A Comprehensive Guide On Agile Development Process
Imagine a day in the programmer’s life in the early days of software development. The coding itself used to consume a lot of time, as the computers in those days were slow and heavy.
You had to sit in one place and complete the task. Collaboration was a difficult affair, and debugging could drain the developer completely.
Compare it with the situation of the developer in the current times, and you would agree that software development has come a long way. The accelerated processes are not only because of the different technologies that have come up in the present times, but also because of the various software development methodologies that have taken the forefront.
Managing a project from start to end requires a development framework that will support and accelerate all the activities. Agile development is one such framework that aims to boost your development productivity. Most of the companies prefer agile development as it is both cost effective and proven, which helps deliver high quality software solutions.
Agile works on the last iteration and helps full stack development company evolve your software from there.
This is how it works: You plan a part of the project, and then collaborate with the teams to deliver it. Based on the feedback that you have received for the project you just delivered, you make the necessary changes, plan again, and develop further. This process keeps repeating till you have achieved what you set out to get.
Now that you know what agile development is all about, let’s understand the agile manifesto, and the 12 principles on which the agile framework is based.
The Agile Manifesto: 12 Principles
The agile manifesto guides agile development and makes the framework more usable and user friendly. As per the agile manifesto, the framework is constantly evolving to offer better ways to develop software solutions by taking into consideration individuals and their interactions as compared to the tools and techniques. The agile methodology works on customer collaboration.
When it comes to making a project successful, you need to pay more attention to the individuals and their interactions, as that will offer valuable insights. The tools and techniques are merely used to build the solution for the insights. The quality is determined by the people and how they collaborate to complete the project. If you want to get successful with agile development, you should ideally hire full stack developer for the same.
It is important for the developers to collaborate with the customers rather than just develop as per the customer’s suggestions. The idea is to keep improving the product through extensive collaboration
Now that you know how important collaboration and resources are, based on the agile manifesto, let’s proceed to understand the 12 basic principles before we move on to the best practices you need to follow.
The guiding principles
- The main priority for any software development company using agile practices is to offer continuous delivery of the software solution to exceed customer expectations.
- You should say yes to changing the requirements even if it is suggested at the last minute of the development cycle.
- You should ideally keep sending the working software to update the client on the progress. The timelines for that should be as short as possible, ranging from weeks to months.
- Collaboration of the developers with the business development team is a must for better development processes and high-quality solutions.
- Empower individuals so that they are motivated to complete the jobs. Offer a supportive environment for better delivery.
- A face-to-face conversation with your development team is a must if you want to convey changes or communicate some aspect of the development.
- A working software that you send to the client will help measure the progress of the project, and give your client an insight into what you are developing.
- The development pace should be constant, which is why you need agile processes, as they offer a sustainable development environment.
- Your development accelerates when you promote good design and technical superiority
You should incorporate simplicity in your development methods. - If you have a self-organizing team, as in the case of agile development, you will be able to incorporate the best architecture and designs for your project.
- It is important to reflect on your actions, and the project to make it better and more effective.
- Now that you are aware of the 12 principles of agile manifesto that you need to remember, let’s take a look at the best practices you should incorporate while developing using agile methodology.
Agile Best Practices
#1 Practice a Test-Driven Environment
You have an entire software development project to handle, from start to end. One way of doing it is by working on the entire project together. A good agile practice is to break down the entire project into smaller chunks and then working on these various layers individually. You should test each small part of the project once developed for smoother development. Once the product has been tested, you will get an idea on what feature you need to add/remove, and accordingly take the decision. A test-driven environment automates development for the mobile app development company, ensuring that the developer does not need to work on the same aspect twice.
#2 Constant Communication Through Daily Meetings
If you constantly collaborate and communicate with the different teams involved in the development, the pace is constant and the process smooth. Agile methodology allows you to hold daily meetings, where you discuss the day’s schedule, how you want to move forward, and what dependencies are holding you back. As a result, the work is done faster, and you get to complete the project days before you had actually planned.
#3 Incremental Changes Incorporated
You work using sprint cycles for agile development. You will collaborate with the stakeholders at the end of each sprint, discuss how you wish to move forward, plan the move and further the development. It is the iterative and incremental changes that make the development faster and reduce your time-to-market immensely. Basically, you will examine every sprint, inspect it, and plan the change accordingly.
Summing up
Agile development is most suited when you want to launch an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) before the final launch of the product. It is a great practice as it helps you evolve your goal along with the development and testing of the product. You should ideally use agile methodology when the project size and the team requirement, both are small.
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The best part about agile methodology is that you can see the working product, understand how it works, and seek feedback from your customers on what changes they would like for the project.
Of course, you can never estimate the amount of work that will go into development with agile development, as you tend to improve the project as and when you develop it.
Agile development not only makes development smooth, but also accelerates the development and makes sure you don’t have to invest much time or resources in identifying the issues, as you tend to inspect while developing.
Agile is definitely your go-to methodology for software development, as it saves time, money and a lot of your efforts. Hire mobile app developers to incorporate sprint development and reduce the time-to-market.
Originally published at https://www.techtic.com.
