MGMT8085: Agile Principles Week 1 Quiz

Study Notes

Course Information

Course name: MGMT8085: Agile Principles
Course overview: Introduction to Agile principles and methodologies, values, principles, and common roles in Agile teams
Week 1 Class 1: Introduction & Welcome
Course Format & Evaluations: Quizzes, assignments (due dates listed), midterm exam, group project (parts 1 & 2 due), and final exam are scheduled
Resources: eConestoga, week-to-week content, PowerPoint slides, and an e-text resource (Agile Practice Guide, 190 pages, September 2017, published by PMI)
Ice-breaker topics: Name, academic background, reasons for choosing Conestoga College, and learning goals for the semester
Class structure: Lecture (35 min), Break (10 min), Lecture & Exercise (50 min), Break (10 min), Practice Exercise/Discuss Assignment/Evaluation (25 min), Asynchronous Hour (5 min), Summary (10 min), Q&A (5 min)

Agile Principles

History of Agile: traditional project management (Waterfall, 1950s), evolution of Agile methodologies, formation of the Agile Alliance, publication of the Agile Manifesto, and development of Agile terms and concepts
Agile Methodologies: Rapid Application Development (1980s), Adaptive Software Development (1990s), Crystal Agile Methodology (1991), Scrum Framework (1993), Dynamic System Development Method (1994), Extreme Programming (XP) (1996), and Feature Driven Development (FDD) (1997)
Agile Alliance: Formation in 2001 at the Snowbird meeting, defining 4 values and the Agile Manifesto
Agile Manifesto: Values: individuals and interactions, working software, customer collaboration, and responding to change; Principles: Early and continuous software delivery, welcoming changing requirements, delivering frequently, business people and developers working together, building projects around motivated individuals, trust and environment, efficient information transfer (face-to-face), sustainable development, attention to technical excellence, simplicity, best architectures, self-organizing teams, continuous improvement
Agile Principles:
- Customer satisfaction through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
- Welcoming changing requirements, even late in development.
- Delivering frequently.
- Collaboration between business people and developers.
- Motivated teams with the environment and support they need.
- Efficient communication (face-to-face).
- Sustainable development.
- Technical excellence and good design.
- Simplicity & reducing unnecessary work.
- Emergent architectures, requirements, and designs from self-organizing teams
- Continuous improvement through reflection.
Traditional Project Management: Works well for predictable projects, struggles with uncertainty, product is delivered at the end

Agile Terms & Concepts

Backlog, Backlog Refinement, Burndown Chart, Continuous Integration, Daily Stand-up, Definition of Done, Epic, Face-to-Face Communication, Incremental Development, Information Radiators, Kanban Board, Lead Time, MVP, Pair Programming, Refactoring, Retrospective, Test-Driven Development, Timebox, Unit Testing, User Story, Velocity

Implementing an Agile Mindset

Learn and understand different agile frameworks and implement them carefully
Focus on agile values and principles, implementing incremental changes
Emphasize adaptability and continuous improvement

Next Steps

Discussion of how agile values and principles relate to project management practices
Exploring Lean and its connection to agile, common lean & agile practices used in project management
Analyzing the relationship between agile values, principles, common practices, and their application in agile projects
Deriving agile principles from the 4 Agile Manifesto values

Asynchronous Activity

Review video "Introduction to Agile" by James Newkirk
Answer questions:
- What agile framework is James Newkirk most familiar with?
- What is one thing James recommends when implementing an agile framework?