Agile software development is a group of software development methodologies based on iterative and incremental development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams.

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368
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19answers
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I've inherited 200K lines of spaghetti code — what now?

I hope this isn't too general of a question; I could really use some seasoned advice. I am newly employed as the sole "SW Engineer" in a fairly small shop of scientists who have spent the last 10-20 ...
61
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6answers
3k views

Agile for the Solo Developer

How would someone implement Agile process concepts as a solo developer? Agile seems useful for getting applications developed at a faster pace, but it also seems very team oriented...
44
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13answers
2k views

Is there a canonical book on Agile?

As a solo developer, I think I'm using an Agile-like process, but I'd like to compare what I'm doing to real Agile and see if I can improve my own process. Is there a book out there that's the ...
11
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3answers
941 views

How to promote an open-source project?

First of all, I apologize if this is the wrong section of network to post this question. If it is, please feel free to move it to more appropriate location... Question: I would like to hear your ...
9
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3answers
958 views

How do you deal with changing requirements?

In my current job it feels like we have a lot requirement changes. We are an "Agile" shop, so I get that we are supposed to adjust and what not, but sometime the change is large and nothing trivial. ...
20
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7answers
1k views

What is agile methodology?

Can any one explain about the agile methodology in simple sentences?
16
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3answers
632 views

Advice/guidelines for managing a distributed development team

What are some strategies, methodologies and best-practices for managing a distributed team? What can be done to encourage and enforce communication between the various team members? Is it possible ...
19
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9answers
2k views

Should we quit trying to do agile if QA takes 12 weeks?

Someone in my company recently proposed changes to our core product that our managers feel should trigger what I guess my company considers a full QA cycle (i.e. testing the entire product suite from ...
12
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7answers
907 views

Can Agile software development be used in projects defined by a contract?

I recently had a conversation with a fellow developer about Agile Software Development. While I understand the principle, it seems that continuously changing requirements creates the potential for the ...
3
votes
5answers
388 views

How would you introduce an agile methodology like scrum?

If you've found agile and walk into a workplace that doesn't particularly follow any methodology and they are resistant to change (as most people usually are), how would you introduce an agile ...
51
votes
16answers
3k views

Does Scrum turn active developers into passive developers?

I'm a web developer working in a team of three developers and one designer. It's now about five months that we've implemented the agile scrum software development methodology. But I have a weird ...
51
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13answers
3k views

How can we reduce downtime at the end of an iteration?

Where I work we practice scrum-driven agile with 3-week iterations. Yes, it'd be nice if the iterations were shorter, but changing that isn't an option at the moment. At the end of the iteration, I ...
21
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7answers
826 views

When does pair programming work for you? When should you avoid it?

Rather than slavishly pair program all the time, we use pair programming selectively on our team. I think it works best in the following circumstances: Ramping up brand new team members on a ...
16
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12answers
2k views

What programming language and framework has best support for agile web development? [closed]

If I would like to quickly set up a modern website, what programming language + framework has best support for this? E.g. short and easy to understand code for a beginner and a framework with support ...
13
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3answers
1k views

How can a single developer make use of Agile Methods?

I am a freelancer and work as a single developer. In all cases, I am the person wearing different hats. I am the Scrum Master and I am the only person in the development. What I am not is the Product ...
46
votes
5answers
2k views

Bug reopen vs. new

A bug was opened, fixed, verified and closed. A month later, it showed up again in a subsequent version after several iterations without any regression. Provided the bug characteristics are the same, ...
20
votes
10answers
2k views

How to add a new developer to the team

I run a small company composed of only 2 developers. We are building a very big application for one of our clients. Development on this project has gone on for 1.5 years. Now this client has secured ...
13
votes
16answers
2k views

Weeding out real agile from buzzword agile in an interview

I've been interviewing for co-ops (paid internships) lately and a large number of the companies I've been interviewing with have been saying they use Scrum or some other agile methodology (scrum being ...
6
votes
4answers
1k views

Using Agile development in a one person team [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: Agile for the Solo Developer I am going to be starting a project soon and plan to use as much of agile methods as I can (CI, TDD etc.). What have been people's ...
17
votes
11answers
945 views

At what point would you drop some of your principles of software development for the sake of more money?

I'd like to throw this question out there to interestingly see where the medium is. I'm going to admit that in my last 12 months, I picked up TDD and a lot of the Agile values in software ...
16
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4answers
1k views

Are there any studies on the Efficiency/Effectiveness of Agile vs Waterfall

In a meeting the other day a claim was made that agile was only 60% as efficient in development time when compared to waterfall. I am not looking to validate or refute this claim. I am interesting ...
5
votes
4answers
412 views

How to stop gold-plating and just be content to release working developments [closed]

The development team that I'm a member of has recently adapted to work according to Agile practices. This has personally highlighted the fact that I can't stop myself gold-plating code (and ...
11
votes
7answers
595 views

What do you need to succeed with Agile?

Agile adoption can fail in some organizations, I even worked for a company where waterfall was the only (the true) way but only because they tried Agile on a project and failed. When I asked the ...
7
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11answers
3k views

With agile, what do when a user story doesn't get completed in an iteration?

Do you just move the story to a new iteration, or delay the next iteration? It gets a bit tricky when you use something like Jira when you have to copy or move around stories between iterations as it ...
4
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5answers
1k views

What's a good methodology for a small 2-person project?

Hello What's a good methodology for a small 2-person project? Ranges from 20-40hr. It's mostly small websites. I want to approach it as a developer, but Agile and other methodologies seems too large ...
7
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3answers
342 views

Agile estimation with tech-debt

When estimating (story points) a story that consists on extending a current functionality with a known tech-debt, should we consider the effort that will be spent to refactor the current code or ...
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vote
2answers
800 views

How to adopt scrum agile methodology for a small .Net team [closed]

I am working on a small product based company developing .Net applications. There is a small team with 5-6 developers. I am a person responsible for planning everything. But my primary role is ...
55
votes
15answers
5k views

Effective Ways to Introduce Agile into the Workplace?

In your experience (anecdotal or otherwise), what are some effective ways to introduce Agile into a non-Agile organization or company? UPDATED: Can anyone speak to cases where you tried to introduce ...
35
votes
13answers
4k views

Is Agile the new micromanagement?

This question has been cooking in my head for a while so I wanted to ask those who are following agile/scrum practices in their development environments. My company has finally ventured into ...
19
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6answers
2k views

What's the best explanation of what Story Points are?

We're starting to use Story Points here for our Agile development but I find it hard to explain and also can't find any definitive answer to what they are. The best thing I can do is point to other ...
36
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8answers
2k views

Is there a viable alternative to the agile development methodology?

The two predominant software-development methodologies are waterfall and agile. When discussing these two, there is often much focus on the particular practices that distinguish them (pair ...
25
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8answers
1k views

What to do about “Failure Driven Development”?

At our shop, we strive to be agile. And I'd say we are making great strides. That said, a few of us have spotted a pattern we have started calling "Failure Driven Development". Failure Driven ...
21
votes
11answers
2k views

Scrum for a single programmer?

I'm billed as the "Windows Expert" in my very small company, which consists of myself, a mechanical engineer working in a sales and training role, and the company's president, working in a design, ...
19
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12answers
2k views

What caused you to stop using UML tools on your team?

There seems to be plenty of good, free UML tools. I hear about UML tools being used by large organizations, and they seem to have plenty of advocates. However, in my career I have never seen them used ...
35
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10answers
1k views

How can we make agile enjoyable for developers that like to personally, independently own large chunks from start to finish

We’re roughly midway through our transition from waterfall to agile using scrum; we’ve changed from large teams in technology/discipline silos to smaller cross-functional teams. As expected, the ...
29
votes
17answers
3k views

Daily standups- yea or nay? [closed]

How valuable (or not) do you think daily stand-up meetings are? If you're not familiar with it, this refers to a daily meeting that is part of Scrum adherents (and some other agile methodologies). ...
19
votes
8answers
2k views

When Agile goes wrong [closed]

I'm writing an Agile course for some of the new guys we are on-boarding recently, and I want to add a cautionary tale so they understand that Agile is not meant for all projects. My problem is that, ...
16
votes
11answers
1k views

Should I accept a job if pair programming is required? [closed]

I have been offered an interesting job, but there's a big caveat for me: they use pair programming. I hate the idea of pair programming, and I'm probably not suited for it: I like to do frequent ...
20
votes
6answers
1k views

How is Agile different from XP?

I read few articles on web to find out how Agile, XP, Scrum, pair programming are different from each other / related to each other and I derived the following line: Scrum and XP are almost same. XP ...
17
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5answers
2k views

Can Agile and ISO 9001 interact well?

There are few academic papers addressing the relationship between lean software development and the practices covered by ISO 9001. Most articles says that the divergence between these approaches is ...
16
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5answers
910 views

How do you keep track of a requirements document on an agile team?

I understand that User Stories dominate the agile world, but how are these artifacts stored, so that new developers who join the team can come up to speed with the requirements? What if the User ...
12
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7answers
394 views

Funding Agile Projects

The company I work within is tentatively moving towards an Agile project management strategy - having experienced the "joys" of waterfall one time to many. Key to this is a shift in emphasis towards ...
12
votes
3answers
522 views

Pair Swapping: What are the Pros and Cons?

The general idea that is espoused by most Agile / XP theorists seems to be that pairs should swap regularly. For example each programmer should swap pairs once per day; half the people swap at the ...
12
votes
9answers
471 views

Are there any arguments that can make a contractor reconsider working on fixed price?

I've been working for a contractor who brings in some good projects, but they are all fixed-price and often fixed-time. As a result he always has me making a quote over loose requirements, which ...
8
votes
2answers
618 views

What to do with estimation of incomplete story?

I am part of a development team that is relatively new to Scrum, suppose that at the end of the sprint a few large stories are either in progress or were not accepted by the PO. Firstly, what ...
8
votes
5answers
512 views

Is it a good idea to appoint one of the scrum team member or scrum master as Product Owner?

Lately we had a project, in which client was busy touring. As usual scrum team was formed, management decided to appoint our analyst as Product owner since Client won’t be able to participate ...
7
votes
9answers
1k views

Code Reviews, what are the advantages? [closed]

In my team, we don't do formal code reviews. We tend to think that it's enough with pair programming and rotating pairs often. Should we consider doing formal code reviews? What would be the ...
7
votes
6answers
1k views

Can scrum master allocate tasks?

We are following scrum in our project. I see most of the times the scrum master allocates the tasks for us. However, I read from many scrum books that scrum works the other way around (the 'pull' ...
7
votes
2answers
604 views

What is the difference between Acceptance Test-Driven Planning and Acceptance Test-Driven Development?

What is the difference between Acceptance Test--Driven Planning and Acceptance Test--Driven Development? Are they the same?
5
votes
5answers
611 views

Should you ever re-estimate user stories?

My current project is having a 'discussion' which is split down the middle- "this story is more complex than we originally thought, we should re-estimate" vs "you should never re-estimate as you only ...

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