Applying XP to an Agile Inexperienced Software Development Team
Silva, L.; Santana, C.; Rocha, F.; Paschoalino, M.; Falconieri, G.; Ribeiro, L.; Medeiros, R.; Soares, S.; Gusmão, C.
Conference Paper Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming, volume 9 of Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, pp. 114-126, Springer-Verlag Heidelberg, Limerick, Ireland, 2008.
Abstract
Agile Methods are becoming each day a more and more frequently used alternative among software developing organizations producing high-quality products in real-world projects. Despite this growth in industry, few academic institutions provide courses related to this new software development approach. This paper describes an initiative of introducing agile method concepts through a Master’s Degree course where the students had not experienced XP before. In spite of being MSc students they had previous software development background in industry environment. In this work we present how the issues found over the process may and have been handled as well as the benefits found; how the XP practices have been adapted and applied in a project with time, personnel, and skill constraints and what hindered some principles from being fully effective. We also present real results and open problems for further studies from this experience. The study used a real-life application taken from a need of a real software development company.