Professional CodeIgniter

Chapter 2: Agile Methodologies and Approaches

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“ Furthermore, ” you continue, “ I ’ ll probably say right now that I ’ ll tackle all these backlog items in the

first sprint. I ’ m feeling pretty confident that I can tackle those items in a 4 - week sprint, which means

the first iteration of your web site should behave pretty much as we mocked up. ”

Claudia nods. “ I feel pretty confident that you know what you ’ re doing. My job is to sit down and think

about all the things I want from this web site and capture all my ideas in this product backlog so you can

keep working after the first backlog. ”

“ One more thing, ” you say, holding up a hand. “ This process allows you to change your mind, but let ’ s

try to limit major changes in direction for each sprint, while allowing minor course corrections

throughout the process. That will make it easier for us to work faster and smarter. ”

You both decide that it ’ s time to work separately. Although the team is very small (just you and

Claudia), you decide to hold daily meetings starting the very next day, which means that you need

to get started with some very basic tasks: installing CodeIgniter on a development server and creating

the initial database tables. Without these tasks being complete, the rest of your task list isn ’ t even doable.

Creating a Sprint Backlog

You ’ ve already committed to tackling all eight existing product backlog items in 4 weeks. You look over

the list and start knocking out a sprint backlog:

1. Install and configure CodeIgniter on a development server.


2. Create the initial tables for products and categories.


3. Build a model for products, with functions for listing all products by category, listing product
   details for any given product, and listing other products that belong to the same group as a
   product.


4. Build a model for categories, with functions for listing all categories as a tree, listing
   subcategories for a category, and listing category details. The products’ model already contains a
   function that allows you to list all products in a category.


5. Create a controller for all visible pages, with functions for the home page, About Us, Contact Us,
   Search Results, Product Detail, Shopping Cart, and Category view.


6. Create special controller functions for running the search and adding items to a Shopping Cart
   cookie.


7. Create other shopping cart functions that allow you to display everything in a Shopping Cart,
   recalculate prices with AJAX, and delete line items from a Shopping Cart.


8. Create all the views needed to display web pages. This will more than likely involve a master
   template with includes as needed to minimize your work later on.

This is about all the detail you ’ ll need at the moment. If the team were larger, you might need more

detail, but this backlog, combined with your mockups and the product backlog, should be more than

enough to keep you on the right track.