What is Agile and Why it lays out the best roadmap for product development?
Introduction
The inquest for the best web development company for your product is a long road and various parameters have to be considered while making a choice and one such parameter is DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGY.
There are various software development methodologies, one of them is Agile. This article will help you in understanding Agile a little better way and then you can make an informed decision in choosing the right product development methodology.
What does AGILE refer to?
Agile is a recurring procedure for software development and project management which makes the process of deployment of a project to the client easier. The “always working ” approach for requirements, plans and results and continuous evaluation of the work done make the team’s reflexes better to respond to the changes.
A brief history of Agile
Lean manufacturing was introduced by Toyota in the 1950s, which means the customer requirement drives the production instead of bulk production.
The same method has collaborated with software development which led to Agile software development.
During the 1990s, chain reaction took place in the software development field as new ‘ lightweight’ software development methods were mutating out from the ‘heavyweight’ traditional development methodology.
These included:-
RAD — Rapid Application Development (1991)
UP — Unified Process(1994)
DSDM- Dynamic Systems Development Method (1994)
Scrum (1995)
Crystal Clear and Extreme Programming(XP)(1996)
Feature-Driven Development (1997) and many others.
All of the above-mentioned software development methodologies were originated before The Agile Manifesto . Now, these are collectively referred to as Agile Software Development Method.
The Agile Manifesto states the following:-
1.Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
2. Working software over comprehensive documentation
3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
4. Responding to change over following a plan
Principles of Agile software development
The Twelve Principles of Agile software development are as follows:-
- The satisfaction of client/customer by quick and looped delivery of valuable software.
- Requirement change even in the late development is always welcome.
- Frequent delivery of the error-free and running software i.e. delivery in weeks rather than months.
- The contact between the development team and business people should be more frequent rather they should interact daily.
- The development of projects should be done by motivated people and trusted hands
- The communication process in the development team should be face-to-face i.e. the information should not be miss translated within the team.
- The primary measure of progress is working software.
- Maintaining a constant pace indefinitely between Sponsors, Developers, and User is one of the things agile support i.e. Sustainable Development
- To enhance agility continuous attention to technical excellence and good design
- The art of maximizing the amount of work not done i.e. simplicity is essential.
- Self-organizing teams give rise to best architectures, requirements and designs.
- The team should introspect regularly to become mere effective and change accordingly.
Agile Project Management
It is a repetitive approach to work on the project throughout the lifecycle. Agile life cycle made up of various iterations and incremental steps that lead the way of development of the project. One of the major benefits of an agile approach is that it delivers benefits throughout the process.
Characteristic that Agile Team Member
The name of the team members may differ in every agile project but the unique characteristic list remains the same.
The following list makes you aware of what all qualities should exist in an agile team:-
- T-shaped- A person having detailed understanding across the of his subject is always appreciable but having deep knowledge, ability, experience about one or more specific fields is also required.
- Cross-functional- Members should have skills in various other domains as well. Eg. a developer who knows graphics designing.
- Adaptable- Members should be able to adhere to the changes and should respond positively about it.
- Curious- Members should become a part of optimization and should always ask the correct questions while into venturing into new direction in the project.
- Entrepreneurial — Members should be their own leader, they should not wait for instructions to work.
Roadmap to Agile Methodology
The 6 steps to be followed to work through the road map are as follows:-
- Project planning — The scope of the project should always be changeable. Since the main aim of agile is to work the way out through changes and additions to the project should be easier.
- Product Roadmap Creation — This is very crucial for the team as it decides how the work would be divided and how many sprints/cycles would be there before completion.
- Release Planning- The team should decide on what to release after each development cycle and should replan, reassess the structure before the release.
- Sprint Planning- The workload should be evenly distributed among the stakeholders before the start of the sprint. All the complexities about accomplishing the task on time should be taken care of in this stage of planning.
- Daily meetings- each day before you call it the End of the day, a short team meeting to report progress in the task and recheck the requirements should be held.
6. Sprint review and retrospective — After the end of each sprint two meetings should be conducted :
a) Sprint review: this should be conducted with project stakeholder i.ie. the client to discuss the shortcomings of the sprint and what all is required in the next one.
b) Sprint Retrospective: the in-team meeting for discussing the shortcomings and how can it be improved
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