Upper Saddle River, NJ: IBM Press, 2012. Print. Read More