Agile! (eBook)

Bertrand Meyer is one of the pioneers of object technology and invented the concept of Design by Contract. His previous books include Touch of Class (Springer), an introduction to modern programming; Eiffel: The Language; and Object-Oriented Software Construction, one of the all-time most cited publications in computer science.       

Preface 6
Contents 14
1 Overview 19
1.1 VALUES 20
1.2 PRINCIPLES 22
1.2.1 Organizational principles 23
1.2.2 Technical principles 24
1.3 ROLES 25
1.4 PRACTICES 26
1.4.1 Organizational practices 26
1.4.2 Technical practices 27
1.5 ARTIFACTS 28
1.5.1 Virtual artifacts 28
1.5.2 Material artifacts 29
1.6 A FIRST ASSESSMENT 30
1.6.1 Not new and not good 30
1.6.2 New and not good 31
1.6.3 Not new but good 32
1.6.4 New and good! 32
2 Deconstructing agile texts 34
2.1 THE PLIGHT OF THE TRAVELING SEMINARIST 34
2.1.1 Proof by anecdote 35
2.1.2 When writing beats speaking 36
2.1.3 Discovering the gems 37
2.1.4 Agile texts: reader beware! 38
2.2 THE TOP SEVEN RHETORICAL TRAPS 39
2.2.1 Proof by anecdote 39
2.2.2 Slander by association 40
2.2.3 Intimidation 40
2.2.4 Catastrophism 43
2.2.5 All-or-nothing 44
2.2.6 Cover-your-behind 44
2.2.7 Unverifiable claims 45
3 The enemy: Big Upfront Anything 48
3.1 PREDICTIVE IS NOT WATERFALL 48
3.2 REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING 49
3.2.1 Requirements engineering techniques 49
3.2.2 Agile criticism of upfront requirements 49
3.2.3 The waste criticism 50
3.2.4 The change criticism 52
3.2.5 The domain and the machine 53
3.3 ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN 54
3.3.1 Is design separate from implementation? 54
3.3.2 Agile methods and design 56
3.4 LIFECYCLE MODELS 58
3.5 RATIONAL UNIFIED PROCESS 59
3.6 MATURITY MODELS 60
3.6.1 CMMI in plain English 61
3.6.2 The Personal Software Process 63
3.6.3 CMMI/PSP and agile methods 63
3.6.4 An agile maturity scale 64
4 Agile principles 65
4.1 WHAT IS A PRINCIPLE? 65
4.2 THE OFFICIAL PRINCIPLES 66
4.3 A USABLE LIST 67
4.4 ORGANIZATIONAL PRINCIPLES 67
4.4.1 Put the customer at the center 67
4.4.2 Let the team self-organize 69
4.4.3 Work at a sustainable pace 72
4.4.4 Develop minimal software 74
4.4.5 Accept change 84
4.5 TECHNICAL PRINCIPLES 86
4.5.1 Develop iteratively 86
4.5.2 Treat tests as a key resource 91
4.5.3 Do not start any new development until all tests pass 92
4.5.4 Test first 93
4.5.5 Express requirements through scenarios 93
5 Agile roles 95
5.1 MANAGER 95
5.2 PRODUCT OWNER 96
5.3 TEAM 96
5.3.1 Self-organizing 96
5.3.2 Cross-functional 97
5.4 MEMBERS AND OBSERVERS 98
5.5 CUSTOMER 98
5.6 COACH, SCRUM MASTER 100
5.7 SEPARATING ROLES 102
6 Agile practices: managerial 104
6.1 SPRINT 104
6.1.1 Sprint basics 104
6.1.2 The closed-window rule 105
6.1.3 Sprint: an assessment 106
6.2 DAILY MEETING 106
6.3 PLANNING GAME 108
6.4 PLANNING POKER 109
6.5 ONSITE CUSTOMER 111
6.6 OPEN SPACE 111
6.7 PROCESS MINIATURE 112
6.8 ITERATION PLANNING 113
6.9 REVIEW MEETING 114
6.10 RETROSPECTIVE 114
6.11 SCRUM OF SCRUMS 114
6.12 COLLECTIVE CODE OWNERSHIP 115
6.12.1 The code ownership debate 115
6.12.2 Collective ownership and cross-functionality 117
7 Agile practices: technical 118
7.1 DAILY BUILD AND CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION 118
7.2 PAIR PROGRAMMING 120
7.2.1 Pair programming concepts 121
7.2.2 Pair programming versus mentoring 122
7.2.3 Mob programming 122
7.2.4 Pair programming: an assessment 122
7.3 CODING STANDARDS 124
7.4 REFACTORING 124
7.4.1 The refactoring concept 124
7.4.2 Benefits and limits of refactoring 125
7.4.3 Incidental and essential changes 127
7.4.4 Combining a priori and a posteriori approaches 128
7.5 TEST-FIRST AND TEST-DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT 128
7.5.1 The TDD method of software development 128
7.5.2 An assessment of TFD and TDD 130
8 Agile artifacts 131
8.1 CODE 131
8.2 TESTS 131
8.3 USER STORIES 133
8.4 STORY POINTS 135
8.5 VELOCITY 137
8.6 DEFINITION OF DONE 139
8.7 WORKING SPACE 139
8.8 PRODUCT BACKLOG, ITERATION BACKLOG 140
8.9 STORY CARD, TASK CARD 141
8.10 TASK AND STORY BOARDS 141
8.11 BURNDOWN AND BURNUP CHARTS 142
8.12 IMPEDIMENT 143
8.13 WASTE, TECHNICAL DEBT, DEPENDENCY, DEPENDENCY CHARTS 143
9 Agile methods 146
9.1 METHODS AND METHODOLOGY 146
9.1.1 Terminology 146
9.1.2 The fox and the hedgehog 146
9.2 LEAN SOFTWARE AND KANBAN 147
9.2.1 Lean Software’s Big Idea 147
9.2.2 Lean Software’s principles 147
9.2.3 Lean Software: an assessment 148
9.2.4 Kanban 149
9.3 EXTREME PROGRAMMING 150
9.3.1 XP’s Big Idea 150
9.3.2 XP: the unadulterated source 150
9.3.3 Key XP techniques 151
9.3.4 Extreme Programming: an assessment 152
9.4 SCRUM 152
9.4.1 Scrum’s Big Idea 152
9.4.2 Key Scrum practices 153
9.4.3 Scrum: an assessment 153
9.5 CRYSTAL 154
9.5.1 Crystal’s Big Idea 154
9.5.2 Crystal principles 154
9.5.3 Crystal: an assessment 155
10 Dealing with agile teams 157
10.1 GRAVITY STILL HOLDS 157
10.2 THE EITHER-WHAT-OR-WHEN FALLACY 158
11 The Ugly, the Hype and the Good: an assessment of the agile approach 160
11.1 THE BAD AND THE UGLY 160
11.1.1 Deprecation of upfront tasks 160
11.1.2 User stories as a basis for requirements 161
11.1.3 Feature-based development and ignorance of dependencies 161
11.1.4 Rejection of dependency tracking tools 161
11.1.5 Rejection of traditional manager tasks 161
11.1.6 Rejection of upfront generalization 162
11.1.7 Embedded customer 162
11.1.8 Coach as a separate role 162
11.1.9 Test-driven development 162
11.1.10 Deprecation of documents 162
11.2 THE HYPED 163
11.3 THE GOOD 164
11.4 THE BRILLIANT 165
Bibliography 166
Index 174