Gain insights into applying Agile methods in large projects and teams. Explore challenges, best practices, and strategies to secure organizational buy-in for successful implementation.

Agile methods allow us to handle rapidly changing requirements, typical in most software projects. These methods are conventionally used for small teams and software projects. However, in this course, you will learn how to effectively apply Agile methods to large software projects and large teams.

You’ll start with a recap of the Agile Manifesto, followed by a description of the common challenges associated with Agile methods in the context of large software projects. You’ll learn how Agile approaches have been applied to build responsibility. Next, you’ll learn about approaches to apply Agile methods in the processes. You will then learn best practices for applying Agile methods such as software testing, and software architecture. 

This course provides insights into successful and unsuccessful approaches to introducing agility to teams, processes, and technology aspects of large projects. It also teaches strategies to secure organizational buy-in for agility in the context of large projects and teams.

Applying Agile Methods to Large Teams and Projects

#
## Pros and cons of using “bleeding-edge” technology
Technology is a hot topic. Sometimes, advertising that we're using cutting-edge technology for our project serves as a strong marketing tool. Furthermore, the motivation of the project members is often higher if they know they can learn a lot of new things, which in turn will have a positive influence on their resumes. So, we'll always find several people on our team who would like to make use of the latest technology.

So, on one hand, the use of new technology will have a positive impact on the morale and motivation of our team, and on our ability to market our system. On the other hand, running a large project with a large team is already risky in many ways; using new technology will only make it even riskier. As Pete McBreen said on this topic in his book _Software Craftsmanship_:
> "Bleeding-edge technologies are great sources of subtle mistakes and errors. To avoid major problems later, the development team must spend time early in the project trying to find all of the surprises, traps, and pitfalls."

## ​​Risks of using bleeding-edge technology
To be more precise, here are the important risks of using popular technology:
* The more popular the technology, the riskier it is. Chances are low that any other project has successfully worked with the technology in question. This means our project will serve as somewhat of a guinea pig, discovering the problems and/or limitations of the technology, which loses time and money in the process.
* There are no experienced people available, either in our company or in the market. The most experienced people we can get are the ones who have read (or written) an article on the topic and have implemented “Hello World!” with the new technology. Despite their relative inexperience, these people will be very expensive because no matter how limited their experience is with the technology, it is more than most people have.
* The technology's producer is looking for a guinea pig. They want to improve the technology as well as the skills of their consultants. Beware—the producer’s consultants have never built a real application using this new technology.
* Although our customer believes it would be cool to be the first one using this hot technology, they would not like to risk the delivery of the application (in time) or the quality of it.



Learn about the importance of avoiding technology bottlenecks, especially when considering bleeding-edge technology-related risks.

Introduction to the Course

Agility and Largeness

Dealing with Large Teams

Dealing with the Process

Dealing with the Technology

Dealing with the Company

Putting It All Together: A Project Report (Case Study)

Final Thoughts

Choosing Technology

Pros and cons of using “bleeding-edge” technology