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An Introduction to Agile and
the Brisbane Agile Academy Meetup Group
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What is this Meetup Group all about?
Who are we?
The Agile Academy Meetup group welcomes anyone interested in sharingtheir experiences and listening to others talk about a wide range of Agiletopics suggested by our members. This is to make sure that we aredelivering what you what to hear about. http://www.meetup.com/The-Brisbane-
Agile-Academy-Meetup-Group/
How often do we meet?
We are currently trialling meeting every 2 months based on a poll of ourmembers.
What topics do you talk about?
Anything and everything about Agile!
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The Agile Manifesto – Where it all began
In February 2001, 17 software developers met at a ski resort in Snowbird, Utah, to discuss lightweight development methods. They published the Manifesto for Agile Software Development to define the approach now known as Agile software development.
Some of the Manifesto's authors formed the Agile Alliance (www.agilealliance.com), a non-profit organisation that promotes software development according to the Manifesto's principles. There is now discussion about changing to focus to solutions delivery for business and IT.
The Agile Manifesto reads:
“
”
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_Manifesto
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What Does It Mean to be Agile?
A little bit about Agile for those who’ve heard the word and want to know what it’s all about:
Agile is an umbrella term for a set of values, principles and practices that have been shown to improve the efficiency, productivity, and quality of projects. Agile is not just a software development methodology though but a way of working that builds on a set of values and principles to deliver business value and manage risks. Agile methods are adaptive; they have frequent checkpoints and feedback loops that are used to manage and reduce risks.
Agile can be used for all sorts of teams and environments, as well as being able to it can be used at the governance level for portfolio management and at the project level for delivery. The core values and principles are:
Values:• Trust• Innovative Accountability• Courage and Honesty
Principles:• Value • Collaboration • Speed • Flexibility • Simplicity • Teamwork
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Agile Myths
References:http://www.makinggoodsoftware.com/2010/11/07/demystifying-agile-top-7-myth/http://www.projectez.com/Files/special%20report%20-%20myths%20of%20Agile.pdf
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AGILE TERM COMMENTS SIMILAR TERMS
Agile Phases Concept – Initiate – Deliver – Deploy (per the Agile Academy phases) Inception
Artefact Tangible outputs produced during both the development of software and non-software project lifecycle.
Deliverable, Document, Template, Code, Diagrams…
Iteration A time-box in which the team self organises to produce some agreed outcomes. Sprint, Increment, Time-Box
Iteration Planning
Meeting
The way we choose candidate stories for the next iteration. It also gives us an opportunity to examine issues before the iteration commences.
MoSCow Is a prioritisation method involving the prodcut owner/customer to make decision on what features to deliver based on ‘Must Have’, ‘Should Have’, ‘Could Have’ and ‘Won’t Have’.
Project Charter A concise record of the outcomes of the Concept and Initiate Phases.
Release The deployment of a working version of a system. Releases may be internal, available only to the development team, or external, available to some or all of the users for the system.
Retrospective A structured opportunity to alter the process to improve the outcomes. Post-Mortem, Debrief, Weekly Review
Role A function that a team member performs on the project. A team member may have more than one role on each project. NB: Role does not equal position or person.
Scrum Scrum is a common approach that has become popular under the umbrella of ‘Agile’. It tends to focus on the Delivery phase of the Agile process.
Agile
Showcase End of iteration demonstration of the previous iterations achievements. Sprint Review meeting
Stand-up Team Status Meeting Daily Scrum, Daily Reviews, Morning hug
Story A short description of something you need the system to do. Some are new, some are changes to existing features and some are corrections of defects.
Requirement
Story List /Story Backlog A list of stories due for completion at some time. Work Queue, Sprint Backlog, Product Backlog
Test Driven Development A software development technique where test cases are written first and code is then produced in order to pass the test cases.
TDD, Test-First Development
Agile Terminology
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Where do you find out more about Agile?
www.twitter.com/agileacademywww.twitter/theagiletribe
As a member of our network, you can learn from, contribute to and connect with Agile expertise from multiple industry sectors.
www.agileacademy.com.au
The Agile Tribe Blog
www.theagiletribe.netwww.linkedin.com.au/agileacademy
http://www.meetup.com/The-Brisbane-Agile-
Academy-Meetup-Group
Other Blogs
• Agile Scout (www.agilescout.com)
Conferences
• Agile Australia conference –major discounts to this leading event for our network using Promo code – Agile11-AA (http://www.slatteryit.com.au/Agile2011/register.html)
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The Agile Academy 2011 CurriculumAgile title styleAgile Academy Course Curriculum
Prepared
Contribute
Expert
Requirements Implement Management
Currently available courses Future Releases
Agile Concept
Phase
Start Me Up
Agile Initiate
Phase
Start Me Up
Agile Delivery
Phase
Start Me Up
Agile
Programming
for TDD
Agile
Testing
Design
Patterns
for Agile Dev.
Agile for Legacy
Applications and BAU
Agile
Project
Management
Taste of
Agile
ContinuousImprovement using Agile and Lean
Agile for the
Business
Agile for
Infrastructure
Agile Aligned
for Agile
Experts
Agile
Builds
Agile
Project
Governance
Agile
Demystification
(CBT)
Agile
Leadership
Agile
Interpersonal
Skills
Agile
FacilitationAgile Team
BuildingSoft skills
Agile Design, Architecture
and Technical Leadership
Agile
Automated
Testing
Advanced Story Writing
and Management
Delivered by Software Education © Copyright Agile Academy V2.0 Jan 2011 More information available at : www.Agileacademy.com.au/Agile/our_courses