Technology is all about innovative brains bringing revolutions to an extent that every decade brings about a huge disruption. Agile development is also one such groundbreaking practice. Agile has been in the spotlight for over past 25 years, thanks to its various advantages. It offers us a tremendous increase in success rates in software development, better quality and time to market, and splendid productivity and motivation. While agile development has a lot to offer to the software development teams, let’s talk about how you can benefit from it today.
First things First: What is Agile Development?
Putting in easy words, agile software development is an umbrella term for software engineering framework powered by iterative development throughout the project development lifecycle, close collaboration between the development teams and the client, constant communication, and tightly-knit teams. Thus, it is a combination of best engineering practices that promote rapid delivery of high-quality software, and a business approach that aligns development with customer needs and goals.
Benefits of Agile Development
The agile methodology of project development has a plethora of advantages to offer. It enables more efficient and effective project development while ensuring high-grade quality at the cost-effective price. It also allows the team to work under the close collaboration and have a better approach to the necessary changes that are highlighted during the project development. Significant benefits of agile development can be summarized as follows:
1. Stakeholder Engagement
Communication is the key to the development of high-grade quality software. Agile methodology is the one that ensures multiple opportunities for the stakeholder to interact before the initialization of development, during development, and after each sprint. This helps the development team to understand the client’s motive and vision behind the project and hence delivering the product which is best meets the client’s requirements. Besides this, the shorter lifecycles and frequent delivery of software earn the trust of stakeholders to relish best-in-class projects.
2. Transparency
Following an agile approach to project development allows the clients to involve with the developers as a closely-knit team from the initial phase of assigning priority to the features to the iteration planning and review sessions to the frequent software builds containing new features. It also keeps the client updated on the project progress and enlarges the scope for incorporating the required changes.
3. Early and Predictable Delivery
Since the delivery schedules in Agile Development are fixed and time-boxed, it enables the quick and frequent delivery of the new features with a high level of predictability. This also provides scope for launching the product or the beta test software before the scheduled date if there is sufficient business value.
4. Predictable Cost and Schedule
Since agile promises fixed time span for each sprint, the cost associated with the development of particular sprint can be predicted. This cost is determined by the amount of work that can be performed by the development team in that limited duration. This enables the client to make a better decision about the priority of the features since the estimated cost is available at the beginning of each sprint.
5. Expands the Scope for Changes
Agile broadens the scope for constant refinements and reprioritizing the overall product backlog as the development team focusses on developing the mutually agreed subset of the product’s features during each sprint. These new or modified backlog features can be then planned for the next iteration, ensuring that the client is able to review and introduce changes within a few weeks.
6. Focuses on Business Value
With the agile approach to the project development, the client can prioritize features. This enables the developers to understand the client’s vision and also, understand which element affects the client’s business more significantly. This thus paves ways for the delivery of features that help the clients to leverage the maximum business value.
7. Focusses on Users
The agile methodology commonly combines user stories with business-oriented acceptance criteria in order to determine the specifications of each feature. This shifts the focus to the end users thus enabling each feature to deliver profit rather than just another IT component. This enables the development team and clients to launch the software for beta testing and thus allowing the incorporation of the required changes well-in-time.
8. Improves Quality
The project development according to the agile methodology is carried out in small manageable units called sprints. This allows the team to aim at achieving best-in-class quality at the end of development, testing, and collaboration. In addition to this, the frequent builds and testing schedules at the end of each iteration ensure that the bug finding and fixing is quick and can be done well-in-time.
Take Home Message
Agile ensures quality solutions delivered to the client at the scheduled time while guaranteeing highest-degree of client satisfaction. Agile is therefore an alternative to other software development approaches that provides overall benefits not only to the developers but also to the clients. It helps the project development teams to efficiently and effectively handle the pitfalls that are generally encountered along the route of project development. Agile thus is a leaner and more business-oriented manner to achieve the same objectives by reorganizing and re-envisioning the activities that are the part of custom software development.
