Agile software development is a conceptual framework for software engineering that promotes development iterations throughout the life-cycle of the project. Image File history File links Emblem-important. ... This does not cite any references or sources. ... In sytems and software engineering, requirements analysis encompasses those tasks that go into determining the requirements of a new or altered system, taking account of the possibly conflicting requirements of the various stakeholders, such as users. ... The software architecture of a program or computing system is the structure or structures of the system, which comprise software components, the externally visible properties of those components, and the relationships between them. ... Software design is the process that starts from a problem for which there is currently no acceptable (software) solution, and ends when such a solution has been created. ... Programming redirects here. ... Software testing is the process used to assess the quality of computer software. ... Software deployment is all of the activities that make a software system available for use. ... The Cleanroom Software Engineering process is a software development process intended to produce software with a certifiable level of reliability. ... Iterative and Incremental development is a software development process developed in response to the weaknesses of the more traditional waterfall model. ... Rapid application development (RAD), is a software development process developed initially by James Martin in the 1980s. ... The Rational Unified Process (RUP) is an iterative software development process framework created by the Rational Software Corporation, a division of IBM since 2003. ... The spiral model is a software development process combining elements of both design and prototyping-in-stages, in an effort to combine advantages of top-down and bottom-up concepts. ... The waterfall model is a sequential software development model (a process for the creation of software) in which development is seen as flowing steadily downwards (like a waterfall) through the phases of requirements analysis, design, implementation, testing (validation), integration, and maintenance. ... Extreme Programming (or XP) is a software engineering methodology, the most prominent of several agile software development methodologies, prescribing a set of daily stakeholder practices that embody and encourage particular XP values (below). ... For other uses, see Scrum. ... Software Configuration Management (SCM) is part of configuration management (CM). ... Software documentation or source code documentation is written text that accompanies computer software. ... Software Quality Assurance (SQA) consists of a means of monitoring the software engineering processes and methods used to ensure quality. ... Project Management is the discipline of organizing and managing resources (e. ... User experience design is a subset of the field of experience design which pertains to the creation of the architecture and interaction models which impact a users perception of a device or system. ... Software engineering (SE) is the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software. ...

There are many agile development methods; most minimize risk by developing software in short amounts of time. Software developed during one unit of time is referred to as an iteration, which may last from one to four weeks. Each iteration is an entire software project: including planning, requirements analysis, design, coding, testing, and documentation. An iteration may not add enough functionality to warrant releasing the product to market but the goal is to have an available release (without bugs) at the end of each iteration. At the end of each iteration, the team re-evaluates project priorities. In sytems and software engineering, requirements analysis encompasses those tasks that go into determining the requirements of a new or altered system, taking account of the possibly conflicting requirements of the various stakeholders, such as users. ... Software testing is the process used to assess the quality of computer software. ...

Agile methods emphasize face-to-face communication over written documents. Most agile teams are located in a single open office sometimes referred to as a scrum. At a minimum, this includes programmers and their "customers" (customers define the product; they may be product managers, business analysts, or the clients). The office may include testers, interaction designers, technical writers, and managers. Look up scrum in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Technical writers are professional writers who design, create, maintain and update many types of technical documentation, online help, user guides, white papers, design specifications, and other documents. ...

Agile methods also emphasize working software as the primary measure of progress. Combined with the preference for face-to-face communication, agile methods produce very little written documentation relative to other methods. This has resulted in criticism of agile methods as being undisciplined.

History

The modern definition of agile software development evolved in the mid-1990s as part of a reaction against "heavyweight" methods, as typified by a heavily regulated, regimented, micro-managed use of the waterfall model of development. The processes originating from this use of the waterfall model were seen as bureaucratic, slow, demeaning, and inconsistent with the ways that software developers actually perform effective work. A case can be made that agile and iterative development methods are a return to development practice seen early in the history of software development.^[1] Initially, agile methods were called "lightweight methods." In 2001, prominent members of the community met at Snowbird, Utah, and adopted the name "agile methods." Later, some of these people formed The Agile Alliance^[2], a non-profit organization that promotes agile development. The waterfall model is a sequential software development model (a process for the creation of software) in which development is seen as flowing steadily downwards (like a waterfall) through the phases of requirements analysis, design, implementation, testing (validation), integration, and maintenance. ... Looking down on Snowbird ski resorts lodges in mid-June Snowbird is a locale based in Little Cottonwood Canyon in the Wasatch Range of the Rocky Mountains in Utah. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ...

A number of methods similar to Agile were created prior to 2000. An adaptive software development process was introduced in a paper by Edmonds (1974)^[3]. Notable earlier methods include Scrum (1986), Crystal Clear, Extreme Programming (1996), Adaptive Software Development, Feature Driven Development, and Dynamic Systems Development Method(DSDM) (1995). It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Scrum (development). ... Crystal Clear is a member of the Crystal family of methodologies as described by Alistair Cockburn and is considered an example of an agile or lightweight methodology. ... Extreme Programming (or XP) is a software engineering methodology, the most prominent of several agile software development methodologies, prescribing a set of daily stakeholder practices that embody and encourage particular XP values (below). ... Adaptive Software Development is a software development process that grew out of rapid application development work by Jim Highsmith and Sam Bayer. ... Feature Drive Development (FDD) is an iterative and incremental software development process. ... Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM) is a framework based originally around Rapid Application Development (RAD), supported by its continuous user involvement in an iterative development and incremental approach which is responsive to changing requirements, in order to develop a system that meets the business needs on time and on budget. ...

Kent Beck created Extreme Programming (usually abbreviated as "XP") in 1996 as a way to rescue the struggling Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation (C3) project. While Chrysler eventually canceled that project, the method was refined by Ron Jeffries' full-time XP coaching, public discussion on Ward Cunningham's Portland Pattern Repository wiki and further work by Beck, including a book in 1999.^[4] Elements of Extreme Programming appear to be based on Scrum and Ward Cunningham's Episodes pattern language. Kent Beck is the creator of Extreme Programming and is one of the founders of the Agile Manifesto. ... The Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation System (commonly referred to as C3) was a project in the Chrysler Corporation to replace several payroll applications with a single system. ... Ron Jeffries is one of the founders of the extreme programming (or XP) software development methodology. ... Oh Yes, Hes Ward Cunningham! Howard Cunningham redirects here. ... The Portland Pattern Repository (PPR) is the subdirectory c2. ... Wiki wiki redirects here. ... Template:Test6 Scrum is an agile method for project management, in use since at least 1990. ... Oh Yes, Hes Ward Cunningham! Howard Cunningham redirects here. ...

Principles behind agile methods — The Agile Manifesto

See also: Agile Manifesto

Agile methods are a family of development processes, not a single approach to software development. In 2001, 17 prominent figures^[5] in the field of agile development (then called "light-weight methods") came together at the Snowbird ski resort in Utah to discuss ways of creating software in a lighter, faster, more people-centric way. They created the Agile Manifesto, widely regarded as the canonical definition of agile development and accompanying agile principles. The Agile Manifesto is a statement of the principles that underpin agile software development. ... Inside the Snowbird Cliff Lodge Snowbird is a year-round ski and summer resort located in the U.S. state of Utah on the eastern border of the Salt Lake City suburb of Sandy in the Little Cottonwood Canyon of the Wasatch mountain range in the Rocky Mountains. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... The Agile Manifesto is a statement of the principles that underpin agile software development. ...

Some of the principles behind the Agile Manifesto^[6] are:

• Customer satisfaction by rapid, continuous delivery of useful software
• Working software is delivered frequently (weeks rather than months)
• Working software is the principal measure of progress
• Even late changes in requirements are welcomed
• Close, daily cooperation between business people and developers
• Face-to-face conversation is the best form of communication (Co-location)
• Projects are built around motivated individuals, who should be trusted
• Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design
• Simplicity
• Self-organizing teams
• Regular adaptation to changing circumstances

The manifesto spawned a movement in the software industry known as agile software development.

In 2005, Alistair Cockburn and Jim Highsmith gathered another group of people — management experts, this time — and wrote an addendum, known as the PM Declaration of Interdependence. Alistair Cockburn (name pronounced Co-burn, in the Scottish way) is one of the initiators of the Agile movement in software development. ... Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... The PM Declaration of interdependence is a set of six management principles initially intended for project managers of Agile Software Development projects. ...

Comparison with other methods

Agile methods are sometimes characterized as being at the opposite end of the spectrum from "plan-driven" or "disciplined" methods. This distinction is misleading, as it implies that agile methods are "unplanned" or "undisciplined". A more accurate distinction is that methods exist on a continuum from "adaptive" to "predictive".^[7] Agile methods lie on the "adaptive" side of this continuum.

Adaptive methods focus on adapting quickly to changing realities. When the needs of a project change, an adaptive team changes as well. An adaptive team will have difficulty describing exactly what will happen in the future. The further away a date is, the more vague an adaptive method will be about what will happen on that date. An adaptive team can report exactly what tasks are being done next week, but only which features are planned for next month. When asked about a release six months from now, an adaptive team may only be able to report the mission statement for the release, or a statement of expected value vs. cost.

Predictive methods, in contrast, focus on planning the future in detail. A predictive team can report exactly what features and tasks are planned for the entire length of the development process. Predictive teams have difficulty changing direction. The plan is typically optimized for the original destination and changing direction can cause completed work to be thrown away and done over differently. Predictive teams will often institute a change control board to ensure that only the most valuable changes are considered. In the world of software development, a change control board (or CCB) is a group of people who make decisions regarding whether or not proposed changes to the software should be implemented. ...

Agile methods have much in common with the "Rapid Application Development" techniques from the 1980/90s as espoused by James Martin and others. Rapid application development (RAD), is a software development process developed initially by James Martin in the 1980s. ...

Contrasted with other iterative development methods

Most agile methods share other iterative and incremental development methods' emphasis on building releasable software in short time periods. Agile development differs from other development models: in this model time periods are measured in weeks rather than months and work is performed in a highly collaborative manner. Most agile methods also differ by treating their time period as a strict timebox. Iterative and Incremental development is a software development process developed in response to the weaknesses of the more traditional waterfall model. ... In Project management, a timebox is a period of time in which to accomplish some task. ...

Contrasted with the waterfall model

Agile development has little in common with the waterfall model. As of 2004, the waterfall model is still in common use.^[8] The waterfall model is the most predictive of the methods, stepping through requirements capture, analysis, design, coding, and testing in a strict, pre-planned sequence. Progress is generally measured in terms of deliverable artifacts: requirement specifications, design documents, test plans, code reviews and the like. The waterfall model is a sequential software development model (a process for the creation of software) in which development is seen as flowing steadily downwards (like a waterfall) through the phases of requirements analysis, design, implementation, testing (validation), integration, and maintenance. ...

The main problem with the waterfall model is the inflexible division of a project into separate stages, so that commitments are made early on, and it is difficult to react to changes in requirements. Iterations are expensive. This means that the waterfall model is likely to be unsuitable if requirements are not well understood or are likely to change radically in the course of the project.^[9]

Agile methods, in contrast, produce completely developed and tested features (but a very small subset of the whole) every few weeks or months. The emphasis is on obtaining the smallest workable piece of functionality to deliver business value early, and continually improving it/adding further functionality throughout the life of the project.

However, these features are not placed in context of the overall project. While the waterfall method allows for an understanding into the end product, agile methods have no such understanding. It's often the case that agile development projects have no clear objectives (other than the completion of the current iteration). If the sponsors of the project are concerned about completing certain goals with a defined timeline or budget, agile may not be appropriate.

Some agile teams use the waterfall model on a small scale, repeating the entire waterfall cycle in every iteration.^[10] Other teams, most notably Extreme Programming teams, work on activities simultaneously. Extreme Programming (or XP) is a software engineering methodology, the most prominent of several agile software development methodologies, prescribing a set of daily stakeholder practices that embody and encourage particular XP values (below). ...

Contrasted with "cowboy coding"

Cowboy coding is the absence of a defined method: team members do whatever they feel is right. Agile development's frequent re-evaluation of plans, emphasis on face-to-face communication, and relatively sparse use of documents sometimes causes people to confuse it with cowboy coding. Agile teams, however, do follow defined (and often very disciplined and rigorous) processes. Information in this article or section has not been verified against sources and may not be reliable. ...

As with all development methods, the skill and experience of the users determine the degree of success and/or abuse of such activity. The more rigid controls systematically embedded within a process offer stronger levels of accountability of the users. The degradation of well-intended procedures can lead to activities often categorized as cowboy coding.

Suitability of agile methods

Although agile methods differ in their practices, they share a number of common characteristics, including iterative development, and a focus on interaction, communication, and the reduction of resource-intensive intermediate artifacts. The suitability of agile methods in general can be examined from multiple perspectives. From a product perspective, agile methods are more suitable when requirements are emergent and rapidly changing; they are less suitable for systems that have high criticality, reliability and safety requirements, though there is no complete consensus on this point. From an organizational perspective, three key dimensions of an organization affect suitability: culture, people, and communication. In relation to these areas a number of key success factors have been identified (Cohen et al., 2004)^[11]:

• The culture of the organization must be supportive of negotiation
• People must be trusted
• Fewer staff, with higher levels of competency
• Organizations must live with the decisions developers make
• Organizations need to have an environment that facilitates rapid communication between team members

Project size is probably the most important factor. As size grows, face-to-face communication becomes more difficult. Therefore, most agile methods are more suitable for teams with fewer than 20 to 40 people. Large scale agile software development remains an active research area.^[12][13]

Another serious problem is that initial assumptions or overly rapid requirements gathering may result in a large deviation from an optimal solution, especially if the client defining the target product has poorly formed ideas of their needs. Similarly, given the nature of human behaviour, it is easy for a single "dominant" developer to influence or even pull the design of the target in a direction not necessarily appropriate for the project. Historically, the developers can, and often do, impose solutions on a client, then convince the client of the appropriateness of the solution, only to find at the end that the solution is actually unworkable. In theory, rapid iterative deliveries should limit this, but that assumes that there is a response to each iteration, followed by feedback that affects further development. If not, the error could be magnified rapidly.

This can be alleviated by separating the requirements gathering into a separate phase (a common element of Agile systems), thus insulating it from the developers' influence, or by keeping the client in the loop during development by having them continuously try each release. The problem in the real world is that most clients are unwilling to invest this much time. It also makes QAing a product difficult, since there are no clear test goals that don't change from release to release. Quality assurance (QA) is the activity of providing evidence needed to establish confidence among all concerned, that quality-related activities are being performed effectively. ...

In order to determine the suitability of agile methods individually, a more sophisticated analysis is required. The DSDM approach, for example, provides a so-called ‘suitability-filter’ for this purpose. Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM) is a framework based originally around Rapid Application Development (RAD), supported by its continuous user involvement in an iterative development and incremental approach which is responsive to changing requirements, in order to develop a system that meets the business needs on time and on budget. ...

It is claimed that the DSDM and Feature Driven Development (FDD) methods are suitable for any agile software development project, regardless of situational characteristics.^[14] Feature Drive Development (FDD) is an iterative and incremental software development process. ...

Different agile methods support different phases of a software development life-cycle to varying degrees. This individual characteristic of agile methods can be used as a criterion to select from among candidate agile methods. In general, a sense of project speed, complexity, and challenges will guide you to the best agile methods to implement and how completely to adopt them.

Agile development has been widely documented (see Experience Reports, below, as well as Beck^[4] pg. 157, and Boehm and Turner^[15] pg. 55-57) as working well for small (<10 developers) co-located teams. Agile development is expected to be particularly suitable for teams facing unpredictable or rapidly changing requirements.

The applicability of agile development to the following scenarios is open to question:

• Large scale development efforts (>20 developers), though scaling strategies^[16] and evidence to the contrary^[17] have been described.
• Distributed development efforts (non-co-located teams). Strategies have been described in Bridging the Distance^[18]and Using an Agile Software Process with Offshore Development^[19]
• Mission- and life-critical efforts
• Command-and-control company cultures
• Compiled programming environments, where thousands of lines of code must be written before the first test can be made.

Nonetheless, several successful large scale agile projects have been documented. BT has had several hundred developers situated in the UK, Ireland and India working collaboratively on projects and using Agile methods. While questions undoubtedly still arise about the suitability of some Agile methods to certain project types, it would appear that scale or geography, by themselves, are not necessarily barriers to success. BT Group plc (which trades as just BT, and is commonly known by its former name, British Telecom) is the privatised former British state telecommunications operator. ...

Barry Boehm and Richard Turner suggest that risk analysis be used to choose between adaptive ("agile") and predictive ("plan-driven") methods.^[15] The authors suggest that each side of the continuum has its own home ground: Barry W. Boehm is known for many contributions to software engineering. ... Richard Turner is research professor in engineering management and systems engineering at George Washington University. ... Risk analysis is a technique to identify and assess factors that may jeopardize the success of a project or achieving a goal. ...

Agile home ground:

• Low criticality
• Senior developers
• Requirements change very often
• Small number of developers
• Culture that thrives on chaos

Plan-driven home ground:

• High criticality
• Junior developers
• Requirements don't change too often
• Large number of developers
• Culture that demands order

Agile Data

The Agile Data method describes how data professionals can be productive members of agile software development teams. Agile Data's 6 philosophies provide guidance for how data professionals can interact effectively with other team members as traditional approaches to data work don't fit well with agile approaches. More importantly the Agile Data method describes a collection of agile techniques which DBAs can adopt, including Database refactoring, agile data modeling, database regression testing, and continuous database integration. Category: ...

Agile methods and method tailoring

In the literature, different terms refer to the notion of method adaptation, including ‘method tailoring’, ‘method fragment adaptation’ and ‘situational method engineering’. Method tailoring is defined as:

A process or capability in which human agents through responsive changes in, and dynamic interplays between contexts, intentions, and method fragments determine a system development approach for a specific project situation.^[20]

Potentially, almost all agile methods are suitable for method tailoring. Even the DSDM method is being used for this purpose and has been successfully tailored in a CMM context.^[14] Situation-appropriateness can be considered as a distinguishing characteristic between agile methods and traditional software development methods, with the latter being relatively much more rigid and prescriptive. The practical implication is that agile methods allow project teams to adapt working practices according to the needs of individual projects. Practices are concrete activities and products which are part of a method framework. At a more extreme level, the philosophy behind the method, consisting of a number of principles, could be adapted (Aydin, 2004).^[20] Dynamic Systems Development Method is a Rapid Application Development method concerned mainly with the development of computerised Information Systems. ... The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) is a process capability maturity model which aids in the definition and understanding of an organizations processes. ...

XP makes the need for method adaptation explicit. One of the fundamental ideas of XP is that no one process fits every project, but rather that practices should be tailored to the needs of individual projects. There are no experience reports in which all the XP practices have been adopted. Instead, a partial adoption of XP practices, as suggested by Beck, has been reported on several occasions.^[21] Kent Beck is the creator of Extreme Programming and is one of the founders of the Agile Manifesto. ...

A distinction can be made between static method adaptation and dynamic method adaptation.^[22] The key assumption behind static method adaptation is that the project context is given at the start of a project and remains fixed during project execution. The result is a static definition of the project context. Given such a definition, route maps can be used in order to determine which structured method fragments should be used for that particular project, based on predefined sets of criteria. Dynamic method adaptation, in contrast, assumes that projects are situated in an emergent context. An emergent context implies that a project has to deal with emergent factors that affect relevant conditions but are not predictable. This also means that a project context is not fixed, but changing during project execution. In such a case prescriptive route maps are not appropriate. The practical implication of dynamic method adaptation is that project managers often have to modify structured fragments or even innovate new fragments, during the execution of a project (Aydin et al, 2005).^[22]

Agile methods and project management

Agile methods differ to a large degree in the way they cover project management. Some methods are supplemented with guidelines on project management, but there is generally no comprehensive support.^[14]

PRINCE2 has been suggested as a suitable, complementary project management system.^[23] For other meanings, see Prince (disambiguation). ...

Project management tools for agile development teams

A number of project management tools are specifically aimed at agile development. They are designed to help plan, track, analyse and integrate work. These tools play an important role in agile development, as a means of Knowledge Management. Knowledge Management (KM) comprises a range of practices used by organisations to identify, create, represent, and distribute knowledge. ...

Common features include: Version control integration, progress tracking, easy work allocation, integrated release and iteration planning, discussion forums, and reporting and tracking of software defects Revision control (also known as version control (system) (VCS), source control or (source) code management (SCM)) is the management of multiple revisions of the same unit of information. ...

Some well-known agile project management websites include: versionone, targetprocess, assembla, rallydev, ppts, gatherspace and visionproject.

Agile methods

Some of the well-known agile software development methods:

• Agile Modeling
• Agile Unified Process (AUP)
• Agile Data Method
• Daily kickoff and review of goals
• short release cycles
• Responsive Development
• Generalism - Use of generic skill sets which are common across the team not reliance on specific skill sets which are scarce
• Test Driven Development (TDD)
• Feature Driven Development (FDD)
• Behavior Driven Development (BDD)
• Essential Unified Process (EssUP)

Other approaches: Agile Modeling is a supplement to other Agile Methodologies such as: Extreme Programming (XP) Scrum [1] Answers to Criticisms The principles and values of Agile Modeling practises help to mitigate the criticisms of Agile Software Development. ... Scott Amblers Agile Unified Process (AUP) is a simplified version of the Rational Unified Process (RUP). ... The goal of the Agile Data (AD) methodology is to define strategies that IT professionals can apply in a wide variety of situations to work together effectively on the data aspects of software systems. ... Test-driven development (TDD) is a programming technique heavily emphasized in Extreme Programming. ... Feature Drive Development (FDD) is an iterative and incremental software development process. ... The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ... The Essential Unified Process for software development, or EssUP, was invented by Ivar Jacobson as an improvement on the Rational Unified Process. ...

• Software Development Rhythms
• Agile Documentation
• ICONIX Process
• Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF)
• Database refactoring

Beck says, Programming sometimes seems challenging but it flows. ... ICONIX is an Agile software development process borrowing elements from both the Rational Unified Process (RUP) and Extreme Programming(EP). ... Microsoft® Solutions Framework (MSF) is a deliberate and disciplined approach to technology projects based on a defined set of principles, models, disciplines, concepts, guidelines, and proven practices from Microsoft. ... Category: ...

Agile beyond software development

Agile software development depends on some special characteristics possessed only by software, such as object technologies and the ability to automate testing. However, related techniques have been created for developing non-software products, such as semiconductors, motor vehicles, or chemicals. For more on them, see Flexible product development. Although the development of a new product naturally involves change from what came before it, the business processes and project management methodologies usually used for product development are not designed to accommodate change. ...

Measuring agility

While many see agility as a means to an end, a number of approaches have been proposed to quantify agility. Agility Index Measurements (AIM)[1] score projects against a number of agility factors to achieve a total. The similarly-named Agility Measurement Index [2], scores developments against five dimensions of a software project (duration, risk, novelty, effort, and interaction). Other techniques are based on measurable goals [3]. Another study using fuzzy mathematics^[24] has suggested that project velocity can be used as a metric of agility.

While such approaches have been proposed to measure agility, the practical application of such metrics has yet to be seen.

Criticism

Agile development is sometimes criticized as cowboy coding. Extreme Programming's initial buzz and controversial tenets, such as pair programming and continuous design, have attracted particular criticism, such as McBreen^[25] and Boehm and Turner.^[15] Many of the criticisms, however, are believed by Agile practitioners to be misunderstandings of agile development.^[26] Information in this article or section has not been verified against sources and may not be reliable. ... Extreme Programming (or XP) is a software engineering methodology, the most prominent of several agile software development methodologies, prescribing a set of daily stakeholder practices that embody and encourage particular XP values (below). ... Pair programming requires two software engineers to participate in a combined development effort at one workstation. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Martin Fowler. ...

In particular, Extreme Programming is reviewed and critiqued by Matt Stephens's and Doug Rosenberg's Extreme Programming Refactored.^[27] Extreme Programming (or XP) is a software engineering methodology, the most prominent of several agile software development methodologies, prescribing a set of daily stakeholder practices that embody and encourage particular XP values (below). ...

Criticisms include:

• Lack of structure and necessary documentation
• Only works with senior-level developers
• Incorporates insufficient software design
• Requires too much cultural change to adopt
• Can lead to more difficult contractual negotiations
• Can be very inefficient -- if the requirements for one area of code change through various iterations, the same programming may need to be done several times over. Whereas if a plan were there to be followed, a single area of code is expected to be written once.
• Impossible to develop realistic estimates of work effort needed to provide a quote, because at the beginning of the project no one knows the entire scope/requirements
• Drastically increases the risk of scope creep due to the lack of detailed requirements documentation
• Agile is feature driven, non-functional quality attributes are hard to be placed as user stories

The criticisms regarding insufficient software design and lack of documentation are addressed by the Agile Modeling method, which can easily be tailored into agile processes such as XP. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Mission creep. ...

Agile software development has been criticized because it may not bring about all of the claimed benefits when programmers of average ability use this method.^[28]

Post-Agilism

In software engineering, post-Agilism (aka "Fragilism") is an informal movement of former "Agilistas" (Agile Software Development evangelists) who have chosen to draw from a much wider range of methods and schools of thought on software development, preferring to avoid being constrained by what they consider to be "Agile Dogma". Software engineering (SE) is the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software. ...

Much of the debate around Post-Agilism centres on the meaning of the word Agile - with a capital 'a' - vs. "agile" (the dictionary definition of the word). In late 2005, Jason Gorman argued that the meaning of Agile was ambiguous and was being inappropriately applied to a very wide range of approaches like Six Sigma and CMMi. He also argued that "Agile", "evolutionary", and "lean" (as in Lean software development) did not mean the same thing in practice, even though they are all lumped under the banner of "Agile" - possibly for marketing purposes. Gorman argued that process-oriented methods, especially methods that incrementally reduce waste and process variation like Six Sigma, have a tendency to limit an organisation's adaptive capacity (their "slack"), making them less able to respond to discontinuous change - i.e., less agile. He also argues in later posts that "agile", "lean" and "evolutionary" are strategies that need to be properly understood and appropriately applied to any specific context. That is, there is a time to be "agile", a time to be "lean" and a time to be "evolutionary". Look up agile in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up agile in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The often-used six sigma symbol. ... The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) is a method for evaluating the maturity of software development organisations on a scale of 1 to 5. ... Lean Software Development is a translation of lean manufacturing principles and practices to the software development domain. ... The often-used six sigma symbol. ...

The debate continued on various discussion groups, and transferred into the blogosphere in December 2005. In June 2006 the debate widened and the term Post-Agilism was coined by Jonathan Kohl to describe the growing - but still very loose - association of people extolling "post-Agile" sentiments in their work. Blogosphere is a collective term encompassing all blogs and their interconnections. ...

Much of the post-Agile thinking centers around Nonlinear Management, a superset of management techniques that include many Agile practices. Linear Management is the application of reductionism to management problems, often relying on the ability to predict, engineer and control outcomes by manipulating the component parts of a business (organization, operation, policy, process and so on). ... Look up agile in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Experience reports

Agile development has been the subject of several conferences. Some of these conferences have had academic backing and included peer-reviewed papers, including a peer-reviewed experience report track. The experience reports share industry experiences with agile software development.

As of 2006, experience reports have been or will be presented at the following conferences:

• XP (2000^[29], 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006^[30])
• XP Universe (2001^[31])
• XP/Agile Universe (2002,^[32]2003,^[33] 2004^[34])
• Agile Development Conference (2003,^[35] 2004,^[36]) (peer-reviewed; proceedings published by IEEE?)
• Agile (2005,^[37] 2006) (peer-reviewed; proceedings published by IEEE)

See also

• Agile web development
• Software Engineering
• Extreme programming
• Collaborative software development model
• Software Development Rhythms

Agile web development is a model for development of web applications. ... Software engineering (SE) is the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software. ... Extreme Programming (or XP) is a software engineering methodology, the most prominent of several agile software development methodologies, prescribing a set of daily stakeholder practices that embody and encourage particular XP values (below). ... The Collaborative software development model is a style of software development whose focus is on public availability and communication, usually via the Internet. ... Beck says, Programming sometimes seems challenging but it flows. ...

References

Gerald Marvin Weinberg is an author and teacher of the psychology and anthropology of computer software development. ... A digital object identifier (or DOI) is a standard for persistently identifying a piece of intellectual property on a digital network and associating it with related data, the metadata, in a structured extensible way. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ... is the 53rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Kent Beck is the creator of Extreme Programming and is one of the founders of the Agile Manifesto. ... Kent Beck is the creator of Extreme Programming and is one of the founders of the Agile Manifesto. ... Alistair Cockburn (name pronounced Co-burn, in the Scottish way) is one of the initiators of the Agile movement in software development. ... Oh Yes, Hes Ward Cunningham! Howard Cunningham redirects here. ... Martin Fowler is a famous author and international speaker on software architecture, specializing in object-oriented analysis and design, UML, Patterns, and agile software development methodologies, including Extreme Programming. ... Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... Andy Hunt (sometimes credited as Andrew Hunt) is a writer of books on software development. ... Ron Jeffries is one of the founders of the extreme programming (or XP) software development methodology. ... Brian Marick, a graduate of the University of Illinois, is a software testing specialist who is known for working closely with software developers. ... Known colloquially as Uncle Bob, Robert Cecil Martin has been a software professional since 1970 and an international software consultant since 1990. ... Stephen J. Mellor is a computer scientist, developer of the Shlaer-Mellor method and signatory to the Agile Manifesto. ... Ken Schwaber is the owner of the scrummaster trademark, a course in Scrum software development process. ... Jeff Sutherland, Ph. ... Dave Thomas is a computer programmer and author/editor. ... Barry W. Boehm is known for many contributions to software engineering. ... Richard Turner is research professor in engineering management and systems engineering at George Washington University. ... The Association for Computing Machinery, or ACM, was founded in 1947 as the worlds first scientific and educational computing society. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 133rd day of the year (134th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Ian F. Sommerville, (1951 –) is a British academic. ... Addison-Wesley is a book publishing imprint of Pearson PLC, best known for computer books. ... is the 46th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Barry W. Boehm is known for many contributions to software engineering. ... Richard Turner is research professor in engineering management and systems engineering at George Washington University. ...

Further reading

• Fowler, Martin. Is Design Dead?. Appeared in Extreme Programming Explained, G. Succi and M. Marchesi, ed., Addison-Wesley, Boston. 2001.
• Riehle, Dirk. A Comparison of the Value Systems of Adaptive Software Development and Extreme Programming: How Methodologies May Learn From Each Other. Appeared in Extreme Programming Explained, G. Succi and M. Marchesi, ed., Addison-Wesley, Boston. 2001.
• Tomek, Ivan. What I Learned Teaching XP
• M. Stephens, D. Rosenberg. Extreme Programming Refactored: The Case Against XP. Apress L.P., Berkeley, California. 2003. (ISBN 1-59059-096-1)
• D. Rosenberg, M. Stephens. Agile Development with ICONIX Process. Apress L.P., Berkeley, California. 2005. (ISBN 1-59059-464-9)
• Beck, et al., Manifesto for Agile Software Development
• Larman, Craig and Basili, Victor R. Iterative and Incremental Development:A Brief History IEEE Computer, June 2003

• Abrahamsson, P., Warsta, J., Siponen, M.T., & Ronkainen, J. (2003). New Directions on Agile Methods: A Comparative Analysis. Proceedings of ICSE'03, 244-254.
• Abrahamsson, P., Salo, O., Ronkainen, J., & Warsta, J. (2002). Agile Software Development Methods: Review and Analysis. VTT Publications 478.
• Aydin, M.N., Harmsen, F., Slooten, K. v., & Stagwee, R. A. (2004). An Agile Information Systems Development Method in use. Turk J Elec Engin, 12(2), 127-138
• Aydin, M.N., Harmsen, F., Slooten van K., & Stegwee, R.A. (2005). On the Adaptation of An Agile Information Systems Development Method. Journal of Database Management Special issue on Agile Analysis, Design, and Implementation, 16(4), 20-24
• Cohen, D., Lindvall, M., & Costa, P. (2004). An introduction to agile methods. In Advances in Computers (pp. 1-66). New York: Elsevier Science.
• Karlstrom, D., & Runeson P. (2005). Combining agile methods with stage-gate project management. IEEE Software, 22(3), 43-49
• Highsmith, J. Agile Software Development Ecosystems. Addison-Wesley Professional, 2002 (ISBN 0-20176-043-6)
• Waldner, JB. Nanocomputers and Swarm Intelligence. ISTE, 2008, (ISBN 9781847040022)

External links

• Manifesto for Agile Software Development
• The Agile Alliance
• Post-Agilism: Process Skepticism by Jonathan Kohl (This is where the term "post-Agilism" first appeared in the blogosphere.)

• "Why Agile Popped Up on the Radar When it Did"
• Interview on Lean for Software Methods
• Why Agile Software Development Techniques Work: Improved Feedback
• Risk based selection for agile iterative lifecycle methods
• "The Demise of the Waterfall Model Is Imminent" and Other Urban Myths
• Agile, Multidisciplinary Teamwork by Gautam Gosh
• Agile Requirements by Rachel Davies
• Two Ways to Build a Pyramid by John Mayo-Smith
• Levent Gurses. "10 Mistakes in Transitioning to Agile: Slow down the transition in order to go fast", Dr. Dobb's Journal, 2006-11-01. 
• Breaking the Major Release Habit - Why are long iterations a hard habit to break?
• Agile Modeling: Effective Practices for XP and RUP by S.W. Ambler.
• An extensive list of book reviews on Agile topics, including practices, particular schools of Agile and software development

• Agile at the Open Directory Project