Coaching and Engaging in Global Agile Software Teams

582698
3
Software Systems
Advanced studies
In this course, students learn to reason about agile software development and agile software teams in a distributed setting. The course combines problem and case based learning techniques. Industry experts are invited to hold talks explaining a particular topic or real-world problem.
Year Semester Date Period Language In charge
2012 autumn 30.10-04.12. 2-2 English Fabian Fagerholm

Lectures

Time Room Lecturer Date
Tue 14-16 C222 Fabian Fagerholm 30.10.2012-13.11.2012
Tue 14-16 D122 Fabian Fagerholm 20.11.2012-04.12.2012

Registration for this course starts on Tuesday 9th of October at 9.00.

General

This course combines problem and case based learning techniques to describe and discuss agile software development as a concept, agile methodology in distributed settings, and coaching of agile teams. The main focus isn't on the details of a particular agile process; instead, students will learn how to think and act in an agile fashion.

In order to properly convey how agile is practiced and used outside academia, industry experts are invited to hold talks explaining a particular topic or real-world problem. Students are organised into small teams, in which they work on the presented problems and motivate their views on the subject. For the duration of the course, students also maintain a learning diary in the form of a weblog.
 

Current news

  • Problem #2 presentations are today.
  • The deadline for problem #1 submissions is Friday 16.11. Submit your answers on Moodle.
  • The deadline for the third week's learning diary is Friday 16.11. Submit your learning diary as a forum post on Moodle.
  • The deadline for the second week's learning diary is Friday 9.11. Submit your learning diary as a forum post on Moodle.
  • The deadline for the first week's learning diary is Friday 2.11. Submit your learning diary as a forum post on Moodle! You can also find the names of people in your home group on Moodle -- these are the people you will be working with when we have group exercises. Please note that due to some dropouts and new registrations, groups with dropouts have been filled with newly registered students.
  • The slides from Jukka's talk are now available in Moodle.
 

Useful links

Course Moodlehttps://moodle.helsinki.fi/course/view.php?id=8171

 

Course schedule (topics and speakers may change)

 
Date Topic Speaker Student deliverables Room
30.10.2012 Keynote speech Jukka Talvio, F-Secure Learning diary (deadline 2.11), online discussion C222
06.11.2012

Customer discovery in lean startup
Presentation of problem #1

Nilay Oza, University of Helsinki

Learning diary, online discussion
Problem #1 online presentation (group work)

C222
13.11.2012

Scrum Simulation game

Global Scrum Simulation game

Sami Lilja, Reaktor Innovations (cancelled due to illness)

Fabian Fagerholm, University of Helsinki

Learning diary, online discussion C222
20.11.2012 Startups and multisite development
Presentation of problem #2
Damien Higgins and Mikael Nylund, Twinelab Learning diary, online discussion D122
27.11.2012 Problem #2 intermediate presentations Fabian Fagerholm

Status report on problem #2 (group work)

D122
04.12.2012 Student presentations of problem #2 Students

Final report on problem #2 (group work)

D122

For each session, all students must produce material in their learning diary. The material must be published in the learning diary during the same working week as the session (i.e. on Friday of the same week as the session). Students are also expected to comment on each other's diary entries and discuss the topics raised in the diaries. After the last session, students have one week to complete the learning diary, after which new entries will not be considered for grading. These deadlines are firm.

Grading

 
Both the timeliness and contents of the learning diary entries, activity in online discussions, and solutions to the presented problems form the final course grade (1-5). In addition to instructors themselves doing the evaluation, student teams assess each other's work.
 
In the learning diary, students are expected to report on what was covered in the sessions as well as reflect on their own learning of the material covered in the session. The learning diary should also comment on entries from other students. The learning diary entries should display analytic and reflective thinking around the material, not only list what happened in the sessions.
 
In the online discussions, students are expected to continue the analytic and reflective thinking by commenting other diary entries. Comments may be follow-up questions, motivated opinions, pointers and summaries of external material, and so on.
 

Attendance

 
Attendance in all of the sessions (see the course schedule below) is mandatory. If you have a very pressing engagement and cannot attend a session, please contact one or both of the course instructors as soon as possible.
 

Exercise sessions and final exam

 
There are no seperate exercise sessions; instead, students may freely choose when to meet with their team members to work on assignments. There is no final exam.
 

Contact

  • Fabian Fagerholm (course instructor, M.Sc., Ph.D. student.): fabian.fagerholm (at) cs.helsinki.fi
  • Nilay Oza (course instructor, Ph.D.): nilay.oza (at) cs.helsinki.fi
  • Max Pagels (course assistant, B.Sc.): max.pagels (at) cs.helsinki.fi