Agile software development

Since the SEP based on agile software development methodology you should have good knowledge about this methodology.
This is a group of Software Development Methodologies and practices that address some of the issues of classical software development methodologies. It promotes adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, continuous improvement, and encourages rapid and flexible response to change. It is about how to work together to achieve a common goal.  This is not only suitable for software developers but also for Team Leaders, Project Managers, Product Managers, Development Managers, Testers, QA Managers, QA Engineers, Technical Writers, UX Designers, anyone involved in the delivering software.

Agile Principals

1.       Customer satisfaction by early and continuous delivery of useful software

2.       Welcome changing requirements, even late in development

3.       Working software is delivered frequently (weeks rather than months)

4.       Close, daily cooperation between business people and developers

5.       Projects are built around motivated individuals, who should be trusted

6.       Face-to-face conversation is the best form of communication (co­location)

7.       Working software is the principal measure of progress

8.       Sustainable development, able to maintain a constant pace

9.       Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design

10.   Simplicity—the art of maximizing the amount of work not done—is essential

11.   Self-organizing teams

12.   Regular adaptation to changing circumstance

   

    

Agile Manifesto

1.       Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

2.       Working software over comprehensive documentation

3.       Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

4.       Responding to change over following a plan

   Extreme Programming

   Extreme Programming (XP) is a software development methodology which is intended to improve software quality and responsiveness to changing customer requirements.

   Who benefits from XP?

   

Scrum

Scrum is an agile process that allows us to focus on delivering the highest business value in the shortest time. It is the most popular way of introducing Agility due to its simplicity and flexibility.  Scrum highly point out feedback s, team self-management, and striving to build properly tested product increments within short iterations.

SCRUM components

·          Scrum Roles

·         The Process

·         Scrum Artifacts

Scrum Roles

Product Owner:

·         Define the features of the product

·          Decide on release date and content

·         Be responsible for the profitability of the product

·          Prioritize features according to market value

·          Adjust features and priority every iteration, as needed

·         Accept or reject work results.

·         Accept or reject work results.

Scrum Master

·      Represents management to the project

·      Responsible for enacting Scrum values and practices

·      Removes impediments

·      Ensure that the team is fully functional and productive

·      Enable close cooperation across all roles and functions

·      Shield the team from external interference s

Scrum Team

·      Typically 5-10 people

·      Cross-functional

·      Members should be full-time

·      Teams are self-organizing

·      Membership can change only between sprints

Other Stakeholders

Scrum artifacts

Product Backlog: 

Product backlog is the complete list of requirements including bugs, enhancement requests, and usability and performance improvements that are not currently in the product release.

Sprint backlog: Sprint backlog is the list of backlog items assigned to a sprint, but not yet completed. In common practice, no sprint backlog item should take more than two days to complete. The sprint backlog helps the team predict the level of effort required to complete a sprint.

Burn down chart:

Depicts the total Sprint Backlog hours remaining per day. Shows the estimated amount of time to release and ideally should burn down to zero to the end of the sprint.

Word to SLIIT 3rd year Software Engineering students…

As SLIIT 3rd year student we put a major effort to our software engineering project. Software Engineering project (SEP) subject is very important to us because it gives us good experience that helpful us to work in the industry. Here are some dos and don’ts that we should follow to be success in software engineering project.

Do’s and Don’ts of project team management

Dos

1.       Gather right and clear requirements.

It’s very important to gather right and clear requirements of project at the beginning. We should have clear idea about the system that we going to be developed. The system what we plan to develop is should same as what client expects from us. If we understand the system in wrong manner, we will have to waste large amount of time to change what we already done.

2.       Gather right resources.

It's all about getting to know people, their well-known areas, and adding them into your reticulation for knowledge and experience. All the members of the group should have at least basic knowledge about the technology, language that you going to use in your project.

3.       Have a project plan

The project must have good plan to be success. Share the works in the project between members in group. Every member should have similar workload and it should enough and could be completed within duration of project. A plan gives the stakeholders and idea of how the project will play out as well as giving the team some structure and milestones for their deliverable.

4.       Work hard

Hard working is very important to complete the project within given time period. When you work hard on this project you get that experience to work in the industry as well as you can find time to do other subjects.

5.       Balance works of SEP and other subjects

You should able to balance all the works with software engineering project.

6.       Time management

As  university  students  who  are  dealing  with  other  subject  matters,  time management  probably  comes  naturally.  To really "do more with less, "you've got to become more productive. Keep a “to-do" list wherever you want, but make it work for you.  This can help you identify top priorities, eliminate time wasters, and get rid of wasteful processes.

7.       Have regular meetings.

Don’ts

1.       Not having regular meetings.

2.       Lack of meeting client and supervisor.

3.       Too shy to ask feedback.

4.       Take anything for granted regarding the project.

5.       Don’t care about deadlines.