Course Code: 19317

Introduction to Agile - Architecture

Class Dates:
1/29/2024
11/30/2023
Length:
2 Days
Cost:
$1449.00
Class Time:
Technology:
Business
Delivery:
Instructor-Led Training, Virtual Instructor-Led Training

Overview

  • Course Overview
  • 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
  • Audience
  • This Introduction to Agile training course is designed for anyone who is considering the use of Agile Methods for software development, including:

    Project Managers
    Program Managers
    Analysts
    Developers
    Programmers
    Testers
    IT Manager/Directors
    Software Engineers
    Software Architects
    Customers/Stakeholders
    Product Managers

Prerequisites

Course Details

  • Skills Gained
  • Understand Agile values and principles, and how to build the discipline to support those principles in your everyday practice
  • Appreciate the history of Agile and how the collection of principles and practices came together to enable customer success
  • Examine Agile methods, including: Scrum, Extreme Programming, Lean Software Development, Kanban
  • Draw best practices from the various methodologies that will contribute to your team success
  • Talk the talk: learning the Agile terminology, roles and forums with their context
  • Walk through the processes that support Agile principles to enable the delivery of great products
  • Begin to map the transition of your existing team or enterprise-level processes to Agile
  • Discover the power of Agile teams through communication, collaboration and cadence
  • Uncover the pitfalls that teams will encounter in an Agile transition and understand how to overcome those challenges
  • Lay the foundation upon which you can build a learning team and organization
  • Agile Overview
  • 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.
  • The Agile Paradigm Shift
  • 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
  • The Agile Foundation
  • We continue exploring the Agile mindset by examining the foundations upon which the Agile methods were built.
  • Agile Manifesto – The value system upon which Agile is built
  • Agile Principles – The necessary elements for making Agile work
  • Agile Benefits – Actual benefits as reported in the State of Agile Report
  • Agile Methodologies
  • 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.
  • Building the Agile Team
  • Systems Thinking – Seeing the Agile team as more than a collection of people
  • What Makes a Great Team – The secret of an effective team goes way beyond the process they are using
  • Agile Team Roles – Agile teams have some unique and important roles
  • Team Best Practices – Guidance from Agile coaches on how to lead an Agile team to be the best they can be
  • Exercise: Make a list of the attributes of great teams you have been a part of.
  • Inspect and Adapt
  • Iteration Review – A status check helps the team to stay on track and know if they need to take corrective action
  • Demo – A show-and-tell with the customer ensures that what they just built is indeed what the customer expected and needs
  • Retrospective – A mini-lessons-learned gives them the opportunity to improve how they work—beginning the very next day
  • Agile Adoption
  • Leading Change – A look and organizational change management
  • Exercise: What will you do in your organization with what you just learned?