Managing Agile Requirements

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1. AGILE METHODOLOGY FUNDAMENTALS

• What are agile methods?
• What is iterative development?
• Covers the basics and principles of iterative development and industry accepted best practices.
  • Agile methods’ values
  • Intro to Scrum/benefits vs. waterfall. Brief history of Scrum, comparison to waterfall, advantages of Scrum.
• Exercise: Characterize Your Current Process. Students will break into small discussion groups to discuss their current process and what challenges or obstacles they may face when adopting agility

1. SCRUM IN A NUTSHELL

• What is Scrum and an overview of Scrum process flow
• Scrum Roles and responsibilities – The ScrumMaster, project team. Covers the roles played within a project team, with an emphasis on the ScrumMaster.
• How does Scrum work and how do we conduct project planning?
• Exercise: Understanding Scrum Roles. Students will break into small discussion groups to determine how to use scrum to bring a project back on track.

1. TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT VS. SCRUM

• Agile Leadership Principles – Servant Leadership, Empirical Management, Empowerment, Quality-First, Continuous Improvement, and “Standardization”

1. USE CASE / USER STORIES OVERVIEW

• What are use cases (or user stories)?
• Describe how to develop a use case model / user story model
• Describe the basic process for writing a use case specification (or user story) and describe the components
• Discuss the relationship between use case / user story and user interfaces
• Review tips for writing quality use case specification / user stories
• Exercise: Developing a Use Case (User Story). Students will have the opportunity to write one (optional exercise)

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1. PLANNING AND ESTIMATING

• Planning Overview. Why do we plan and what makes a good plan?
• How is agile planning different? Planning takes place at the Day, Iteration, and Release level
• Estimation of Size and Duration. Story points vs. ideal days. We will then extrapolate the story point concept and explain how this applies to the concept of use case points.
• Exercise: Estimating for the Product Backlog. Students will work in teams to estimate items in the product backlog using points.
• Ideal days. A discussion about Ideal Time vs. Elapsed Time
• Planning Poker. Introduces the class to planning poker and how to conduct a planning poker sessions.
• Exercise: Planning Poker. Students will work in teams and use planning poker as a means to estimate items in a backlog.

1. PROJECT INITIATION AND RELEASE PLANNING

• Role of the product owner
  • Lays out the responsibilities and expectations of the product owner and his/her relationship to the project team.
• Establishment of project charter
  • Overview of basis for scope of work, starting point for product backlog. Describe other project initiation activities.
• Product backlog
  • Definition of the product backlog, how it is established. Demonstrate how to size use cases / user stories.
• Exercise: Build a product backlog
  • Allow students to go through the steps of establishing the product backlog and size use cases / user stories.
• Setting priorities
  • How the product backlog gets prioritized and maintained. Focus is on the role of the product owner.
• Release planning
  • Demonstrate how to use prioritized backlog, estimated velocity, and sprint goals to establish a release plan.

1. PLANNING A SPRINT

• Conducting Sprint Planning Meeting
• Part 1: Selecting a subset of the product backlog
  • Discuss how to determine the sprint scope including hangover.
• Part 2: Developing the sprint backlog
  • Discuss how to avoid hangover, estimate velocity, and establish a sprint goal.
• Exercise: Build a sprint backlog
  • Students will be provided a product backlog and preliminary release plan, to build a sprint backlog
• Developing sprint tasks
  • Topics covered include task granularity, dependencies, scheduling and assignment.
• Exercise: Establish sprint plan tasks
  • Students will create and plan iteration tasks.

1. RUNNING A SPRINT

• Conducting the daily Scrum
  • Discuss the focus and conduct of the daily Scrum. Learn what is included and what is excluded. Learn the value of the daily Scrum.
• Managing the sprint scope
  • Discuss tips and techniques for insulating the team from distractions.
  • Learn how to handle the sprint being behind or ahead.
• Warning signs and how to address them
  • Covers common pitfalls and avoidance strategies and recipes for failure.
• Tracking progress/burndown
  • Methods for managing task completion. Covers burndown and progress tracking.
• Exercise: Build and maintain burndown (59 minute Scrum)
  • Students break into teams and simulate an actual sprint. They plan the sprint, create tasks, status the tasks, and hold daily Scrums all within 59 minutes.

1. CLOSING A SPRINT

• Conducting a sprint review
  • Demonstrate what is expected and covered in a sprint review.
• Conducting a sprint retrospective
  • Discuss the purpose and scope of a sprint retrospective.
• Inspecting and adapting the process
  • Discuss a key aspect of Scrum: inspect and adapt. Emphasizes the importance of self-directed teams.
• Reporting project status
  • Discuss metrics, hangover, and velocity.
• Updating the backlog
  • Covers re-prioritization, injects and budget constraints.
• Closing the project

Summarization and definition of done.