Agile Delivery Phase Start Me Up

Description

In the Initiate Start Me Up course we created a scaffold for an iterative plan and a rough schedule for the delivery of business benefits. In the Delivery Start Me Up course, we elaborate on the outcomes from initiation and build working tested software that is usable and potentially ready for deployment.

Key Agile practices such as TDD (test driven development), re-factoring, pair-programming and continuous integration will be covered in detail. We also drill down in great detail into story elaboration and how requirements and designs are flushed out just prior to building them.

Although a great deal about the project is learned during concept and initiate phase, learning doesn’t stop there. The iterative and incremental nature of delivery means that the team will continue to uncover more about their technology and business choices, and have multiple chances to improve the return from the project. This course takes you through the process and the deliverables involved in the delivery phase. You will take a case study through each of the delivery steps - iteration planning; story elaboration; execution; showcasing; and retrospectives - looking at the deliverables from each step and the techniques used to produce them.

Target Audience

Analysts, developers, testers, architects, project managers and business subject matter experts.

Outline

Context

  • Background
  • Agile values and principles
  • A simulation of the Agile development process
    • Introduction to common agile practices

Objectives and structure of the initiate phase

  • The delivery phase in the overall process
    • Who, why, how, what and for how long?
    • why – because we want working software
    • how - steps of the deliver phase
    • what - creation of standard artefacts for external parties
    • who – roles and responsibilities

Initiate review

  • What happened in initiate? Why?
  • Common techniques used in the initiate phase
  • What should have been produced?
  • What to do if the concept phase wasn’t completed
    • Story elaboration, iteration planning and kick-off, execution, showcase and retrospective

Story elaboration

  • Writing closed stories, acceptance criteria, putting constraints on cards
  • Splitting stories over time, keeping the UI out of the story

Iteration planning and kick-off

  • Story selection
    • Maintaining conceptual integrity, selecting by ROI, splitting stories to maximise ROI
    • Reviewing estimates with developers
  • Kick-off
    • Stepping through the stories, final checks of estimates

Execution cycle

  • Initial design
  • Unit tests and detailed design
  • Acceptance test elaboration
  • Implementation
  • Integration
  • Acceptance testing & verification

Iteration close out

  • Showcases
  • Reporting