Chap 2: Agile Development : Important Questions & Answers

 Q1. What is agility and what is need of agile process.

Answer: Agility means rapid incremental delivery of software. 

We need agile process for the following reasons:

1. It adapts incrementally and allows changes in requirements of software.

2. It helps in better calculation of time required to develop the software.

3. It accepts feedback from the customer.

Q2. State advantages and disadvantages of agile model.

Answer: 

Advantages of agile model;

1. Suitable for fixed or changing requirements.

2. Develops early partial working solutions.

3. Requires less planning and documentation.

Disadvantages of agile model:

1. Not suitable for projects with complex dependencies.

2. Maybe cause problems if customer is not clear with requirements.

3. Difficult to transfer technology to new team member due to lack of documentation.

Q3. What is the need of sprints in scrum model?

Answer: Sprints allow the entire team to focus on completing a set amount of work for a short period of time. It allows us to produce higher quality software in less time.

Q4. State the agile principles.

Answer: There are 12 agile principles:

1. Customer involvement

2. Accept Changes.

3. Incremental delivery.

4. People not process.

5. Motivate and trust each individual of project.

6. Do face to face conversation, if essential or urgent.

7. Primary measure of progress is working software.

8. It promotes sustainable development.

9. Continuously track technical excellence.

10. Studies what's working and what's not.

11. Collects requirements and fulfill using best architectures.

12. Focus on improving team performance.

Q5. Explain pair-programming.

Answer: It is an agile software development technique where two people work on same computer station. One of them works on writing the code while the other one observes and reviews each line of code as it is typed. It allows real time problem solving and uncovers errors earlier. It also promotes egoless programming and reduces the stress of workers.

Q6. What do you mean by XP.

Answer: It is most widely used agile development model. It follows an extreme approach to iterative developement. New versions of software may be developed several times per day and increments are delivered to the cutomer every two weeks.

It's values are as follows:

1. Communication: It focuses on constant communication between team members and with customers.

2. Simplicity: It follows the principle, do the simplest thing that could possibly work.

3. Feedback: It focuses on delivering the working software earlier to customer to get feedback and make necessary improvements.

4. Courage: It provides courage to team members by telling truth about the project progress and estimates.

5. Respect: Everyone in team respects each other and management respects the right of developers.

Q7. What is difference between prescriptive and agile model?

Answer: 

Prescriptive Model	Agile Model
Follows sequential design approach.	Follows incremental approach.
Known for it's rigidness.	Known for it's flexibility.
Suitable for projects with minimum or no changes.	Suitable for projects with where changes are expected.
Mostly phases are completed once.	Phases are completed in multiple iterations.