New Zealand MS Communities

This will be an introductory talk to Agile Methods, the not-so-new collection of software development principles and best practices. Change in businesses and their environments happens so often that using a predictive lifecycle and methodology for complex system development is being increasingly shown as impractical. Agile Methods have been used in many business environments all around the world, and for projects large and small. The methodologies allow reaction to change that is not possible with "Waterfall" type approaches. I will be introducing Agile methodologies as a better alternative to the predictive, big-design-up-front, hierarchical methodologies of the 70s and 80s. I will give a quick historical overview of software development processes and introduce several of the methodologies – including where you might be able to use them in your own development projects.