What is Agile Software Development? Pros & Cons?
Whilst the popularity of Agile can’t be denied, it’s also a fact that it comes with a lot of confusion. In fact many people can’t get their heads around Agile. Hence, we are going to discuss What is Agile Software Development? Pros & Cons?
Hopefully, this would help you understand Agile in depth!
What is Agile?
Earlier made for only Software Development, Agile has become exponentially popular among other fields of projects as well due to its ability to offer quick adaptiveness and improvement throughout the existence of a particular project.
Agile is a repetitive approach to project management or to Software Development projects, implying that it is established on an idea of continuous improvement through repetition of its project lifecycle, which entitles it to adapt to new changes as the circumstances or environment changes in the industry in order to be able to stay successful for a longer period of time.
Agile provides projects in decomposed little projects that are meant to be done within a short period of time, it does not go from a Top-to-Bottom lifecycle, indicating that there is no sequential order for Agile.
In brief, Agile is based on the idea of continuous improvement by going through the lifecycle over and over again.
What is Agile Methodology?
First of all, let’s establish the fact that Agile is not a Methodology. That’s because Agile is the concept of approaching a project productively. Meanwhile, Methodologies are a set of specifically defined procedures and techniques to get the project done. So, Why do we hear about Agile Methodology?
Agile Methodology refers to many types of methodologies that support the concept of Agile, which is to provide an iterative lifecycle to a project. For instance, some of the Agile methodologies are Extreme Programming or Scrum etc.
What is Agile Software Development?
Agile Software Development is not different from Agile. Simply, it means that Agile is being used for software development projects.
Let’s fit Agile into the software development context. As we discussed earlier the concept of continuous improvement. As we all know, the severity of rapidly rising cyber crimes can have detrimental effects on software. For example, software was made in 2015 and it has been continuously used till this day with no maintenance or upgradation. Undoubtedly, it’s going to be very unsafe and vulnerable to all kinds of cyber threats.
So, we have an Agile approach, which solves these kinds of problems. Agile jumps into the ground with regular improvements to your software in order for it to be safe and secure as well as relevant in the industry for a longer period of time.
Principles & Values of Agile Software Development?
Agile believes in 12 agile principles and 4 agile values that have been defined by the Agile Manifesto.
12 Agile Principles:
1. Early and regular delivery of software to fulfils the objective of the project for the customer.
2. Always welcome changing requirements anytime for the customer’s competitive advantages.
3. Deliver working software regularly within a couple of weeks to a couple of months, in a shorter time,
4. Stakeholders like Business people and Developers must work together throughout the project daily.
5. Build projects around motivated people. Give the support, environment and trust to employees to get the job done.
6. Face-to-Face conversion is the most effective and efficient method of collaboration for the team.
7. Working software is the main source of evaluating the progress of a project.
8. Agile offers sustainable development. All stakeholders should maintain a persistent pace unlimitedly.
9. Regular attention to technical excellence and good design increases agility.
10. Simplicity is essential.
11. Self-organising teams produce the best requirements, architectures and designs etc.
12. The team regularly reviews how to become more effective and adjusts itself accordingly.
4 Values of Agile:
People and their interactions are more important than the tools and processes: Historically, tools and processes were considered to be a top priority for software development projects. However, Agile comes with a premise of having people and their interactions valued more than the process and tools.
Working Software is more important than documentation: One of the prime Software Engineering Principles is Documentation. Interestingly, Documents have always been one of the most important pillars of successful software development projects. Meanwhile, Agile focuses on working software instead of documentation.
User or Customer Collaboration over contract negotiation: In order for a project to productively accomplish the objectives. It’s important to have a user or customer collaboration instead of just contract negotiations. So, a project can go through a lifecycle for continuous improvements.
Responding to a change: There are countless projects that have badly failed due to circumstantial reasons. In order to cope with such a situation, Agile believes in quick response to change. This allows Agile to have projects that can manoeuvre through complicated circumstances and be successful ultimately.
Advantages of Agile Software Development:
Adaptability: Agile is known for having a strict principle that promotes quick response to any change, which makes the project adaptable to any situation, increasing its chances of succeeding.
More Chances of Project becoming successful: Agile focuses on constant improvements for a project, implying its higher chances of getting success.
Effective Communication: Face-to-Face Communication is more important to Agile than any other means of communication. Thus, it supports effective communication between all the stakeholders throughout the project.
Improved Quality: Agile comes with a combination of a lot of things that improve the quality of the project. For instance, effective communication and consistent improvements increase project quality.
Happy Customer: One of the key things to be noticed in Agile is its principles and values are highly Pro-Customer. Everything that is done in Agile is to satisfy the customer in one way or another.
Long-Life Project: Agile projects tend to have longer lifetimes. Especially if it’s a software development project.
Disadvantages of Agile Software Development:
Lack of Documentation: Whilst Agile gives priority to the Working Software instead of documentation. Unfortunately, it can also turn out to be bad due to the lack of documentation. New employees on the project can struggle in understanding or maintaining it.
Sometimes too much Effort: People working on the project can feel overwhelmed when it comes to following Agile’s principles and values. Sometimes, employees can feel it’s too much effort.
Projects going out of track: Agile is a name of a set of principles and values. Hence, it’s important to follow all of them while implementing Agile. Otherwise, the project could go out of track even if one principle is missed.
The Popularity of Agile Software development
Agile Software Methodologies is extremely popular. In fact, 71% of companies in the United States are using Agile. Amazingly, Companies have also experienced an increase of 60% in the growth in revenue and profit. In particular, Scrum has been the most used Agile methodology.
Importance of Agile Software Development
Agile Software Development is effectively dealing with the modern problems that we face in today’s business world. Especially, as technology takes over the world, there is a need for certain measures that can protect the systems and software from getting hacked and exploited. Therefore, the ability of Agile to provide consistent improvement makes it ideal for Software Development projects. In fact, it is a key factor in providing some of the safest software and systems around the world.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Agile is an iterative way of approaching a project, which supports the persistent development of a project. Meantime, Agile itself isn’t a methodology. However, methodologies that support the concept of Agile are called Agile methodologies.