AGILE METHODOLOGY FOR SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

 

Agile Methodology Training using Lego

The client’s need for quick software development is ever rising and our traditional software development methodologies are just not built for this. We need a methodology, which can handle this and this is where agile comes in.

Waterfall vs Agile methodology

The previous methodology that was used was the waterfall model for software development. This model consists of various phases you have your requirements phase, your design phase, implementation phase, testing phase, deployment phase and maintenance phase. 

Now the waterfall model as a whole promotes a very long-term development life cycle and it was used to develop monolithic applications instead of the microservices, which we have these days and this is where the issues start to develop.

As you can see with the waterfall you need a very long time to develop particular software. These days this is not feasible as the demand for software is crazy high and we need to be able to change according to the market needs. Presently, you have to develop software every other month or so and because of these issues, a new software methodology was created to tackle these issues. 

Waterfall vs Agile

 Agile methodology in simple words

In agile you are not creating software in a very long period but you'll be doing it in multiple sprints. You will start with four phases like planning, implementing, testing and reviewing. 

Now you'll create one of the components of the software and once you are done with that you will move on to create the next component and similarly, you would go ahead and create the software as a whole. 

Now in this manner you're completing the software as well as providing the different components of software to the customer getting their feedback and changing accordingly. 

The agile ability to change and adapt with the market, satisfy the market needs and do so in a very short term make agile very suited for developing software. 

Agile in actuality is a set of values and principles, if you use these values and principles to make a decision then you are working in an agile manner so rather than being a methodology it is rather basically a set of values and principles that you have to follow if you want to be agile.

The agile manifesto implies that we are discovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it by implementing a certain set of values. Now, this can be better explained by giving you an example, we have individuals and interactions on the left side and processes and tools on the right side. So even though we do value processes and tools we just value individuals and the interactions these individuals have with each other even more than the processes and tools involved and this is the value that agile promotes and this is the part of the agile manifesto.

There are similarly three more values. We have working software and comprehensive documentation, here we value working software over having comprehensive documentation which is kind of obvious you need to have a functioning software that you are going to provide to your customer before you even have any type of documentation or before you even think about going for documentation and this is what agile promotes and again customer collaboration is valued more than contract negotiation so we want to prioritize the feedback we get from customers and apply it into a software development over any type of contract that they're going to be signing with us, this is another value that agile promotes. 

The final value that agile promotes is responding to change, which is responding to change more than following a plan because agile is suited for an ever-changing market and that is why responding to a change has greater value than following a plan. These are the different values that are promoted in agile.

In the manifesto for example every item on the left has more value than the item on the right but this does not mean that the items on the right are not valued this only means items on the left have just a lot more value and that's why you have to follow them every time you are trying to make a decision.

Principles of Agile Methodology

Now let's discuss the different principles that agile promotes.

•  The first principle states that our main aim is to please the customer through quick and constant delivery of important software.
• The second principle says that adjust to changing needs even late in development for the client’s competitive advantage.
• The third principle says that working software should be frequently delivered from two weeks to two months with preference to the shorter timescale.
• The fourth principle states that developers and business individuals must work daily throughout the project.
•  The fifth principle states that it will be planned around motivated persons and give them the support they need and trust them to get the work done.
• The sixth principle states the most efficient method of passing information to and within the development team is face-to-face conversation.
• The seventh principle states that working software is the primary measure of progress.
• The eighth principle states that agile processes should maintain constant development. The users and developers should be able to keep a constant pace.
• The ninth principle says that continuous consideration should be given to technical perfection and high-quality design enhances agility.
• The tenth principle is simplicity.
• The eleventh principle states that the best requirements, designs, and architecture emerge from self-organizing teams.
•  The final principle tells us that at regular intervals the team reflects on how to become more effective then cues and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

So if you want to be an agile team then you have to make all of your decisions based on these principles and based on the values that agile promotes otherwise you are not an agile team.

Benefits of Agile Methodology 

Now let's look at the different benefits that Agile provides us. The first benefit is transparency, if you are transparent in your development process then the customer or the client knows what you are doing they have more trust in you because you'll be telling them what you're doing and you will be doing this as you will be providing them software every other sprint they will know what kind of software they are getting and accordingly they provide you feedback and you will improve upon the next iteration by using that feedback and your planning stage becomes predictable. 

Agile promotes very short-term development life cycles, the number of variables that will be there when you're calculating the cost and schedule will be less and hence you'll able to predict the cost and schedule all the tasks much more efficiently. 

Now another benefit and the primary benefit is that it allows for change.  The values and principles that agile tells us about basically promote change because if you can adapt and change according to the market then you're able to increase your business profits as well as satiate the market need or as well as satisfy your customer or client and then, in the end, it helps us to improve the quality of the product. 

With agile, you increase the morale of your employees you increase the morale of your team and this way they want to make a better product and hence a better product is made so these are the benefits of agile.

Implementation of Agile Methodology:

While implementing agile you have to keep in mind that any decision you make has to be based on the values and principles set by agile otherwise you're not going to be having an agile development. When you're going ahead with these principles and values set in your mind you have to follow the normal sprints. Now there are going to be a lot of practices that you will have to choose from one of the practices is to have a sprint where you have a small sprint where you develop a small component of the software and give it to the client so you will first plan it out, then design it, then develop it, then test it, then deploy it, then review it from your own feedback or the client’s feedback and then launch it and move on to the next iteration now this is a part of the practice of agile.

So there are a lot of agile practices out there like daily stand-ups, sprints, splitting user stories, pair programming and test-driven development. Now you can choose any agile practice you want but you have to choose these practices based on your own needs and based on the principles and values that are being set by agile otherwise you're not agile or you are not following an entire development and hence you won't get the benefits of agile. You should keep this in mind when you're going ahead with any of the practices of agile.

Frameworks of Agile Methodology:

The different frameworks of agile, with Scrum you are focusing more on the openness, the focus, the commitment, the courage and the respect for different people whereas in Lean you're trying to focus on eliminating all the waste, amplifying as much learning as possible, decide as late as possible, deliver as fast as possible, empower the whole team, built integrity in the team then see the whole process through. 

In Kanban you are focusing on reducing multitasking, decreasing the waste overall produced then putting the customer's needs first and return of investment or ROI. So these are different frameworks and types of agile methodologies, now when you go-ahead to implement agile you need to first think of all the basic principles and values that have been set by agile and then see what suits you the best and then check out the different frameworks. Now, this is just the three most popular frameworks or types of agile, there are lot more frameworks you can go through them and you can decide, which one is the best for you then you choose that particular framework and implement it.

Conclusion:

Agile methodology is a set of values and principles, which help in customer satisfaction and quick development of software. Agile methodology is divided into four phases planning, implementing, testing and reviewing. The most popular frameworks or types of agile methodology is Scrum, Lean and Kanban.