Flavors of Agile - Scrum and XP

 

Holidays and families…  It's a good combination, and it's a good thing my writing deadlines are my own. 

I thought I would take a few posts to review the basics of some of the flavors of Agile.  I'll start with Scrum and XP (eXtreme Programming).

At its core, Scrum consists of the following:

Roles:

• Product Owner
• Scrum Master
• Scrum Team

Meetings:

• Sprint Planning
• Daily Standup
• Sprint Review
• Sprint Retrospective

Practices:

• Planning Poker/Estimating/Sizing
• Velocity
• Iterative Development
• Regular Releases
• Team Colocation

Artifacts:

• Product Backlog
• User Stories/Story Cards
• Sprint Backlogs

I'm not sure that everyone will agree with me, but my perspective on XP is that is it basically Scrum from the developers point of view.  Almost everything listed above is part of what XP categorizes as "Business Practices."  XP also defines "Developer Practices"…:

• Test Driven Development
• Pair Programming
• Collective Code Ownership
• Integrate Continuously

…"Coding Practices"…:

• Code & Design Simply
• Refactor Mercilessly
• Develop Coding Standards
• Develop a Common Vocabulary

…and Values that are in line with Scrum:

• Communication
• Feedback
• Simplicity
• Courage

I'm not going to go into these, in depth, but it is worth noting that the first business practice of XP is to Add a Customer (Scrum's Product Owner), and that the Tracker role, XPs corollary to the ScrumMaster, is optional.  Additional differences worth noting are that XP:

• Allows for overtime
• Recognizes the role of Coach, which is basically a lead developer who may, or may not, participate in development work

Personally, I think that Scrum and XP are almost interchangeable, and would work well blended together.  You could be using a hybrid-Agile approach and not even know it.

I touched on when to use Agile, previously.  Once I finish discussing the flavors of Agile, I think I'll dedicate a post to Agile certifications.  This is something of a personal interest to me, for reasons I'll describe in a moment.  For the post, I'll focus on certifications related to the different flavors of Agile, as opposed to the Scrum certifications I am interested in. 

I'm currently a CSM and will be a CSPO in a couple of months, after I take the class.  I'm hoping to be more involved with Agile projects at work so that I can become a CSP (Certified Scrum Professional) before too much longer.  One of the career paths I'm considering is becoming a CST (Certified Scrum Trainer) and ultimately a CEC (Certified Enterprise Coach) which will allow me to certify coworkers as CSMs and CSPOs via coaching, not just through teaching classes.  I'm not ready to do a lot of traveling to teach classes and coach companies, yet.  I'd like wait until my youngest is out of the house before I do too much traveling.