Prof. Dr. Armin B. Cremers, Holger Mügge, Kevin Glaap

Agile software development, teamwork and efficiency, as known from eXtreme Programming (XP), are the focus of this seminar and practical lab. Base techniques to achieve this goal are customer-orientated planning, short development iterations, pair programming, automated testing and refactoring. This lab affords the opportunity to gather practical knowledge of XP and other techniques of agile software development. Every participant is important for the success of the project, which will be developed by a small team within four weeks of full workdays.

We will develop a mobile gaming client app for location-based adventures and tours. We work in cooperation with Qeevee GmbH. They have developed a authoring system for mobile tour guides and adventures, namely GeoQuest. The system already contains an online editor for creating and publishing quests as well as a mobile client for Android to download and actually use the quests. Our goal is to develop a new cross-platform client so that users can download and play the quests on diverse platforms (at least iOS and Windows Mobile). We will mainly use web technology (HTML, JavaScript and CSS, maybe PhoneGap or similar) to achieve our goal.

During our lab we learn all necessary details about the existing system and have the developers within our team. We have the opportunity to accompany a practical exhibition and demonstration of GeoQuest on the International Play Congress 2014 in Bonn, where GeoQuest is presented and activities during a festival in the city center on that weekend.

Over the years we suggested different variations of Agile processes to the team of students taking part in the lab. The process is always adaptive based on feedback and retrospectives.

Often the resulting productivity exceeded our expectations. In the last two years we managed to improve the development flow by adding limits to the work in progress. Last year the students mastered eclipse development in Java and test creation in Groovy using the Spock framework.

For questions either contact us through email, or come to our office in 1.30 in the B-It, Dahlmannstr. 2.

Application: Ongoing. You can apply with a short vita and a brief description. Why you want to to participate in the lab (not just to get the credits )? What are your skills and interests. Please give some information about your technical and practical working knowledge. This should include university issues as well as other activities.

Application and definitive information about participation: You can apply until 5th of August 2014 to this lab. We give you immediately a confirmation of participation. Use Basis for your application: here are the links to the Seminar and Practical Lab. Please note that you have to apply to both parts.

Preparation of seminar talks: We will arrange duties for different seminar talk topics among all participants at the beginning of May. For then on you can prepare your talk in small teams or on your own. We will support you during the preparation period with individual meetings as needed.

Introductory Seminar: 25. to 29. August 2014; 9h00-18h00 (Room 1.30-1.32 in b-it Building, Bonn)

Practical Lab: 1. to 26. September 2014; 9h00-18h00 (Room 1.30-1.32 in b-it Building, Bonn)

In the preparation seminar the conceptual background of the developed product is discussed. In addition the methodologies, frameworks, and practices of agile software development are introduced, as well as concrete information about the technology required to master the lab topic. Participation in the preparation seminar is obligatory for lab participation!

The lab is open for IPEC-Students, computer science students from Uni Bonn (Hauptdiplom and CS Master), students of the B-IT, and students from RWTH Aachen.

There is only a limited number of places available!

• Please apply as soon as possible by sending an e-mail to agile-organizers@lists.iai.uni-bonn.de. You should include information from this checklist.

• You may also subscribe to the mailing list for students who are interested in our seminar and lab.

B-IT: Graded certificate of Seminar- and Lab-Participation (5 SWS)
Uni Bonn - CS Bachelor: Benotete Projektgruppe (auf Antrag)
Uni Bonn - CS Master: Graded Seminar- and Lab-Certificate. 4+9 ECTS Points
Other Universities: Certificate of Seminar- and Lab-Participation

This lab is part of the International Program of Excellence (IPEC) of the Bonn-Aachen International Center for Information Technology (b-it). The curriculum offered by IPEC addresses a limited number of highly gifted students, who are enrolled in the University of Bonn, the RWTH Aachen, or in other German or foreign universities. This results in a speed-up of studying and in a simultaneous increase of quality. Due to the limited number of participants and the high standard of the program, a pre-selection of participants is required.

• For Master students at Uni Bonn, the following courses are recommended for participation:
  
  • Advanced Topics in Software Construction (MA-INF 3212)
  • User Centered Software Design (MA-INF 3217)

The lab will be conducted in English.

There are excellent resources about this on the web. Here is a selection of links, we recommend:

• Don Wells prepared a gentle introduction to eXtreme Programming.
  He prepared a gentle introduction into Agile as well. Highly recommended!
• Ron Jeffries answers the question “What is Extreme Programming?” and almost any other question about XP.
• If you are looking for a good overview in German, you should consult Frank Westphal's site.
• You might read the Agile Manifesto with its 12 Principles. (There was an anniversary 2011)
• Recently David Anderson described and recommended a process he called Kanban. We find the description from Henrik Kniberg especially accessible.
• Like a spice Kanban makes existing processes more tasty and digestible. The presentation "Kanban and Scrum - making the most of both" explains it for Scrum.
• Finally you might be interested in what we learned about Kanban from Matthias Bohlen.

On different occasions we reported about teaching experience to the software engineering community:

• Daniel Speicher, Pascal Bihler, Paul Imhoff, Günter Kniesel, Holger Mügge, Jan Nonnen, Tobias Rho, Mark von Zeschau, Armin B. Cremers: 10 Years of Agile Lab Courses for International Students, SAG WAS Workshop, GI-Jahrestagung 2013: 235-237 (poster, slides)
• Jan Nonnen, Jan Paul Imhoff, Daniel Speicher: Kanban im Universitätspraktikum - Ein Erfahrungsbericht, SEUH 2013 (slides)
• Holger Mügge, Daniel Speicher, Günter Kniesel: Extreme Programming in der Informatik-Lehre - Ein Erfahrungsbericht, In: Informatik 2004 - Beiträge der 34. Jahrestagung der GI, Lecture Notes in Informatics, P-51, ISSN 1617-5468, p. 127-141, 2004.