Chapter 3 – Agile Software Development

Lecture 2

Chapter 3 Agile software development 27

Testing in XP

 Testing is central to XP and XP has developed an

approach where the program is tested after every
change has been made.
 XP testing features:
 Test-first development.
 Incremental test development from scenarios.
 User involvement in test development and validation.
 Automated test harnesses are used to run all component tests
each time that a new release is built.

Chapter 3 Agile software development 28

Test-first development

 Writing tests before code clarifies the requirements to be

implemented.
 Tests are written as programs rather than data so that
they can be executed automatically. The test includes a
check that it has executed correctly.
 Usually relies on a testing framework such as Junit.
 All previous and new tests are run automatically when
new functionality is added, thus checking that the new
functionality has not introduced errors.

Chapter 3 Agile software development 29

Customer involvement

 The role of the customer in the testing process is to help

develop acceptance tests for the stories that are to be
implemented in the next release of the system.
 The customer who is part of the team writes tests as
development proceeds. All new code is therefore
validated to ensure that it is what the customer needs.
 However, people adopting the customer role have limited
time available and so cannot work full-time with the
development team. They may feel that providing the
requirements was enough of a contribution and so may
be reluctant to get involved in the testing process.

Chapter 3 Agile software development 30

Test case description for dose checking

Chapter 3 Agile software development 31

Test automation

 Test automation means that tests are written as

executable components before the task is implemented
 These testing components should be stand-alone, should
simulate the submission of input to be tested and should check
that the result meets the output specification. An automated test
framework (e.g. Junit) is a system that makes it easy to write
executable tests and submit a set of tests for execution.
 As testing is automated, there is always a set of tests
that can be quickly and easily executed
 Whenever any functionality is added to the system, the tests can
be run and problems that the new code has introduced can be
caught immediately.

Chapter 3 Agile software development 32

XP testing difficulties

 Programmers prefer programming to testing and

sometimes they take short cuts when writing tests. For
example, they may write incomplete tests that do not
check for all possible exceptions that may occur.
 Some tests can be very difficult to write incrementally.
For example, in a complex user interface, it is often
difficult to write unit tests for the code that implements
the ‘display logic’ and workflow between screens.
 It difficult to judge the completeness of a set of tests.
Although you may have a lot of system tests, your test
set may not provide complete coverage.

Chapter 3 Agile software development 33

Pair programming

 In XP, programmers work in pairs, sitting together to

develop code.
 This helps develop common ownership of code and
spreads knowledge across the team.
 It serves as an informal review process as each line of
code is looked at by more than 1 person.
 It encourages refactoring as the whole team can benefit
from this.
 Measurements suggest that development productivity
with pair programming is similar to that of two people
working independently.

Chapter 3 Agile software development 34

Pair programming

 In pair programming, programmers sit together at the

same workstation to develop the software.
 Pairs are created dynamically so that all team members
work with each other during the development process.
 The sharing of knowledge that happens during pair
programming is very important as it reduces the overall
risks to a project when team members leave.
 Pair programming is not necessarily inefficient and there
is evidence that a pair working together is more efficient
than 2 programmers working separately.

Chapter 3 Agile software development 35

Advantages of pair programming

 It supports the idea of collective ownership and

responsibility for the system.
 Individuals are not held responsible for problems with the code.
Instead, the team has collective responsibility for resolving these
problems.
 It acts as an informal review process because each line
of code is looked at by at least two people.
 It helps support refactoring, which is a process of
software improvement.
 Where pair programming and collective ownership are used,
others benefit immediately from the refactoring so they are likely
to support the process.
Chapter 3 Agile software development 36
Agile project management

 The principal responsibility of software project managers

is to manage the project so that the software is delivered
on time and within the planned budget for the project.
 The standard approach to project management is plan-
driven. Managers draw up a plan for the project showing
what should be delivered, when it should be delivered
and who will work on the development of the project
deliverables.
 Agile project management requires a different approach,
which is adapted to incremental development and the
particular strengths of agile methods.

Chapter 3 Agile software development 37

Scrum

 The Scrum approach is a general agile method but its

focus is on managing iterative development rather than
specific agile practices.
 There are three phases in Scrum.
 The initial phase is an outline planning phase where you
establish the general objectives for the project and design the
software architecture.
 This is followed by a series of sprint cycles, where each cycle
develops an increment of the system.
 The project closure phase wraps up the project, completes
required documentation such as system help frames and user
manuals and assesses the lessons learned from the project.

Chapter 3 Agile software development 38
The Scrum process

Chapter 3 Agile software development 39

The Sprint cycle

 Sprints are fixed length, normally 2–4 weeks. They

correspond to the development of a release of the
system in XP.
 The starting point for planning is the product backlog,
which is the list of work to be done on the project.
 The selection phase involves all of the project team who
work with the customer to select the features and
functionality to be developed during the sprint.

Chapter 3 Agile software development 40

The Sprint cycle

 Once these are agreed, the team organize themselves to

develop the software. During this stage the team is
isolated from the customer and the organization, with all
communications channelled through the so-called
‘Scrum master’.
 The role of the Scrum master is to protect the
development team from external distractions.
 At the end of the sprint, the work done is reviewed and
presented to stakeholders. The next sprint cycle then
begins.

Chapter 3 Agile software development 41

Teamwork in Scrum

 The ‘Scrum master’ is a facilitator who arranges daily

meetings, tracks the backlog of work to be done, records
decisions, measures progress against the backlog and
communicates with customers and management outside
of the team.
 The whole team attends short daily meetings where all
team members share information, describe their
progress since the last meeting, problems that have
arisen and what is planned for the following day.
 This means that everyone on the team knows what is going on
and, if problems arise, can re-plan short-term work to cope with
them.

Chapter 3 Agile software development 42

Scrum benefits

 The product is broken down into a set of manageable

and understandable chunks.
 Unstable requirements do not hold up progress.
 The whole team have visibility of everything and
consequently team communication is improved.
 Customers see on-time delivery of increments and gain
feedback on how the product works.
 Trust between customers and developers is established
and a positive culture is created in which everyone
expects the project to succeed.

Chapter 3 Agile software development 43

Scaling agile methods

 Agile methods have proved to be successful for small

and medium sized projects that can be developed by a
small co-located team.
 It is sometimes argued that the success of these
methods comes because of improved communications
which is possible when everyone is working together.
 Scaling up agile methods involves changing these to
cope with larger, longer projects where there are multiple
development teams, perhaps working in different
locations.

Chapter 3 Agile software development 44

Large systems development

 Large systems are usually collections of separate,

communicating systems, where separate teams develop each
system. Frequently, these teams are working in different
places, sometimes in different time zones.
 Large systems are ‘brownfield systems’, that is they include
and interact with a number of existing systems. Many of the
system requirements are concerned with this interaction and
so don’t really lend themselves to flexibility and incremental
development.
 Where several systems are integrated to create a system, a
significant fraction of the development is concerned with
system configuration rather than original code development.

Chapter 3 Agile software development 45

Large system development

 Large systems and their development processes are

often constrained by external rules and regulations
limiting the way that they can be developed.
 Large systems have a long procurement and
development time. It is difficult to maintain coherent
teams who know about the system over that period as,
inevitably, people move on to other jobs and projects.
 Large systems usually have a diverse set of
stakeholders. It is practically impossible to involve all of
these different stakeholders in the development process.

Chapter 3 Agile software development 46

Scaling out and scaling up

 ‘Scaling up’ is concerned with using agile methods for

developing large software systems that cannot be
developed by a small team.
 ‘Scaling out’ is concerned with how agile methods can
be introduced across a large organization with many
years of software development experience.
 When scaling agile methods it is essential to maintain
agile fundamentals
 Flexible planning, frequent system releases, continuous
integration, test-driven development and good team
communications.

Chapter 3 Agile software development 47

Scaling up to large systems

 For large systems development, it is not possible to focus only

on the code of the system. You need to do more up-front
design and system documentation
 Cross-team communication mechanisms have to be designed
and used. This should involve regular phone and video
conferences between team members and frequent, short
electronic meetings where teams update each other on
progress.
 Continuous integration, where the whole system is built every
time any developer checks in a change, is practically
impossible. However, it is essential to maintain frequent
system builds and regular releases of the system.

Chapter 3 Agile software development 48

Scaling out to large companies

 Project managers who do not have experience of agile

methods may be reluctant to accept the risk of a new approach.
 Large organizations often have quality procedures and
standards that all projects are expected to follow and, because
of their bureaucratic nature, these are likely to be incompatible
with agile methods.
 Agile methods seem to work best when team members have a
relatively high skill level. However, within large organizations,
there are likely to be a wide range of skills and abilities.
 There may be cultural resistance to agile methods, especially in
those organizations that have a long history of using
conventional systems engineering processes.
Chapter 3 Agile software development 49
Key points

 A particular strength of extreme programming is the

development of automated tests before a program
feature is created. All tests must successfully execute
when an increment is integrated into a system.
 The Scrum method is an agile method that provides a
project management framework. It is centred round a set
of sprints, which are fixed time periods when a system
increment is developed.
 Scaling agile methods for large systems is difficult. Large
systems need up-front design and some documentation.

Chapter 3 Agile software development 50