There is a fantastic list of agile principles in chapter 1, here's my synopsis of Robert's list.
- Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
The smaller the deliverable of software the higher the quality and the less risk of non-delivery. The more often you can deliver the higher the overall quality. All deliverables are production quality code.
- Welcome changing requirements, even late in the development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage. Embrace change, change is good, it demonstrates we have learnt more about the customer's needs. An agile development team should focus on software the is easy to change and maintain, simplifying the adaptive process. In my opinion I would also add to this, communicate the cost of change effectively to stakeholders as well; change does cost and whimsical change should be transparent and visible.
- Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter time scale. Each delivery should satisfy some customer need.
- Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project. In order to be agile there must be frequent interaction and assessment. A software project is not a fire and forget weapon.
- Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need and trust them to get the job done. People are always the most important factor in any software project, everything else is secondary and will not compensate for the wrong people on a project.
- The most efficient and effective form of conveying information to and within a team is face-to-face conversation. Speech is a far richer and more concise form of communication over written forms, more information is imparted more quickly and with more detail. Documentation should be created incrementally, but only when NEEDED.
- Working software is the primary measure of progress. The project is 30% done when 30% of all features needed are finished and delivered.
- Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely. It is not a 100metre sprint, its more like a marathon. Care should be taken not to over commit.
- Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility. High quality is the key to speed, badly written code generally leads to a do-over. All team members must believe in and be committed to high quality and excellence. They do not create messes that they promise to fix next month.
- Simplicity - the art of maximising the amount of work not done is essential. Take the simplest path that is consistent with the team and project goals. They do not put a lot of importance on solving tomorrow's problems, nor do they try and defend against them today. Rather focus on writing clear quality code that is easy to change.
- The best architecture, requirements, and design emerges from self organising teams. An agile team is a self organising team. Responsibilities should not be handed out, rather let the team decide and come to a consensus on decisions or let them choose who is best able to make these decisions if they feel they cannot contribute. All team members should feel they have influence over decisions made.
- At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behaviour accordingly. The agile team knows that its environment is constantly changes and the best processes from yesterday may not still be best.
This post is meant to be a quick reference of valuable Agile information.
References:
- Agile Principles Patterns and Practises in C# (Prentice Hall)
- www.controlchaos.com
- Clarus Consulting (Thanks to Ed and Bruce for all their valuable advice and help over the last few months).
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