Agile Methodology

Going by the term, agile denotes an active and fast process of performing a task. It is a method that can be applied in a variety of fields but nowadays it is gaining fame in Software development and Project Management areas. Let’s have a look at both distinctively:

Agile Methodology in Software Development

• Agile Methodology in Software creation and development is a very effective and preferable method in present times. Agile enables the company to meet the software requirements of its customers in a very short span of time.
• With this method, the company is flexible enough to handle N no. of requirement change at any given time, and the secret recipe for this flexibility is its working process. Agile is a iterative (repeats same process of requirement – design – development -testing) and incremental (keeps on adding new features and requirements during the iterative process) model where requirements keep changing.
• In agile, a software demanded is broken into different pieces (called sprints) and are delivered to the customer in these sprints form and hence enabling the company to make any change desired by the customer at any stage of development.

Agile Methodology in Project Management

• It is the same process as followed in Software Development where task of Software Building is replaced by any kind of project or in simple terms, to generalise the method for any field.
• It has a flexible approach to build a project. A project is divided into mini-projects called sprints, and instead of delivering the complete major project as a whole to the customer, the company works on delivering the desired project in sprints on weekly or say monthly basis (whatever suitable).

• It includes the following steps in Agile Development Cycle.
  • Sprint Backlog enlists the tasks to be completed in each sprint like planning, designing, execution, testing and development stages.
  • Product Backlog explains new features, changes in the existing features and several other significant improvements in the project.
  • Sprint includes the cycle of >>Planning >> Designing >> Testing >> Release >> Planning >>
  • Final Product received at the end of the whole mini-project deliveries.

Principles of Agile Methodology

• Changes required by customers at any stage can be fulfilled.
• Releases will be very fast.
• Aims to achieve customer satisfaction.
• Good communication link between customers, business analyst, developers and test engineers.
• Easier to adopt than traditional Waterfall Method.
• Modification at every stage result in best quality achievement.
• Error in a small sprint can be easily corrected instead of error in a whole major project.