02. What is Agile?

Question 1

What is Agile?

Answer 1

A response to the increasing flexibility needed to deal with the rapidly changing environment within which projects are now delivered.

Question 2

What is a scrum?

Answer 2

Relies on incremental development. Each iteration consists of 2-4 week sprints where each sprint’s goal is to build the most important features first and come out with a potentially deliverable product.

Question 3

What is a kanban?

Answer 3

• A process designed to help teams work together more effectively
• A method for managing the creation of products with an emphasis on continual delivery
• Quicker start to finish
• Continuously improving the flow of work

Question 4

What is extreme programming?

Answer 4

A software development discipline that organises people to produce higher quality software more productively

Question 5

What is programming (XP)?

Answer 5

XP attempts to reduct the cost of changes in requirements by having multiple short development cycles.

Question 6

What are the differences between scrum and Extreme Programming (XP)?

Answer 6

• Scrum teams use sprints that are typically 2-4 weeks long whereas XP teams typically work in iterations of 1-2 weeks
• Scrum teams do not allow changes to sprints whereas XP teams are more amenable to change within iterations
• XP teams work in a strict priority order set by the customer (Scrum’s Product Owner) whereas Scrum teams determine the sequence to develop backlog items
• Scrum doesn’t prescribe by any engineering practices, but XP does

Question 7

What is DSDM?

Answer 7

Formally known as Dynamic System Development Method, DSDM is an Agile method that focuses on the full project lifecycle.

Question 8

What is SAFe?

Answer 8

The Scales Agile Framework (SAFe) is a set of organisation and workflow patterns for implementing agile practices at enterprise scale.

Question 9

What are the 4 values of the Agile Manifesto?

Answer 9

1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
2. Working software over comprehensive documentation
3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
4. Responding to change over following a plan

Question 10

Agile requires the same disciplines as other project management methods, but offers…

Answer 10

…different approaches to making progress.

Question 11

When might a fuller Agile approach be needed?

Answer 11

Complex environments

Question 12

What are the benefits of using DSDM?

Answer 12

• Greater ability for effective business direction
• Greater business ownership of solution more likely
• Delivery on time whilst protecting solution quality
• Greatly reduced risk of building wrong solution
• More likely to meet real business need
• Smoother deployment through collaboration