Agile Software Development Methodologies

Code:

EIC0062

Acronym:

MADS

Keywords
Classification	Keyword
OFICIAL	Software Engineering

Instance: 2010/2011 - 1S

Active?	Yes
Web Page:	http://paginas.fe.up.pt/~nflores/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=teaching:1011:mads
Responsible unit:	Department of Informatics Engineering
Course/CS Responsible:	Master in Informatics and Computing Engineering

Cycles of Study/Courses

Acronym	No. of Students	Study Plan	Curricular Years	Credits UCN	Credits ECTS	Contact hours	Total Time
MIEIC	31	Syllabus since 2009/2010	5	-	6	56	162

Teaching language

Suitable for English-speaking students

Objectives

At the end of the course, the students should:

-have acquired the minimal skills and acquisition of the fundamental knowledge to enable students to autonomously starting agile development processes, under several roles: process engineering, developer, manager.

- know the essentials about agile methods, their philosophy, values, needs and applicability, challenges and opportunities created in people, teams and software development organizations.

- acquired hands-on experience on practices of agile software development: iteration planning, unit testing, refactoring, pattern-based design, collective code ownershio, pair-programming, continuous integration.

- know about the most popular variants of agile processes: XP, Scrum, FDD.

- experienced on applying the knowledge and concepts through a real case study, developed along the course.

- learned to work in a small-team (~10 elements), integrating other participants in collective design and planning decisions, and to delegate, negotiate and review those decisions in group.

- experienced with development environments supporting and motivate agile software development.

Program

I.Introduction to Agile Methods: why and when we need agile methods
II.Agile software: key values and principles.
III.Key practices typical of agile methods: overview of the key pratices used in agile processes.
IV.Popular Examples of agile methods: XP, Scrum, FDD.
V.Team work: “Coaching”, “Technical Environment”, “On-site customer”
VI.Planning: “Planning Game”, “Small Releases”.
VII.Tests: “Acceptance tests”, “Unit-tests”, “Test-first programming”.
VIII.Design: “Simple Design”, “Refactoring”, “Design patterns”.

Mandatory literature

Jim Highsmith; Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products, Addison-Wesley Professional , 2004. ISBN: 978-0321219770

Teaching methods and learning activities

The classes will be use to introduce to the key concepts and contents of the course and to develop an agile project (3-4 teams) along the course. In order to focus the students in particular topics, it will be proposed small readings and questions as assignments.

Altogether, the readings, exercises and project will motivate students to complement the lectures with personal research and learning.

Evaluation Type

Distributed evaluation with final exam

Assessment Components

Description	Type	Time (hours)	Weight (%)	End date
Attendance (estimated)	Participação presencial	42,00
Exam	Exame	2,00
Project	Defesa pública de dissertação, de relatório de projeto ou estágio, ou de tese	70,00		2011-01-01
Assignment	Trabalho escrito	15,00		2010-11-05
	Total:	-	0,00

Amount of time allocated to each course unit

Description	Type	Time (hours)	End date
Studying the present subjects during class	Estudo autónomo	20
Exam preparation	Estudo autónomo	13
	Total:	33,00

Eligibility for exams

Minimum of 40% in each evaluation component.

Calculation formula of final grade

Final = (Assignment x 20%) + (Exam x 35%) + (Project x 35%) + (Individual Mark x 10%)

Examinations or Special Assignments

Project: Software development of a software product following an agile methodology, starting in mid-semester until the end of the semester.
Research Essay: Bibliography research on a topic related to agile software development, presented as a scientific paper.

Special assessment (TE, DA, ...)

Identical to other students. The students with this status must contact the teacher to notlfy of this situation.

Classification improvement

Improving the exam grade can be achieved by having another exam. All other components (assignment, project and individual mark) can be improved with a new assignment to be discussed with the teacher.