The course begins with defining what the Agile methodology and the practice of Architecture are and continues by looking at their strengths and weakness. An apparent dichotomy exists, and an exploration of industry practices demonstrate possible ways to resolve the conflict. The course ends by looking at how the best of both may be achievable.
Skills Gained
At the end of the training, practitioners will be able to:
describe the Agile methodology and its relationship to and need for Architecture
understand the inherent challenges of Agile and Architecture
discuss the ways in which the industry has been connecting Architecture and Agile
consider ways in which Architecture can support an Agile environment
*Course cost listed does not include the cost of courseware. Please contact us at learn@vtec.org or 207-775-0244 for additional pricing information, or if you have any questions. Course is subject to a minimum enrollment to run. Course may run as a Virtual Live Distance Learning session if the minimum enrollment is not met.
Making the Case for Change – Organizational change (which an Agile transformation is) is difficult to achieve unless there is a clear understanding among everyone involved about why it is necessary.
Exercise: Make a list of software project problems that you would like to correct.
Agile techniques are based on a completely different mental model and set of paradigms about projects. In this section, we begin to explore the mindset that that the Agile methods are built upon.
A Paradigm for Complexity – The inherent complexity of developing software is the source of most software project failures, so the Agile methods embrace paradigms that are designed for complexity
Predictive vs. Adaptive – A key difference between traditional and Agile paradigms concerns our ability to predict how the project will unfold. The Agile approach is to expect that our predictions may
Lean – All of the Agile methods are based on the principles first formalized in Lean Manufacturing, so we start with Lean Software Development
Scrum – The most widely-used of the Agile methods, Scrum is a good method to use to understand the basic iterative practices employed by most Agile teams
Kanban – Originally created by the Lean Movement and more recently embraced by the Agile Community, Kanban provides an alternative process structure that (unlike the other Agile methods), is not based
XP – Extreme Programming (XP) is one of the few Agile methods that goes into detail about technical programming practices, so we will take some time to explore them.
Custom Hybrid – We complete this section by observing that many teams create their own custom Agile method by drawing practices from several Agile methods and combining them in unique ways.
Exercise: See for yourself how common practices that Lean counsels against can make a team less efficient.