Integrating Agile Development in the Real World

Description

Have your software projects been suffering from the age-old development problems of slipped schedules and ballooning budgets? Has your development organization experienced a variety of failed and canceled projects? If so, you may benefit from infusing some agility into your development process. Agile development breaks with a 40-year tradition of applying ever more structure and formalization to the design and development of software by advocating a return to the basic principles of satisfied customers, working software, and the willingness to accept and respond to change. As the popularity of agile development has grown, IT professionals have begun to struggle with ways to integrate agile practices and processes into traditional project environments. Integrating Agile Development in the Real World provides programmers and managers with specific and implementable ways to use agile processes in everyday software development projects. Whether read cover-to-cover, or used as a field guide during an agile transition, this book provides valuable insight into how agile practices and processes may be applied in almost any environment. Everything from how to deliver a working system sooner, acknowledge and respond to change, better meet the needs of the project's customer, to increasing software quality, and fostering a more communicative and collaborative team culture are thoroughly covered.

CONTENTS:

Agile development primer
Agile characteristics
The agile methodologies
Selecting an approach that fits
Going agile
Agile practices
Design & programming
Testing
Data & the database
Agile management
Features & user stories
Project initiation
Small releases
Executing iterative development
The customer
Reviewing & reporting progress
Communication & collaboration
Documentation
People
Real-world environments
Seeking additional assistance