I would like to formally welcome you to the Agile Development Course. I'm very excited to be your instructor for this course. My name is Praveen Mittal, and I'm an Adjunct Professor at the University of Minnesota. And I have been in the software industry for the last 20 years. The software industry is going crazy on Agile matters. It is rapidly becoming the choice of software development when the climates are unpredictable or are expected to change over time. This course will help you gain knowledge on what is Agile, why Agile is better suited for these situations. We will also cover some of the most common Agile frameworks, like SCRUM and XP in-depth. In Module 1, we're going to talk about Agile Fundamentals, why Agile? What is Agile? What are Agile values and principles? And what are the benefits and challenges of this approach? In Module 2 which is Week 2, we're going to talk about how do you do Agile requirements and planning? What is the Agile approach to requirements? How do you write effective user stories? So user stories are something that we will hear or learn about in Agile. How do you generate user stories? How do you estimate and do release planning? In Module 3, we are going to learn about SCRUM which is one of the ways to implement Agile. We're going to learn in detail about what are the practices and ceremonies of SCRUM. In Module 4, we're going to wrap this up with XP and we're going to learn about an overview of XP and some of the practices and principles of XP. Apart from quizzes, you will also be doing two peer-reviewed projects. In first, you will be given a fictional case study and you have to make a case for using Agile on the project. You will also have to recommend what needs to change in the organization to support Agile implementation. In the second project, which is also peer-reviewed, you have to create a story map, which is one of the techniques to gather user needs for a given situation. So after completing this course, you will be able to demonstrate the ability to participate effectively in Agile practices and processes for software development. You'll be able to explain the purpose behind the common Agile practices. Ability to apply Agile principles and values to a given situation. And ability to identify and address the most common problems encountered in adopting Agile methods.