INDIVIDUAL WORK by Tan Chu YING (A138513)

Explore topics in Agile Software Development and Scrum to learn more about how these methodologies can improve your products and make the process more efficient.

Write a two page summary of your findings and upload in iFolio. I may select a few student to present in the class. WWW.SCRUMALLIANCE.ORG Agile software development Agile software development is a group of software development methods based on iterative and incremental development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams. It promotes adaptive planning, evolutionary development and delivery, a time-boxed iterative approach, and encourages rapid and flexible response to change. It is a conceptual framework that promotes foreseen interactions throughout the development cycle. There are many specific agile development methods. Most promote development, teamwork, collaboration, and process adaptability throughout the lifecycle of the project. Agile methods break tasks into small increments with minimal planning and do not directly involve long-term planning. Iterations are short time frames (timeboxes) that typically last from one to four weeks. Each iteration involves a cross functional team working in all functions: planning, requirements analysis, design, coding, unit testing, and acceptance testing. At the end of the iteration a working product is demonstrated to stakeholders. This minimizes overall risk and allows the project to adapt to changes quickly. An iteration might not add enough functionality to warrant a market release, but the goal is to have an available release (with minimal bugs) at the end of each iteration.[10] Multiple iterations might be required to release a product or new features.

Scrum Scrum is a lightweight agile project management framework with broad applicability for managing and controlling iterative and incremental projects of all types. Ken Schwaber, Mike Beedle, Jeff Sutherland and others have contributed significantly to the evolution of Scrum over the last decade. Scrum has garnered increasing popularity in the software community due to its simplicity, proven productivity, and ability to act as a wrapper for various engineering practices promoted by other agile methodologies. In Scrum, the "Product Owner" works closely with the team to identify and prioritize system functionality in form of a "Product Backlog". The Product Backlog consists of features, bug fixes, non-functional requirements, etc. - whatever needs to be done in order to successfully deliver a working software system. With priorities driven by the Product Owner, crossfunctional teams estimate and sign-up to deliver "potentially shippable increments" of software during successive Sprints, typically lasting 30 days. Once a Sprint's Product Backlog is committed, no additional functionality can be added to the Sprint except by the

team. Once a Sprint has been delivered, the Product Backlog is analyzed and reprioritized, if necessary, and the next set of functionality is selected for the next Sprint. Scrum has three fundamental roles: Product Owner, ScrumMaster, and team member. Product Owner In Scrum, the Product Owner is responsible for communicating the vision of the product to the development team. He or she must also represent the customers interests through requirements and prioritization. Because the Product Owner has the most authority of the three roles, its also the role with the most responsibility. In other words, the Product Owner is the single individual who must face the music when a project goes awry. ScrumMaster The ScrumMaster acts as a facilitator for the Product Owner and the team. The ScrumMaster does not manage the team. Instead, he or she works to remove any impediments that are obstructing the team from achieving its sprint goals. In short, this role helps the team remain creative and productive, while making sure its successes are visible to the Product Owner. The ScrumMaster also works to advise the Product Owner about how to maximize ROI for the team. Team Member In the Scrum methodology, the team is responsible for completing work. Ideally, teams consist of seven cross-functional members, plus or minus two individuals. For software projects, a typical team includes a mix of software engineers, architects, programmers, analysts, QA experts, testers, and UI designers. Each sprint, the team is responsible for determining how it will accomplish the work to be completed. This grants teams a great deal of autonomy, but, similar to the Product Owners situation, that freedom is accompanied by a responsibility to meet the goals of the sprint. Reduced Documentation Agile development methodologies emphasize more towards completion and delivery of the project to the customer in short time span than emphasizing on documentation. The main objective of the development teams is to deliver a working release when needed complying with quality standards. New releases are produced at frequent intervals, in some approaches even hourly or daily. The developers are urged to keep the code simple, straight forward, and technically as advanced as possible, thus lessening the documentation burden to an appropriate level . Stakeholders The stakeholders are the customers, vendors. They are people who enable the project and for whom the project produces the agreed-upon benefit[s] that justify its production. They are only directly involved in the process during the sprint reviews.