Agile Software Development: Do’s and Don’ts

A gradual increase is being noted in the number of IT companies replacing conventional sequential software development techniques with agile methodology. But agile methodology requires businesses to adopt several new ideas and practices. The businesses have to divide the project into small and incremental releases to manage risk efficiently, accommodate customer feedback, and measure progress. At the same time, agile methodology also emphasizes on continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery to enhance the quality and stability of code. That is why; it becomes essential for enterprises to adopt a number of best practices and avoid certain pitfalls.

Do’s in Agile Software Development

• Agile methodology requires businesses to facilitate smooth and uninterrupted communication among various stakeholders in the project. In an agile environment, the client must be informed about the current status of the project. Likewise, the developers and testers must be informed about what to do next in the sprint. So the business need to create an environment where the developers, testers and project manager can communicate with each other constantly, and collaborate with the client to deliver all functionality required by him.
• Agile software development methodology further emphasizes on iterative development. The business must divide the entire project into smaller tasks. Based on the division, the developers and testers will determine the amount of time and effort required to complete individual tasks. Also, they need to prioritize the business requirements, and work on the key functionalities first. The business also needs to calculate the number of hours available to complete all tasks. The team can further suggest the number of hours required to cover all business requirements based on previous iterations.
• The agile methodology requires businesses continuous integration to keep the code up to data. Each time developers write a new code base, it needs to be analyzed and verified before being integrated with the old code base. The verification will help the team to test new user stories more effectively. However, they must conduct unit testing to identify the defects or flaws in the integrated code base. Likewise, they need to perform regression testing subsequently to check if the new functionality is affecting the existing code base adversely.
• A number of recent studies highlighted the importance of development space in an agile environment. The business can always make the developers and testers more productive by picking furniture that facilitate collaboration, along with making the working environment pleasant through good lighting and decoration. At the same time, it needs to minimize emails, mobile phones and other factors that distract professionals, and ensure that only direct stakeholders in the project occupy the room. It is also important for the business to assess the development space continuously to make the professionals more productive.

Don’ts in Agile Software Development

• Many businesses consider that test driven development (TTD) is an integral part of agile methodology. But many studies have highlighted that TDD increases the upfront development cost of the project significantly. So many companies have already switched from test-driven development to exploratory testing. The exploratory testing techniques make it easier for testers to identify all defects in a software application by designing and executing tests simultaneously. So a business must consider alternatives to TDD.
• In an agile environment, pair programming helps businesses to improve the code quality and facilitate information sharing. As the programmers and testers work a single team, it becomes easier for them to deliver high quality code through informal but continuous code reviews. But many developers or software testers prefer working individually, and find it difficult to collaborate with various stakeholders in the project. So businesses need to consider the social cost of pair programming in an agile development environment. The project manager must understand the mindset of individual professionals to effectuate pair programming.
• As the programmers and testers work together in an agile environment, many businesses emphasize on collective code ownership. Often businesses forget that the skills and expertise of individual professional differs. Some professionals are good at working on new ideas, whereas others can resolve evolving development issues quickly. That is why; collective code ownership may affect the quality of the code negatively. The project manager must distribute the code among developers according to their experience and expertise. The code sharing will help the professionals to deliver high quality code.

However, do’s and don’ts in agile software development will vary from one software development project to another. It is always important for businesses to customize practices and ideas in an agile environment according to specific needs of individual projects.