As part of a uni module I have I was thinking about learning about how to work with the agile* methodology. Do you guys know any good articles or books that talk about this method?
Good resources to learn about Agile?
Angular or agile? They are rather different
Woops! Wasnāt thinking straight. Itās agile that I want to learn haha. Sorry for the goof!
First my usual rant: āmethodologyā is a useful word, meaning the study of methods. Donāt let it be corrupted by people who mean āmethodā but think they can charge you more for it by making it sound fancy. Next, Agile isnāt a method. Some people who used similar methods thought theyād find it easier to market their own methods and services if they found out what they agreed on and worked together. They went up a hill and wrote a manifesto. There are several/many methods/tools that follow what the manifesto says. Iāve used Agile Modelling and Scrum. Scrum is a framework into which you fit processes and the most popular agile Thing.
My refs are here https://andywootton.wordpress.com/agile-lean-software-development/?preview=true
Scott Amblerās site is very good. Thereās a lot of similar thinking and overlap with Lean.
After reading Woos very wise observation ( and Iām not joking - itās a very pertinent observation ), and promising to yourself that you will never confuse āagileā with a methodology, I suggest you start with the Agile Manifesto:
http://www.agilemanifesto.org/
I read it as a statement of professionalism that defines symptoms of a productive workplace environment.
You may need to re-read it a few times - it is quite succint.
Manifesto for Agile Software Development
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.
Note:
Things on the right are good things with value - however - they are secondary to getting the job done.
I believe the section which may be of relevance to you is:
We are uncovering better ways of developing
software by doing it and helping others do it.
I would suggest investigating at least one alternative to scrum though - Scrum can be hard enough to get to fail slowly in teams, and, whilst the imaginary scrum-police will no doubt take umbridge at the following, with Scrum, in my experience, nitās all to easy to stand around every morning waiting for the retrospective fairy to bless your productivity - set yourself up with a trello account, get yourself three columns āBacklogā(not done) āDoingā(try to limit to one task per person) and āDoneā and take a look at kanban. And definitions of done.
Posts above that is not about process but about values are spot on.
That might make more sense once youāve worked in the commercial world and seen seemingly sensible software development processes (make a plan, stick to it) fail horribly.
For more in depth on what if means for programmers try Kent Beckās XP explained http://www.amazon.co.uk/Extreme-Programming-Explained-Embrace-Change/dp/0321278658/ref=dp_ob_title_bk its 15 years old but its still the best place to start I thinkā¦
I agree with this, however, Iād recommend getting hold of the first edition. The second, imo, loses focus, and removes some excellent content (which is apparently in another book now).
It might be worth mentioning for @Fyx that XP was originally āa stand-alone Agile methodā with itās own way of doing things but a sub-set of the XP techniques are considered by many to be a useful set of engineering practices to fit within the Scrum framework.
Donāt take this too literally but think of Scrum as an alternative to project management; a way to organise your work on a product development but not a way to do it.
For Scrum specific learning I highly recommend this series: http://scrumtrainingseries.com/
Brilliant resource and for free!
The Scrum Guide was updated last year and is either greatly improved in its explaination of the thinking behind Scrum or i was in a more receptive mood when I read it this time. For some reason, it doesnāt include this diagram which is the best summary I know of:
(I donāt think Iāve ever noticed before that the 2-4 Week āback arrowā ought to join the process flow left of the Sprint Backlog, as a new Sprint Backlog is selected at the start of each new sprint.)
Then thereās things like this, which are awful: āAgile is a popular work process that at its core, values input from each team member equally.ā
I attended my first Heart of England Scrum meetup last night, mostly with people from ASOS. There was an announcement that the next session would be an Introduction to Scrum.