which are the best best tutorials, books, software to start and manage a .net Agile Project with No Experience

Question

which are the best tutorials, books, software and practices to start and manage a new .net based Development Project in an Agile way with no experience with it. which methodology is easier to adopt XP|Scrum?

Answer 1

I first learned about XP in 2004, and it completely changed my programming world-view. XP is very approachable, it encourages you to "use what works", and you can start small and work your way into it.

I don't know too much about SCRUM. But I can say I hate the use of the word "sprint" as it has bad connotations. And SCRUM purposely draws the line at not suggesting any engineering practices and tries to be purely a management technique, ostensibly leaving the engineering decisions up to the team.

I'd suggest you get a copy of the seminal XP book which you can easily read through in a couple days, after which you'll be able to make a decision from a more informed point-of-view. If you read the book and like what you read, then go for XP. If you decide you don't like XP after reading (some or all) of the book then you can go onto other things. If you don't want to fork over the cash for the book just yet, go google "extreme programming" and read through the material on the INET -- there's tons of it online.

http://www.extremeprogramming.org/ rivals Kent Beck's book for essential info on XP.

Answer 2

A nice book about SCRUM: Agile Software Development with Scrum, by Ken Schwaber and Mike Beedle. http://www.amazon.com/Agile-Software-Development-Scrum/dp/0130676349

As for software:

At my job we have been using Target Process ( http://targetprocess.com/ ) as our planning and bug tracking tool. It has nice options for extensibilty and source control, and we have it plugged into VS2008.

It support the SCRUM methodology by supporting allowing for a backlog of user stories, sprints and very nice effort estimation tools.

We are very satisfied with it.

Answer 3

Scrum, as a pure project management approach, gives you a lot of rope to hang yourself, and the necessary feedback to notice early that you are doing so and start corrective actions. XP, on the other hand, adds a lot of engineering practices that will be necessary for a highly iterative approach. Which one is the right for you mainly depends on your personal preference.

I highly recommend the book "The Art of Agile Development" to get you started. For the technical side, "Agile Principles, Patterns and Practices" might be a good addition.

Answer 4

Scrum and XP from Trenches by henrik Kniberg available on InfoQ. Another one is Mike Cohn's Agile Estimation and Planning.

Answer 5

I would also recommend taking a look at the screencast series Autumn Of Agile - especially the first couple ofvideos (the later ones go more into the coding side of things (assuming by you question you are more interested in the management side of things).

Secondly, I would maybe recommend you join the following mailing list (and looking for others to join):

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/leanagile/

Answer 6

You're asking the wrong question.

Scrum is definitely easier to adopt, but XP is much more likely to make your project succeed. If you're new to agile, you need to practice the different engineering practices.