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We connect you with Developers, Designers, and the Testers help you communicate the specific requirements even before the actual implementation.
In the fast-paced world of software development, adaptability and responsiveness are essential. The Agile Development Methodology is a transformative approach that empowers development teams to deliver high-quality software efficiently while embracing change as an integral part of the process.
At its core, Agile is not just a set of practices; it's a philosophy that values individuals and interactions, working solutions, customer collaboration, and responsiveness to change over rigid processes and plans. Agile places people at the center of the development process, encouraging close collaboration between developers, product owners, and customers.
After a definite period of time, through the agile way, you don’t just get one, but multiple functionalities of your product. To achieve this, Developers, Designers, and Testers work simultaneously and co-dependently.
Every subtask is divided by us into sprints of two weeks, within which we cross out elements one after another. To ensure that everything is aligned with the project expectation, we have daily scrum meetings with the team, where the tasks are clearly assigned.
We believe Agile is a mindset. Our cross-functional teams evolve through collaborative effort to build the desired product. Design and Implementation go hand in hand, we welcome feedback and quickly adapt to change.
Now that we know the basics of Agile development, let's take a more in-depth look at how it works. We can break the Agile process down into three main stages:
In the preparation stage, the product owner creates a backlog of features they want to include in the final product. This is known as the product backlog. Then, the development team estimates how long each feature will take to build.
The sprint planning meeting is where the team decides which features from the product backlog they are going to work on during the sprint.
A sprint is a set period (usually two weeks) during which the development team must achieve a specific goal. The team also decides how many of each type of task they can complete during the sprint.
For example, the team may decide they can complete three coding tasks, two testing tasks, and one documentation task during the sprint. This information is then added to the sprint backlog.
During the sprint, the team works on completing the tasks in the sprint backlog. They may also come across new issues to address. If this happens, they will add these issues to the product backlog and prioritize them accordingly. At the end of the sprint, the development team should have completed all features in the sprint backlog.
If not, the team will carry them over to the next sprint. The team then holds a sprint review meeting where they demo completed features to the product owner and stakeholders. They also discuss what went well during the sprint and how they could improve their next one.
Agile development methodologies have emerged as the cornerstone of modern software development, and for good reason. Let's explore why Agile development is so important in a software development company.
Agile is a broad umbrella term that encompasses frameworks and practices that represent different nuances of how the methodology is approached. Some prefer to define Agile as a mindset with the ‘methodology’ rooted in frameworks (also sometimes referred to as methodologies) that the software development process follows.
All Agile frameworks are informed by the 2001-published Manifesto for Agile Software Development and follow its 12 Principles but also differ from each other in ways that can make one the preferred approach for a particular organisation or development project.
There are over 50 formally detailed Agile frameworks but a large majority of software development teams and projects use one of the several most established. These include:
Scrum, named after a rugby scrum for the metaphor of a whole team pushing together in one direction (the sporting metaphor can be extended to a Scrum team learning through its experiences, positive and negative, to continually improve and organising itself to be more than the sum of its parts), is by far the most commonly used Agile process framework in the context of software development.
Agile software development with Scrum is distinguished from other Agile frameworks and processes by the specific concepts and practices, divided into the three categories of Roles, Artifacts, and Time Boxes. Another key quality of Scrum is the introduction of the roles Scrum Master and Product Owner who organise and manage the rest of the Scrum team including software developers, designers, QA, testing and operations.
Kanban, the name comes from the Japanese word for card, is a framework for ‘just in time’ (JIT) work processes, that dates back to Toyota’s factory floor. In fact, Toyota adapted the approach from a system already being used by supermarkets to make sure their shelves and warehouses were optimally stocked to meet customer needs while minimising carrying excess stock.
When particular components or materials used in the production process ran low in Toyota factories, someone would pass a card, or kanban, onto the warehouse who would prepare a new batch to be taken to the factory. The warehouse would then pass another kanban onto their own supplier when necessary.
The system created efficiencies by making sure the right resources were always available while minimising waste.
Extreme Programming (XP) is not a traditional Agile framework because it places more emphasis on the technical aspects of software development and implementation of specific practices than the management and organisational sides.
An XP software development life cycle has 5 stages:
Feature Driven Development (FDD) organises Agile software development around completing features. In the FDD context, features are more like Scrum stories than traditionally defined product features. Mike Dixon gives examples of FDD features on a site for flash video games as:
Dynamic Systems Development Model (DMDM) is an evolution of the Rapid Application Development (RAD) framework designed to offer added governance and discipline to an iterative approach to software development.
It is based on the philosophy “any project must be aligned to clearly defined strategic goals and focus upon early delivery of real benefits to the business” and supported by the 8 principles:
Adaptive Software Development (ASD) is an Agile software development framework designed by the project managers John Highsmith and Sam Bayer in the early 90s. It is a more iterative evolution of the Rapid Application Development Agile framework, designed around 1-month projects broken down into week-long iteration periods (comparable to Scrum sprints).
ASD places a focus on deeply integrated user feedback and involving them in different phases of the development lifecycle. It also seeks to encourage emergence – unplanned new directions and features.
Developed for IBM in 1991 by Alistair Cockburn, one of the original Agile ‘influencers, the Crystal Agile software development framework focuses on individuals and their interactions rather than processes and tools. It’s underpinned by the two core beliefs:
Boiled down, the Crystal approach rejects universal development processes and strategies and instead offers guidelines for the collaboration and communication that allows a software development team to decide on its own step-by-by processes and strategies as per their assessment of the project’s unique needs.
One weakness some find in the Crystal framework’s approach is that the fact it de-emphasises the importance of documentation and reporting can reduce organisation-wide transparency and the ability of anyone external to track progress.
The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is the dominant approach to scaling Agile software development for large projects that involve multiple Agile teams. The framework has four variations, Essential SAFe, Large Solution SAFe, Portfolio SAFe, and Full SAFe, with each tailored to a different level of scale.
SAFe promotes alignment, collaboration, and delivery across large numbers of Agile teams and draws from agile software development, lean product development, and systems thinking.
For organizations striving to create cutting-edge products and services, the Agile methodology has emerged as a powerful solution. It offers a structured yet flexible approach that enables companies to expedite development speed and reduce risk throughout the product development lifecycle.
We connect you with Developers, Designers, and the Testers help you communicate the specific requirements even before the actual implementation.
We document the principles and values on a development project which eases the implementation of agile development methods like extreme programming, Scrum, and Rational Unified Process.
Making mobile app testing a crucial part of the app development process, we ensure that the bugs and errors are next to nothing. Led by our team of Testers, the agile method keeps every involved party from the UX-UI designers to the app developers in the circle.
Our POC’s keep their to-do lists and the what’s left lists handy. This helps in achieving client’s expectations through the incremental and iterative mobile app development process.
Every app functionality is validated in a planned way to not miss test cases or the criteria defining them. It also includes the prime causes and their relevant fixes.
In order to respond quickly to change, our process includes the following feedback loops. These feedback loops operate on different time scales to facilitate everything from tiny adjustments to wholesale changes in a project's direction.
Does an Agile software development approach also have weaknesses and potential pitfalls to be wary of? Of course it does. A methodology is only ever as good as its execution. These are three potential dangers to mitigate during an Agile development process.
Many of the benefits that result from an Agile approach are a direct result of the inherent flexibility and freedom it offers. But the take-it-as-it-comes approach of the next iteration being informed by previous release and feedback loops also means there is inherently never a really clear vision of the final product or outcomes.
The lack of a finite ‘end’ point can see a lack of focus creep into Agile teams, leading to a loss of intensity in work, missed deadlines, and challenges in what to track progress against. Project scope can also start to spiral.
The lack of a formal design phase and the fact Agile is premised on product sponsors and development teams not knowing exactly what the end result will look like and consist of means it is hard to accurately predict final cost, time and other resources that will be needed.
Agile project managers can protect against scope creep and a loss of focus by setting project-specific KPIs to track or by building a product road map. Project sponsors who both want their software development team to adopt the Agile methodology but need to respect business requirements for an approximate budget and deadline might also consider an adapted controlled or fixed price Agile approach.
Agile promotes the empowerment and autonomy of team members through self-organisation and cross-functionality. But for that to remain coordinated and efficient in the absence of linear phase completion requires maintaining high levels of communication and collaboration.
Maintaining the necessary level of collaboration across the duration of a development project, especially a large one, takes effort and commitment. That’s, even more, the case if an Agile team is distributed because some or all of its members are working remotely, as has become increasingly common.
Different Agile frameworks have different tools designed to maintain a high level of collaboration, like the Scrum and Kanban boards.
People often refer to either Agile software development teams or DevOps software development teams but it is increasingly often the case that a software development team is both. So how exactly to Agile and DevOps, both of which are defined as project management philosophies and methodologies, interrelate?
By now you should have a good understanding of Agile. DevOps draws a lot from Agile but has a core focus on unifying software development teams and the operations specialists responsible for the smooth running of a software application once deployed.
In DevOps, the development team doesn’t just hand over the software tested in the development environment to the operations team and wash their hands of it. Both teams work as a single unit with same goal of an error and bug-free user experience and responsibility for achieving it.
