This document is a master's thesis that examines best practices for managing agile software development projects. It discusses traditional and agile development methodologies like Scrum and Extreme Programming (XP). It also analyzes three case studies of agile projects and evaluates tools to support agile development. The thesis concludes that adopting a methodology fully and using communication tools are keys to agile success.

1. UNIVERSITY OF ZAGREB
FACULTY OF ORGANIZATION AND INFORMATICS
VARAŽDIN
MANAGING AGILE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
PROJECTS: BEST PRACTICES AND PROJECT
MANAGEMENT TOOLS
MASTER THESIS
Mentor:
Ph.D. Ruben Picek, assistant professor
Student:
Martina Šimičić
ID Number: 38805/09-R
Information and Software Engineering
Graduate Study
Varaždin, Rujan 2011.

2. Contents
1. Introduction
2. Project management
3. Software development methodologies
1. Traditional
2. Agile
1. Extreme programming
2. Scrum
4. Tools for Agile Software Development
5. Analysis of Agile software development projects
1. POS project
2. Invoicing project
3. Educational software project
6. Conclusion
7. Literature

3. Introduction
 The fastest and the most efficient way of
developing software?
 Deliver software on budget, on time,
satisfy customer, allocate resources?
 Traditional or Agile Methodology?
 Project management tool?

4. Project management
Customers
Project Steering
Director Committee
Executive
sponsor
Project
team Stakeholders
Key
Stakeholders Vendors

5. Software development
methodologies
According to Sommerville [ (5), page 13]
there are three key challenges facing
software engineering nowadays:
 The heterogeneity challenge
 The delivery challenge
 The trust challenge
(5) Sommerville, Ian. Software engineering - 8th edition. s.l. : Addison Wesley, June 4, 2006.

6. Software development
methodologies - Traditional
According to Awad [ (7), page 6] there are
four main characteristics of heavyweight
methodologies:
 Predictive approach
 Comprehensive documentation
 Process oriented
 Tool oriented
(7) Awad, Mohamed. Comparison between Agile and Traditional Software Development
Methodologies. [Online] [Cited: 25 February 2011.]
http://pds10.egloos.com/pds/200808/13/85/A_comparision_between_Agile_and_Traditional_SW
_development_methodologies.pdf.

7. Software development
methodologies - Agile
Agile methodologies are introduced by four
basic values [ (10)]:
 Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
 Working software over comprehensive
documentation
 Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
 Responding to change over following a plan
(10) Agile values. Agile manifesto official web page. [Online] [Cited: 2 March 2011.]
http://agilemanifesto.org/.

8. Software development
methodologies - Agile
Agile process Modularity
Collaborative Iterative
People-
Time-Bound
Oriented
Convergent Parsimony
Incremental Adaptive
Granville, Miller G. The Characteristics of Agile Software Processes. [Online] [Cited: 2 March 2011.]
http://faculty.salisbury.edu/~xswang/Research/Papers/SERelated/Agile/12510385.pdf.

9. Extreme programming - XP
Best
practices
Principles
Values

10. Extreme programming - XP
On-site
customers
Product
Coaches
Owner
Domain
Stakeholders
experts
Testers
Roles Business
analysts
Designer
Technical
and
specialists
architects
Interactions
Programmers
designers

11. Extreme programming - XP
Concepts and best practices:
 Test Driven Development
 Refactoring
 Timeboxing
 The Last Responsible Moment
 Technical Debt
 Stories
 Iterations
 Velocity
 Theory of Constraints
 Mindfulness

12. Scrum
Values and principles
 Empiricism
 Emergence
 Timeboxing
 Prioritization
 Self-organization

13. Scrum Product
Owner
 Smaller teams
Roles
 For bigger - Scrum
Project Scrum
of Scrums team Master
(17) Waters, Kelly. Using Scrum on Larger Projects: "Scrum of Scrums". [Online] [Cited: 22
February 2011.] http://www.allaboutagile.com/using-scrum-on-larger-projects-scrum-of-
scrums/.

14. Scrum
(18) Eclipse. Eclipse organization. [Online] [Cited: 22 February 2011.]
http://epf.eclipse.org/wikis/scrumpt/Scrum/guidances/supportingmaterials/resources/ScrumLarge
Labelled.png

15. Tools for Agile Software
Development
PivotalTracker Team Foundation Server VersionOne
The Exia Process Acunote BrixHQ
Target Process Mingle BannanaScrum

16. Tools for Agile Software
Development
Evaluation model:
 Basic description
 Team collaboration and source code
management
 Tool configuration
 Reporting and documentation
 Specific product characteristics
Results

17. Analysis of Agile software
development projects – POS project
 4 persons project team + 1
 Desktop application
 Visual Basic
 Visual Studio Team Foundation Server

18. Analysis of Agile software
development projects – POS project
Question 1:
Is it possible for the Product Owner to
be a Scrum Master at the same time?

19. Analysis of Agile software
development projects – POS project
Question 2:
What does the one story point
actually indicate?

20. Analysis of Agile software
development projects – POS project
Question 3:
Is it possible to add user stories during
the sprint?

21. Analysis of Agile software
development projects – POS project
Question 4:
What can POS project team do to get
higher results?

22. Analysis of Agile software development
projects – Invoicing project
 3 persons project team + 1
 Web application
 Ruby on Rails
 DokuWiki, email, TFS

23. Analysis of Agile software development
projects – Invoicing project
Question 5:
Agile methodologies and new
technologies, how does it fit
together?

24. Analysis of Agile software development
projects – Invoicing project
Question 6:
Is it possible that a Wiki system
replace an agile project
management tool?

25. Analysis of Agile software development
projects – Invoicing project
Question 7:
Is it possible to practice Scrum
without planning poker game and
triangulation?

26. Analysis of Agile software development
projects – Invoicing project
Question 8:
How far can the team go in agile
methodology adoption?

27. Analysis of Agile software development
projects – Invoicing project
Question 9:
What can Invoice project team do
to get higher results?

28. Analysis of Agile software development
projects – Educational software project
 5 persons project team
 Dislocated team (5h time-zone difference)
 Web application
 Ruby on Rails
 PivotalTracker, DokuWiki

29. Analysis of Agile software development
projects – Educational software project
Question 10:
Is it possible and is it needed to
perform daily meetings in
distributed project teams?

30. Analysis of Agile software development
projects – Educational software project
Question 11:
How do the agile methodologies
respond to the needs of distributed
teams?

31. Analysis of Agile software development
projects – Educational software project
Question 12:
What can Educational software
project team do to get higher
results?

32. Conclusion
 When starting agile, a methodology
should be chosen and all of the concepts
should be adopted
 Coach, project management tool and wiki
system are desirable
Best tool
 Team communication is essential

33. Future work…
 Agile documentation
 Managing distributed systems
 Transaction of knowledge between senior
and junior programmers
 http://agile-only.com/

34. Literature
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