Question 1
(TCO A) Describe the agile approach to a systems development.
The agile approach is a software development approach based on values, principles, and core
practices. The four values are communication, simplicity, feedback, and courage. We
recommend that systems analysts adopt these values in all projects they undertake, not just
when adopting the agile approach. Agile approach are interactive and incremental, activities and
behaviors shape the way development team members and customers act during the development
of an agile project.
Agile approach have five stages: exploration, planning, iterations to the first release,
productionizing, and maintenance. There is a continuous feedback loop involving customers
within these stages, the red arrows is shown leaving the maintenance stage and returning to
the planning stage and the development team as they agree to alter the evolving system.
During exploration, you will explore your environment, asserting your conviction that the
problem can and should be approached with agile development, assemble the team, and assess
team member skills. This stage will take anywhere from a few weeks (if you already know
your team members and technology) to a few months (if everything is new). The next stage of
the agile development process is called planning. In contrast to the first stage, planning may
take only a few days to accomplish. In this stage you and your customers agree on a date
anywhere from two months to half a year from the current date to deliver solutions to their
most pressing business problems (you will be addressing the smallest, most valuable set of
stories). If your exploration activities were sufficient, this stage should be very short.
The third stage in the agile development process is composed of iterations to the first release.
Typically these are iterations (cycles of testing, feedback, and change) of about three weeks in
duration. You will be pushing yourself to sketch out the entire architecture of the system, even
though it is just in outline or skeletal form. Several activities occur during the productionizing