2. What is this Meetup Group all about?
Who are we?
The Agile Academy Meetup group welcomes anyone interested in sharing
their experiences and listening to others talk about a wide range of Agile
topics suggested by our members. This is to make sure that we are
delivering what you what to hear about. http://www.meetup.com/The-Brisbane-
Agile-Academy-Meetup-Group/
How often do we meet?
We are currently trialling meeting every 2 months based on a poll of our
members.
What topics do you talk about?
Anything and everything about Agile!
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3. The Agile Manifesto – Where it all began
The Agile Manifesto reads:
In February 2001, 17 software
developers met at a ski resort in
Snowbird, Utah, to discuss
lightweight development methods.
They published the Manifesto for
Agile Software Development to
“
define the approach now known as
Agile software development.
Some of the Manifesto's authors
formed the Agile Alliance
(www.agilealliance.com), a non-
profit organisation that promotes
software development according
to the Manifesto's principles. ”
There is now discussion about
changing to focus to solutions
delivery for business and IT.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_Manifesto 3
4. What Does It Mean to be Agile?
A little bit about Agile for those who’ve heard the word and want to know what it’s all about:
Agile is an umbrella term for a set of values, principles and practices that have been shown to improve the efficiency, productivity, and
quality of projects. Agile is not just a software development methodology though but a way of working that builds on a set of values
and principles to deliver business value and manage risks. Agile methods are adaptive; they have frequent checkpoints and feedback
loops that are used to manage and reduce risks.
Agile can be used for all sorts of teams and environments, as well as being able to it can be used at the governance level for portfolio
management and at the project level for delivery. The core values and principles are:
Values:
• Trust
• Innovative Accountability
• Courage and Honesty
Principles:
• Value
• Collaboration
• Speed
• Flexibility
• Simplicity
• Teamwork
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6. Agile Terminology
AGILE TERM COMMENTS SIMILAR TERMS
Agile Phases Concept – Initiate – Deliver – Deploy (per the Agile Academy phases) Inception
Artefact Tangible outputs produced during both the development of software and non-software Deliverable, Document, Template, Code,
project lifecycle. Diagrams…
Iteration A time-box in which the team self organises to produce some agreed outcomes. Sprint, Increment, Time-Box
Iteration Planning The way we choose candidate stories for the next iteration. It also gives us an opportunity
Meeting to examine issues before the iteration commences.
MoSCow Is a prioritisation method involving the prodcut owner/customer to make decision on what
features to deliver based on ‘Must Have’, ‘Should Have’, ‘Could Have’ and ‘Won’t Have’.
Project Charter A concise record of the outcomes of the Concept and Initiate Phases.
Release The deployment of a working version of a system. Releases may be internal, available only
to the development team, or external, available to some or all of the users for the system.
Retrospective A structured opportunity to alter the process to improve the outcomes. Post-Mortem, Debrief, Weekly Review
Role A function that a team member performs on the project. A team member may have more
than one role on each project. NB: Role does not equal position or person.
Scrum Scrum is a common approach that has become popular under the umbrella of ‘Agile’. It Agile
tends to focus on the Delivery phase of the Agile process.
Showcase End of iteration demonstration of the previous iterations achievements. Sprint Review meeting
Stand-up Team Status Meeting Daily Scrum, Daily Reviews, Morning hug
Story A short description of something you need the system to do. Some are new, some are Requirement
changes to existing features and some are corrections of defects.
Story List /Story Backlog A list of stories due for completion at some time. Work Queue, Sprint Backlog, Product
Backlog
Test Driven Development A software development technique where test cases are written first and code is then TDD, Test-First Development
produced in order to pass the test cases.
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7. Where do you find out more about Agile?
As a member of our network, you can learn from, contribute to and
connect with Agile expertise from multiple industry sectors.
www.agileacademy.com.au http://www.meetup.com/
The-Brisbane-Agile-
Academy-Meetup-Group
The Agile Tribe Blog
www.twitter.com/agileacademy
www.twitter/theagiletribe
Other Blogs
• Agile Scout
(www.agilescout.com)
Conferences
• Agile Australia conference –
www.linkedin.com.au/agileacademy major discounts to this leading
www.theagiletribe.net event for our network using
Promo code – Agile11-AA
(http://www.slatteryit.com.au/Ag
ile2011/register.html) 7