Chapter 3 – Agile Software Development

Chapter 3 – Agile Software Development. Chapter 3 Agile Software Development.

Topics covered. Agile methods Agile development techniques Agile project management Scaling agile methods.

Rapid software development. Rapid development and delivery is now often the most important requirement for software systems Businesses operate in a fast –changing requirement and it is practically impossible to produce a set of stable software requirements Software has to evolve quickly to reflect changing business needs. Plan-driven development is essential for some types of system but does not meet these business needs. Agile development methods emerged in the late 1990s whose aim was to radically reduce the delivery time for working software systems.

Agile development. Program specification, design and implementation are inter-leaved The system is developed as a series of versions or increments with stakeholders involved in version specification and evaluation Frequent delivery of new versions for evaluation Extensive tool support (e.g. automated testing tools) used to support development. Minimal documentation – focus on working code.

Plan-driven and agile development. Chapter 3 Agile Software Development.

Plan-driven and agile development. Plan-driven development A plan-driven approach to software engineering is based around separate development stages with the outputs to be produced at each of these stages planned in advance. Not necessarily waterfall model – plan-driven, incremental development is possible Iteration occurs within activities. Agile development Specification, design, implementation and testing are inter-leaved and the outputs from the development process are decided through a process of negotiation during the software development process..

Agile methods. Chapter 3 Agile Software Development.

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 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..

Agile manifesto. 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..

The principles of agile methods. Chapter 3 Agile Software Development.

Agile method applicability. Product development where a software company is developing a small or medium-sized product for sale. Virtually all software products and apps are now developed using an agile approach 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 few external rules and regulations that affect the software..

Agile development techniques. Chapter 3 Agile Software Development.

Extreme programming. A very influential agile method, developed in the late 1990s, that introduced a range of agile development techniques. 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..

The extreme programming release cycle. Chapter 3 Agile Software Development.

Extreme programming practices (a). Chapter 3 Agile Software Development.

Extreme programming practices (b). Chapter 3 Agile Software Development.

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..

Influential XP practices. Extreme programming has a technical focus and is not easy to integrate with management practice in most organizations. Consequently, while agile development uses practices from XP, the method as originally defined is not widely used. Key practices User stories for specification Refactoring Test-first development Pair programming.

User stories for requirements. In XP, a customer or user is part of the XP team and is responsible for making decisions on requirements. User requirements are expressed as user stories or scenarios. These are written on cards and the development team break them down into implementation tasks. These tasks are the basis of schedule and cost estimates. The customer chooses the stories for inclusion in the next release based on their priorities and the schedule estimates..

A ‘prescribing medication’ story. Chapter 3 Agile Software Development.

Examples of task cards for prescribing medication.

Refactoring. Conventional wisdom in software engineering is to design for change. It is worth spending time and effort anticipating changes as this reduces costs later in the life cycle. XP, however, maintains that this is not worthwhile as changes cannot be reliably anticipated. Rather, it proposes constant code improvement (refactoring) to make changes easier when they have to be implemented..

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..

Test-first development. Testing is central to XP and XP has developed an approach where the program is tested after every change has been made. XP testing features: Test-first development. Incremental test development from scenarios. User involvement in test development and validation. Automated test harnesses are used to run all component tests each time that a new release is built..

Test-driven development. Writing tests before code clarifies the requirements to be implemented. Tests are written as programs rather than data so that they can be executed automatically. The test includes a check that it has executed correctly. Usually relies on a testing framework such as Junit. All previous and new tests are run automatically when new functionality is added, thus checking that the new functionality has not introduced errors..

Customer involvement. The role of the customer in the testing process is to help develop acceptance tests for the stories that are to be implemented in the next release of the system. The customer who is part of the team writes tests as development proceeds. All new code is therefore validated to ensure that it is what the customer needs. However, people adopting the customer role have limited time available and so cannot work full-time with the development team. They may feel that providing the requirements was enough of a contribution and so may be reluctant to get involved in the testing process..

Test case description for dose checking. Chapter 3 Agile Software Development.

Test automation. Test automation means that tests are written as executable components before the task is implemented These testing components should be stand-alone, should simulate the submission of input to be tested and should check that the result meets the output specification. An automated test framework (e.g. Junit) is a system that makes it easy to write executable tests and submit a set of tests for execution. As testing is automated, there is always a set of tests that can be quickly and easily executed Whenever any functionality is added to the system, the tests can be run and problems that the new code has introduced can be caught immediately..

Problems with test-first development. Programmers prefer programming to testing and sometimes they take short cuts when writing tests. For example, they may write incomplete tests that do not check for all possible exceptions that may occur. Some tests can be very difficult to write incrementally. For example, in a complex user interface, it is often difficult to write unit tests for the code that implements the ‘display logic’ and workflow between screens. It difficult to judge the completeness of a set of tests. Although you may have a lot of system tests, your test set may not provide complete coverage..

Pair programming. Pair programming involves programmers working in pairs, developing code together. 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 improving the system code..

Pair programming. In pair programming, programmers sit together at the same computer to develop the software. Pairs are created dynamically so that all team members work with each other during the development process. The sharing of knowledge that happens during pair programming is very important as it reduces the overall risks to a project when team members leave. Pair programming is not necessarily inefficient and there is some evidence that suggests that a pair working together is more efficient than 2 programmers working separately..

Agile project management. Chapter 3 Agile Software Development.

Agile project management. The principal responsibility of software project managers is to manage the project so that the software is delivered on time and within the planned budget for the project. The standard approach to project management is plan-driven. Managers draw up a plan for the project showing what should be delivered, when it should be delivered and who will work on the development of the project deliverables. Agile project management requires a different approach, which is adapted to incremental development and the practices used in agile methods..

Scrum. Scrum is an agile method that focuses 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 terminology (a). Scrum term Definition Development team A self-organizing group of software developers, which should be no more than 7 people. They are responsible for developing the software and other essential project documents. Potentially shippable product increment The software increment that is delivered from a sprint. The idea is that this should be ‘potentially shippable’ which means that it is in a finished state and no further work, such as testing, is needed to incorporate it into the final product. In practice, this is not always achievable. Product backlog This is a list of ‘to do’ items which the Scrum team must tackle. They may be feature definitions for the software, software requirements, user stories or descriptions of supplementary tasks that are needed, such as architecture definition or user documentation. Product owner An individual (or possibly a small group) whose job is to identify product features or requirements, prioritize these for development and continuously review the product backlog to ensure that the project continues to meet critical business needs. The Product Owner can be a customer but might also be a product manager in a software company or other stakeholder representative..

Scrum terminology (b). Scrum term Definition Scrum A daily meeting of the Scrum team that reviews progress and prioritizes work to be done that day. Ideally, this should be a short face-to-face meeting that includes the whole team. ScrumMaster The ScrumMaster is responsible for ensuring that the Scrum process is followed and guides the team in the effective use of Scrum. He or she is responsible for interfacing with the rest of the company and for ensuring that the Scrum team is not diverted by outside interference. The Scrum developers are adamant that the ScrumMaster should not be thought of as a project manager. Others, however, may not always find it easy to see the difference. Sprint A development iteration. Sprints are usually 2-4 weeks long. Velocity An estimate of how much product backlog effort that a team can cover in a single sprint. Understanding a team’s velocity helps them estimate what can be covered in a sprint and provides a basis for measuring improving performance..

Scrum sprint cycle. Chapter 3 Agile Software Development.

The Scrum sprint cycle. Sprints are fixed length, normally 2–4 weeks. 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 from the product backlog 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..

Teamwork in Scrum. The ‘Scrum master’ is a facilitator who arranges daily meetings, tracks the backlog of work to be done, records decisions, measures progress against the backlog and communicates with customers and management outside of the team. The whole team attends short daily meetings (Scrums) where all team members share information, describe their progress since the last meeting, problems that have arisen and what is planned for the following day. This means that everyone on the team knows what is going on and, if problems arise, can re-plan short-term work to cope with them..

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..

Distributed Scrum. Chapter 3 Agile Software Development.

Scaling agile methods. Chapter 3 Agile Software Development.

Scaling agile methods. Agile methods have proved to be successful for small and medium sized projects that can be developed by a small co-located team. It is sometimes argued that the success of these methods comes because of improved communications which is possible when everyone is working together. Scaling up agile methods involves changing these to cope with larger, longer projects where there are multiple development teams, perhaps working in different locations..

Scaling out and scaling up. ‘Scaling up’ is concerned with using agile methods for developing large software systems that cannot be developed by a small team. ‘Scaling out’ is concerned with how agile methods can be introduced across a large organization with many years of software development experience. When scaling agile methods it is importaant to maintain agile fundamentals: Flexible planning, frequent system releases, continuous integration, test-driven development and good team communications..

Practical problems with agile methods. The informality of agile development is incompatible with the legal approach to contract definition that is commonly used in large companies. Agile methods are most appropriate for new software development rather than software maintenance. Yet the majority of software costs in large companies come from maintaining their existing software systems. Agile methods are designed for small co-located teams yet much software development now involves worldwide distributed teams..

Contractual issues. Most software contracts for custom systems are based around a specification, which sets out what has to be implemented by the system developer for the system customer. However, this precludes interleaving specification and development as is the norm in agile development. A contract that pays for developer time rather than functionality is required. However, this is seen as a high risk my many legal departments because what has to be delivered cannot be guaranteed..

Agile methods and software maintenance. Most organizations spend more on maintaining existing software than they do on new software development. So, if agile methods are to be successful, they have to support maintenance as well as original development. Two key issues: Are systems that are developed using an agile approach maintainable, given the emphasis in the development process of minimizing formal documentation? Can agile methods be used effectively for evolving a system in response to customer change requests? Problems may arise if original development team cannot be maintained..

Agile maintenance. Key problems are: Lack of product documentation Keeping customers involved in the development process Maintaining the continuity of the development team Agile development relies on the development team knowing and understanding what has to be done. For long-lifetime systems, this is a real problem as the original developers will not always work on the system..