“Agile” (agile) – translated from English quick, quick-witted.
Agile emerged as an approach to software development for complex large projects. The approach involves adaptive planning to quickly respond to changes, evolutionary development from the most necessary to the most complex, rapid implementation and continuous improvement of the project by receiving feedback from the end user. The approach itself leaves an imprint on the culture of relations both in the team of the developer of the contractor, and the self-organization of the customer and, as a result, on the rules of the relationship between the customer and the contractor.
History of appearance
Previously, the products were made immediately and entirely. Back then, the most popular development approach was the waterfall principle. Idea → terms of reference → design → programming → testing → final product. As water flows down the stairs, so the blocks of tasks were built one after the other, assuming that the entire development process was planned in detail from the beginning and during the development there would be no need to return to the previous step at the request of the end customer. But now the world around us is changing rapidly and it may happen that during the development a competitive product has appeared or the preferences of customers have changed due to some events or fashion. Therefore, it became extremely difficult to design a complex system or make a product so that everyone would like it in the first version.
The dissatisfaction of end customers served as an impetus for the development of new approaches. Since with the new development approach, the requirements for the product and the product itself underwent changes during development, such approaches were called flexible. This is how Scrum, Kanban and other approaches appeared. In 2001, a meeting of approach developers took place at which a generalization of project management methods was made. Since the approaches differed from each other, a manifesto unifying the idea emerged that established the values and behavior of the parties. And later, the Agile Manifesto was supplemented with principles that explained the nature of the attitude of team members to development.
What should change after the introduction of Agile?
First of all, the points of responsibility and the principles of setting tasks for implementation should be revised. So, as a consequence, the nature of the relationship of the team members. Agile values are:
- People and interaction are more important than processes and tools.
- A working product is more important than comprehensive documentation.
- Cooperation with the customer is more important than agreeing on the terms of the contract.
- Being ready for change is more important than sticking to the original plan.
A change in priorities is a change in the internal culture of an enterprise. And any restructuring requires time, clarification, support of values by examples. Explanations have been given in the 12 fundamental principles of Agile. They can be found at http://agilemanifesto.org/ .
The end customer became a direct participant in the stage-by-stage acceptance of the work performed. Tasks for execution began to be formed based on the principle that what needs to be done first. The block of tasks given for development should solve the functional problem in such a way that the development could be stopped even after the block was completed, but the project could already be used.
And with each new functional block, new features appeared and the project constantly evolved. The development has become the creation of competitive advantages for the end customer, and a successful customer is interested in continuing the project.
Increasing efficiency between developer and customer:
To increase the efficiency of cooperation between the developer and the customer, a rule was introduced that after the start of the execution of the stage (sprint), it is impossible to make changes to the task statement. Changes can be scheduled for a new stage (sprint), after the first is accepted. This rule began to discipline customers so that only a comprehensively thought-out block of tasks went into development. The duration of stages (sprints) is regulated based on the number of members of the development team and their functional responsibilities. Sprints are often 2 weeks long.
One of the most difficult principles to implement is the pursuit of excellence. It concerns both the technical part of the project and the desire of employees for professional growth. As well as analyzing and identifying the weaknesses of the entire team. Therefore, employee criticism turns into a recommendation to improve efficiency, self-analysis of the developer’s mistakes into a desire to make the program architecture more flexible, and the program code easy to read and understand. At the same time, one of the main tasks of the project manager (Scrum Master) is to minimize unnecessary empty work. This can only be done by understanding the business processes and user roles in detail. Therefore, the task statement always balances on the edge of optimal labor costs sufficient to solve the client’s tasks.
Transferring Agile Approaches and Principles
During which time the Agile methodology began to be used not only in programming, but also in management, education and economics. Watch two video seminars on the topic of transferring Agile technology to education.
And also “Scrum is a new word in the organization of class teamwork”. Planning the educational process. Preparatory work for the implementation of Scrum. Organization of the educational environment.
For elementary and high school group work, we can recommend the Building a Better Bridge Kit from PASCO SCIENTIFIC. Having broken into the roles of an architect, builders, construction supervision, you can get acquainted with the basics of engineering and strength of materials.
For design work training in high school and gymnasium classes, we recommend trying the uArm Swift Pro robotic arm.. In addition to moving objects, it can also be used for sand painting, 3D printing, and laser engraving. And this means that you can come up with tasks for creating award commemorative signs, a remote game of checkers, a cartoon on glass with sand. And accordingly, each task will have its own roles. For the cartoon, a screenwriter, programmer, lighting engineer, cameraman, sound engineer, layout designer, critic. For commemorative signs, designer, programmer, tester, fixture engineer, etc. The main thing is not to forget to include a representative of the customer in the team.
Для высших технических заведений можно сделать проект разработки электронного устройства на базе NI ELVIS Engineering Lab Workstation.
For getting quotes please email ask@ste(.)education. (Don’t forget to remove the parentheses () from the email address before sending.)
