The Reality of Scientific Software Development is Agile - Best Practices and Lessons Learned

The reality of the development of scientific software is often far from the clearly structured, cascading work packages that grant applications require, but rather in the spirit of agile programming: Start from a working minimal prototype, always have running code, work in sprints (typically towards the end of reporting periods). Those characteristics actually match rather well onto the concept of agile programming. This talk will explain the principles of agile software development, the exisiting software tool support using the free-of-charge GitLab Libre Edition as an example, and the implementation of the processes, including team communication, continuous integration and publication of documentation.