Uncovering Steady Advances for an Extreme Programming Course

Abstract


 
 
 This paper presents an empirical study about identifying improvement actions for an eXtreme Programming course in the academic environment. This exploratory study is undertaken in two preliminary phases. These phases are part of a wider research project to develop a theory about how to continuously improve courses of similar structure and content. The first phase consists of diagnosing improvement actions from the 2010 edition of the course through a qualitative analysis of data obtained using various methods: (1) students’ responses to a questionnaire with open questions; and (2) students’ opinions expressed in a final agile retrospective with all members of the course. The second phase consists of an early application of the identified improvements in the 2011 edition of the course to gather lessons learned, and develop a definite case study design to be used continuously in the next courses offered. Amongst the results, we found that the use of initiatives to promote interactions between groups like Coding Dojo and Brainwritting helps students to effectively learn and share knowledge and experiences, a problem still unsolved when thinking of scaling agile methods. Also, this paper allows keeping track on what is occurring in the course.
 
 

The Influence of Practices Adopted by Agile Coaching and Training to Foster Interaction and Knowledge Sharing in Organizational Practices

“…This practice is also freely applied in training classes [7], in coaching sessions and in agile conferences. The topics for discussion may be exposed through a quick presentation or by leaving the topics in boards for further grouping together.…”

“…After preliminary qualitative studies [7] [8], we identified that the above practices are successfully applied in coaching and training sessions for enhancing learning in agile academic and corporate environments.…”

“…In class, it can be used to sediment and leverage knowledge transferred to students [7]. It has basically the same configuration as in conferences, but with the following differences as constraints: students have very limited time to prepare and create presentation materials; the material prepared is based not only on the experience and knowledge gained by a student, but also on the knowledge socialized amongst participants; and the material used for presentation promotes and fosters interaction amongst participants, as they are basically information radiators [18].…”

“…This practice is described in [7], but, in sum, it consists of (1) stating the topic for discussion (e.g. project's issues); (2) making groups in circles of chairs; (3) writing down issues in index cards; (4) spreading up the groups' members; and (5) proposing solutions for the issues.…”

“…After preliminary qualitative studies [7] [8], we identified that practices adopted by agile coaching to foster interaction and knowledge sharing (KS) are successfully applied in academic and corporate environments to create and sustain inter-team KS.…”