Agile Methodologies and Teamwork

Explain in your own words what an Agile methodology is and how it differs from traditional waterfall development (analysis → design → build → test, all in closed phases). Give an example of a school project where each approach would be most suitable.

A company commissioned a studio for the "turnkey" development of its online store under a waterfall contract with fixed requirements. After eight months, when the first complete delivery took place, the market had shifted and 50% of the features were no longer competitive.

1. a) Technically justify the causes of the project's failure, relying on the concept of the feedback loop and the cost of change curve over time.
2. b) Design a proposal for a complete reorganization of the project under the Scrum framework: define the scope of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for the first month, determine the role and involvement of the client in business decisions, and explain the mechanism that would allow pivoting development if market priorities change.

A developer delivers a module without technical documentation and refuses to estimate tasks, claiming: "The Agile Manifesto states that working software replaces documentation and that responding to change is incompatible with following preset plans."

1. a) Critically refute this stance by analyzing the exact wording and meaning of the four values of the Agile Manifesto (what it means to value one item "over" another).
2. b) Justify which planning artifacts and what minimum technical documentation a Scrum team must maintain to prevent technical debt and allow the project to be maintainable over time without betraying agility.

In a Scrum team, the following three functions appear: (a) decides what is built and prioritises the product backlog, (b) removes obstacles and ensures the framework is respected, (c) builds the product in each sprint. State which role (Product Owner, Scrum Master or development team) corresponds to each function and justify your choice.

Explain what a sprint is and what having a fixed duration ("timeboxing") means. What is the advantage of committing to not changing the scope of a sprint once it has started?

These events of a Scrum sprint are out of order: (a) retrospective, (b) sprint planning, (c) daily stand-up meeting, (d) increment review with the client. Put them in order, explain what is done in each one and who takes part.

Define what a minimum viable product (MVP) is and explain why it is advisable to launch it early even if it is incomplete. Give an example of an MVP for a school shared notes app.

Explain what the velocity of an Agile team is and how it is used in planning: if a team completed $20$, $24$ and $22$ story points in its last three sprints, what is its average velocity and how many points at most should it commit to in the next sprint?

A group of four students is developing a school library loan management app. Write two user stories using the format "As a [role], I want [feature], so that [benefit]" and add a specific acceptance criterion to each one to determine whether it is completed.

The team of a recipe app uses the Kanban board shown in the figure. A card has just passed code review and is waiting to be placed. State which column it should be moved to and which Kanban rule must be checked before moving it.

A group of four students is developing a library book loan management app for their school over one term, with a functional demo every two weeks for the librarian. Explain whether Scrum or Kanban seems more suitable for this project and justify your answer with at least two arguments.

A Kanban team notes that its last ten tasks took, from entering "In progress" to "Done": $2$, $3$, $3$, $4$, $5$, $5$, $6$, $7$, $8$ and $12$ days. a) Calculate the mean cycle time and the median. b) Reason what the $12$-day task reveals and what two hypotheses would explain it. c) Explain why the median is more useful here than the mean for committing to deadlines.

The graph in the figure shows the burndown chart of a ten-day sprint with $40$ committed points: the ideal line and the actual work remaining each day. Interpret the graph: in which section is the team behind schedule?, what might have happened between days 4 and 6?, will they reach the end of the sprint with the work completed if they maintain the pace of the last few days?

In a team's daily meeting, each member answers three fixed questions. State them and write the answers that would be given by a developer who finished the registration screen yesterday, will start the profile screen today, and is blocked because the test server is not responding. Explain how the Scrum Master should act regarding this blocker.

A software development team finishes a quarter with critical overload and unanimous complaints about having spent three months "putting out fires" instead of advancing on the planned product.

1. a) Design the pre-retrospective phase: select and justify at least three objective workflow metrics you should measure prior to the meeting to identify the root causes of the overload without relying on subjective opinions.
2. b) Design the dynamics of the meeting, structuring it into phases (setting the stage, gathering data, generating insights, and deciding what to do).
3. c) Formulate an action plan for the next quarter in the format of a measurable Kaizen experiment (change hypothesis, success metric, and review deadline).