Agile – flexible software development methodology

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Agile – flexible software development methodology
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The task of any company is to make a quality product that reflects the professionalism of the team and brings value to both the client and the consumer.

But how to come to such results? As in many cases, there is no need to reinvent the wheel, everything has already been invented.

In the early 2000s, the Agile Manifesto (Agile Manifesto) appeared in the US state of Utah, which spoke about the Agile methodology (translated from English – “live”, “mobile”, “flexible “).

The key to the success of this way of organizing work is constant communication not only within the team, but also with the client. This allows you to reduce the difference between expectations and the final result to a minimum.

What is Agile?

Agile is a way to break down a large project into several stages (user stories or sprints) and isolate the most important ones.
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In fact, it is the definition of priority tasks that is most important in Agile – the team should be focused on one or the most significant task at the moment. As a result, the team will not be distracted by third-party requests and will evaluate each subtask depending on its value.

The essence of Agile in simple words

What an Agile system is can be explained quite easily in a few sentences:

  • Development in short cycles from a week to a month;
  • At the end of each cycle, the customer receives functionality for use in their business processes;
  • Constant contact between the project team and the customer;
  • Corrections are welcome and are on the way.
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As you can see, it is communication that is the main thing in the agile approach. However, this does not mean that the workflow should remain without clear planning and documentation. Everything is good in moderation, so the principles of this methodology still work and are used by tens of thousands of companies around the world.

Sberbank implements Agile principles. “Agile transformation at Sberbank is focused on three main areas: customer satisfaction, employee productivity, and improving key metrics such as the time it takes to make decisions, bring a product to market, and deliver a customer’s product,” – German Gref.

Agile Principles

In total, there are four principles without which it is difficult to imagine Agile:

People and communication are more important than tools

This principle does not say that tools are an absolutely unimportant part in the process of working on a project. Everything is important in creating a quality product, but it is people and their interaction that are in priority.

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In traditional companies, the focus is on achieving goals, bureaucracy and many other things, but not on people. In Agile, it is more important to develop communication, to work on a task together.

Product that works is better than good documentation

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Who needs a product that’s only good on paper? What happens if employees spend time compiling and coordinating documents? Nothing good. Agile has both contracts and documentation, but they are in the background. It is more important to make a quality and usable final product.

Client interaction is more important than contract

This principle can be considered a continuation of the first – the importance of constant contact. Here the “customer-executor” scheme is changing, when both parties speak to each other on an equal footing without hierarchy and strict contract terms. In Agile, partner work allows you to quickly reach a goal that suits each of the parties.

Change is more important than a clear plan

It should be noted here: changes are not chaos when the customer suddenly changed his mind and demanded a change in strategy. Changes are feedback from the client when the team understands what needs to be changed to improve the product.

Who are Agile members?

  • Team – usually includes five to nine people. If more employees are involved in product development, they are divided into several groups. The ideal option would be when each team has developers, testers and several participants with different functionality.
  • The customer or owner of the product is the one who gives the task and knows for whom and what the finished product is intended for. He can suggest ideas, make and approve changes.
  • Stakeholders or stakeholders are those who have certain expectations about the finished product. They can also make decisions and influence requirements. For example, if a product is being created for a company, they may include employees from different departments.
  • Agile scrum master is a person who does not interfere with the process, but regulates it and helps team members meet deadlines.
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Scrum is a “structural approach” where each project is worked on by an all-in-one team of specialists, joined by two more people: the Product Owner and the Scrum Master. Kanban is a “balance approach” when you need to balance different specialists within a team and avoid a situation where designers work for days and developers complain about the lack of new tasks.

Who is Agile suitable for?

In conclusion, it should be emphasized once again: Agile is a methodology, a philosophy of organizing a workflow. It does not solve the problem, but it provides a platform for the formation of important products for the customer in the shortest possible time.

First of all, Agile is needed in areas where new products are being developed. Most often, this is IT or production, but the list goes on and on – any process can be the result of the work, if its final product is visible. The key feature of Agile – a valuable result – erases the limitations in the areas of methodology use. There are examples when it is no less effectively used in marketing or recruiting. Agile is a project management methodology.

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However, do not forget that even the most successful technology can backfire. In the case of Agile, this is possible when the team forgets about the philosophical overtones and uses the methodology as tools, mechanically repeating someone’s successful example.

Space. An Agile Daily for Personal Development was developed by Katerina Lengold, the youngest president in the aerospace industry. This is our own time management system based on Agile principles. Such a diary will help those who have to cope with a lot of things and want to put things in order in both their professional and personal lives.
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