Agile Methodology

Learning Objectives Define what a User Story Map is and why it's useful for planning. Explain the purpose of a Retrospective meeting in an Agile cycle. Calculate a team's 'Velocity' using simple story points. Interpret a basic Burndown Chart to track project progress. Describe the concept of Continuous Integration in simple terms. Apply the 'Plan-Do-Check-Act' cycle to improve a team project. Have you ever been in a group project that felt like a chaotic race to the finish line? 🏁 What if there was a way to measure your team's speed and predict the finish line? In this lesson, we'll explore some advanced Agile techniques that professional software teams use. You'll learn how to track progress, measure your team's work speed...

TermDefinitionExample VelocityA measurement of how much work a team can complete during one Sprint (a short work period, like one week). It's not about how fast individuals work, but what the team can achieve together.If a team completes three tasks estimated at 3, 5, and 5 points in one week, their Velocity for that week is 13 points. Burndown ChartA graph that shows the amount of work remaining on a project versus time. The goal is to see the line 'burn down' to zero as the project gets closer to completion.A chart starts at 50 'points' of work. Each day, the team subtracts the points of the tasks they finished. Seeing the line go down shows they are making progress towards the finish line. RetrospectiveA special meeting held at the end of a Sprint where the tea...

The Retrospective Loop (Plan-Do-Check-Act) 1. Plan (Decide what to do) -> 2. Do (Build it) -> 3. Check (Hold a Retrospective) -> 4. Act (Make an improvement) -> Repeat This is a pattern for continuous improvement. At the end of each work cycle (Sprint), you use the Retrospective to check your work and your process, then you act on what you learned to make the next cycle even better. Estimating with Story Points Assign a point value (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13) to each task based on its complexity, not how long it will take in hours. A '1' is very easy, while a '13' is very complex. Use this pattern during Sprint Planning to estimate the effort required for each task. This helps in calculating the team's Velocity and understanding how much wo...