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| Agile: 1.6Agile Methodology | IndanTechnoEra |
What is Agile Methodology?
Agile is a way to manage a project is by breaking it up into several phases. It involves constant collaboration with stakeholders and continuous improvement at every stage. Once the work begins, teams cycle through a process of planning, executing, and evaluating.
Agile methodology, a variety of project management approaches, is confirmedly deployed for software development, also where requirements and solutions unfold via the collaborative work of self- systemized and cross-functional teams and their users.
Agile retains its control in software development and has also expanded into marketing, finance, sales, and other departments.
The software industry is considered a profoundly antagonistic market because of the fact that software is an entity that seeks continuous upgrades. It implies that developers oblige to advance and introduce their products constantly to sustain on top among rivals. And for this, the straight and persistent approach is offered by Agile software.
Any Agile Methodology that is suitable for any enterprise can be depending on various factors;
Team types: In relevance to the means of Agile processes, an individual is willing to deploy. Organization size and the condition on which an individual looks to scale agile from lower to top
Organizational culture: To determine whether an organization is ready, or would be interested, in a highly-configurated agile strategy, or looking for more compliant approaches.
Types of Agile Methodologies
There are the following 7 Agile Methodologies
1. Agile Scrum Methodology
Scrum is a lightweight framework of Agile Project Management, it can be adopted to conduct iterative and all types of incremental projects.
Due to its specific characteristics like simplicity, sustained productivity, and strength for blending several underlying approaches adopted by other agile methods, Scrum has obtained popularity over the years.
The hands-on system under Scrum includes easy steps and elements, that are the following;
- Product owner, who creates an estimated wish list that is identified as a product backlog.
- Scrum team, which takes one little part of the top wish list, termed as Sprint Backlog and work out in order to implement it.
- After that scrum team concludes their sprint backlog task in a Sprint, i.e., a period of 2-4 weeks. In addition to that, the progress of their work can be accessed through a meeting that is called Daily Scrum.
- The Scrum Master maintains the team focused toward their targets.
- At the end of a sprint, the task is able to represent or transmit, and the team finishes that particular sprint with a review and feedback and initiates a new one.
2. Lean
It is the iterative, agile methodology that directs the team on addressing customer values by compelling value stream mapping, although, it is a deeply adaptable, emerging methodology with the absence of solid guidelines, laws, or methods.
The fundamental principles of Lean include;
- Uninterrupted advancement,
- Respect for other people,
- Eradicate waste,
- Rapid delivery,
- Knowledge-making and
- Defer commitment.
Lean Principles
Lean gives the authority of decision-making to every individual and the small team as it is considered the faster and more effective method in comparison to the hierarchical flow of control. It focuses on the proficient implementation of team resources and assures to make everyone as productive as possible for maximum time.
3. Kanban
Kanban is an eminently visual workflow management approach, famous among Lean teams, that can be employed for visualizing and thoroughly maintaining the making of products, it focuses on continual delivery of the product, but is not making stress to the entire software development life cycle.
- Similar to Scrum, Kanban is the process developed for supporting collaborative teamwork more effectively. It works adequately on three principles;
- Visualizing what to perform today, i.e, workflow automation, that specifies all the elements, under the context of each other, could be very informative.
- For bounding the quantity of work in progress to maintain harmony in the flow-based approach, so that teams can‘t begin and commit extra work at once.
- For boosting flow, like, when some task is about to complete, the next priority would be item into play from the backlog.
However, Kanban encourages steady collaboration and maintains active, continuous learning and enhancement by describing the best plausible team workflow.
4. Extreme Programming(XP)
Generally being used with Scrum, it can focus on how Agile can increase customer satisfaction, instead of delivering at the entirety, the customer seeks for the near future, it provides them what they demand at present.
XP is concentrated on regular propaganda and precise development cycles. In addition to that, it implements code review, pair programming, and regular communication with customers.
XP method is basically based on the four simple values:
- Uniformity,
- Simplicity
- Communication,
- Feedback and
- Endurance.
5. Crystal
In actuality, the Crystal Methodology is a class of small agile methodologies that incorporate Crystal Clear, Crystal Yellow, Crystal Reed, and many more. Every methodology has its own specific framework. It is introduced by Alistair Cockburn while participated in writing the Agile manifesto for software development.
Three factors that define the traits of a project are team size, system seriousness, and project preferences where projects are categorized into four levels, based on the system criticality, that are;
- Comfort (C),
- Discretionary Money (D),
- Essential Money (E), and
- Life (L).
Depending on the size of the project, the most number of people can be involved in the project, i.e., gigantic the project, more the people involved.
If the project is large, many roles can be accounted for and vice versa. Moreover, crystal methodology is converged on interaction, people, expertise, communication, skills, and community.
6. Dynamic System Development Method (DSDM)
DSDM gives a broad work frame that is outlined;
- To plan, handle, execute, and scale the complete process of software development,
- It directs on the business-driven approach and
- It doesn’t negotiate on quality and timely delivery.
However, this is an iterative, incremental, and Rapid Application Development(RAD) methodology. The framework of DSDM incorporates feasibility and business studies, prototype iteration and functional model, design and development iteration, and deployment.
Basically, DSDM works on eight principles, that guide the team and build a perspective for delivering a product on time and under budget, which are
- To converge on the business requirement,
- Deliver on time,
- Collaborate,
- Nevermore negotiate quality,
- Create incrementally from firm associations,
- Expand iteratively,
- Communicate frequently and clearly, and
- Manifest control.
7. Feature Driven Development (FDD)
Being an iterative and accumulative development process, FDD is a lightweight, agile methodology to develop software. It mixes various industry-established best practices into united as a whole. These practices are encouraged in terms of a feature-first perspective while aiming at creating values for the client.
However, the main purpose lies in delivering stable, working software frequently on time. The five core activities under FDD involve;
- Designing an entire model,
- Making features lists,
- Designing,
- Developing and
- Building through features.
FDD is a constructive, arranged, centered method for the entire software workflow management and a reliable choice for software-focused teams and associations.
Benefits of Agile Methodology
As defined, Agile is a mindset that directly benefits faster, lighter, and more efficient development processes. The process delivers products and services that customers look for, and the entire product development process is quicker in response to changes;
- Faster: One of the major benefits of Agile methodology is faster/speedy development and response. A quicker software development process significantly reduces times between paying and getting paid and leads to a profitable business.
- Upgrade customer satisfaction: There is no requirement for a longer queue to get exactly what customers want with agile development. Infact, a swift set of iterations are done very closely for what they look for, very quickly. The system adjusts rapidly to reshape successful customer solutions and adapt it as it would alter the overall environment of product development.
- Values executives: Employees are highly valued when providing productive ideas rather than following a fixed set of rules. Agile methodologies enable employees to set their goals and achieve them appropriately. With these methodologies,employees are in the best position to respond to challenges, resolve obstacles and meet the goals and objectives at hand.
- Eradicate rework: Implicating more customers into each phase of the requirements and delivery helps in aligning project on-task and in-tune with customer requirements at each step that lead to less backtracking and save time amid development cycle and customer suggested revisions.