Overview

Background

Several teams and business areas in Applications Division are adopting Agile methods.  The first projects have delivered good results with this approach and have learned valuable lessons.  With more teams adopting the agile approach, there is a need to consolidate and fully document the Division's agile processes and develop further training materials.  Otherwise the teams will struggle with the same problems, repeat similar mistakes, and develop incompatible approaches.

The initial projects have experimented with the Greenhopper add-on for JIRA, now called JIRA Agile, which supports project and task management for Agile projects.  The project will build on the work of the User Stories process improvement project, which consolidated our use of User Stories across the Division and completed some initial documentation of Agile processes.

Scope

This project will enhance the documentation of the agile methods used within the division.  It will enhance the materials used to train staff in how to effectively run an agile project.

The project will install JIRA Agile as a supported development tool alongside JIRA.  This is urgently requested by the SSP and will also be used by other Agile projects.

Deliverables

• enhanced documentation of the methodology for agile projects within Applications Division
• configuration and documentation of JIRA Agile (previously known as Greenhopper)
• further training materials, sufficient for a one-day workshop training Apps staff and customers in agile techniques
• delivery of four training days 
• setting up a practitioner's group and preparing its first meeting

Benefits

The benefits of this project will be a widely understood and documented set of principles and practices.  These will share best practise based on the experience of previous projects, thus ensuring consistent quality for future projects. There should also be a lesser effect in that the staff who are currently experienced in agile methods should be able to spend less unallocated time responding to queries about the approach.

The configuration of JIRA Agile will provide a supported tool for agile projects in Apps Division.  This includes the SSP, who are already using a temporary version of the system.

Success Criteria

The immediate success criteria are the successful completion of the deliverables above.  In the medium term, the project will be successful if these deliverables support the successful use of agile methods in the division's projects, giving clear and helpful guidance to the project teams.  Therefore it would be useful to elicit feedback from agile project teams and to use that feedback to continually enhance the documentation.