Agile development: evaluation and experience

Agile methods such as Extreme Programming, Crystal, Scrum, and others have attracted a lot of attention recently. Agile methods stress early and continuous delivery of software, welcome changing requirements, and value early feedback from customers. Agile methods seek to cut out inefficiency, bureaucracy, and anything that adds no value to a software product. Proponents of agile methods often see software specification and documentation as adding no value, which has led observers to conclude that agile development is nothing but unprincipled hacking, perhaps even an anarchic counter-reaction to bureaucratic, heavyweight software processes that demand ever more intermediate deliverables from developers. The purpose of this panel is to discuss under what circumstances agile methods work and don't work. Some of the key practices of agile methods are: scheduling according to feature priorities, incremental delivery of software, feedback from expert users, emphasis on face-to-face communication, pair development, minimalist design combined with refactoring, test-driven development, automated regression testing, daily integration, self-organizing teams, and periodic tuning of the methods. Working software is the primary measure of success. Find out what the latest practical experience with agile methods is and learn about the latest thinking in this area.