Agile methodology

Agile methodologyAgile methodology is an approach to project management, typically used in software program program development. It refers to a meeting of software development methodologies based on iterative development. Requirements and solutions evolve through cooperation between self-organizing cross-functional teams, without concern for any hierarchy or team member roles. It promotes teamwork, collaboration, and execute adaptability throughout the project life-cycle with increased face-to-face communication and reduced amount of compose documentation.Agile methods break tasks into small increments with no direct long name planning. Every aspect of development is continually revisited throughout the lifecycle of project by way of iterations (also called sprints). Iterations are short cadence frames (timeboxes) that normally last 1-4 weeks. This inspect-and-adapt approach signifi stubtly reduces both development costs and time to market. Each iteration involves working thr ough a complete software development cycle characterized by planning, requirements analysis, design, coding, building block testing, and acceptance testing. This helps minimize overall risk, and quicker project adaptability. trance iteration may not have enough functionality necessary for a market release, address is to be ready with a release (with minimal bugs) at the end of distributively iteration.Typically, the team size is small (5-9 people) to enable easier communication and collaboration. Multiple teams may be required for larger developmental efforts which may also require a coordination of priorities across teams. Agile methods emphasize more face-to-face communication than written documents when the team is in the same location. However, when a team works at dissimilar locations, daily contact is maintained through videoconferencing, e-mail, etc. The progress make in terms of the work d maven today, work scheduled for tomorrow and the possible roadblocks are discuss ed among the team members in brief sessions at the end of the each working day. Besides, brisk developmental efforts are supervised by a customer representative to ensure alignment between customer needs and confederacy goals.Software Development was initially based on coding and fixing. That worked well for smaller software, but as the size and complexities of software grew a need for a proper address was felt because the debugging and testing of such software became extremely difficult. This gave birth to the Engineering Methodologies.The methodologies became highly successful since it structured the software development process. one(a) of the most popular models that emerged was the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) that developed information systems in a very methodical manner.Waterfall method is one of the most popular examples of Engineering or the SDLC methodology. A paper published by Winston Royce in 1970 introduced it as an idea. It was derived from the hardware manufacture and construction strategies that were in approach pattern during the 1970s.The relationship of each salute to the others can be roughly described as a waterfall, where the outputs from a specific stage serve as the initial inputs for the following stage. During each stage, additional information is gathered or developed, combined with the inputs, and used to produce the stage deliverables. It is important to note that the additional information is confine in scope new ideas that would take the project in directions not anticipated by the initial set of high-level requirements are not merged into the project. Rather, ideas for new capabilities or features that are out-of-scope are preserved for later consideration.Agile MethodologyEngineering methodologies required a lot of documentation thereby causing the pace of development to slow down considerably. Agile Methodologies evolved in the 1990s to significantly eliminate this bureaucratic nature of engineering methodol ogy. It was part of developers reaction against whale methods, who desired to drift away from traditional structured, bureaucratic approaches to software development and move towards more flexible development styles. They were called the Agile or Light weight methods and were defined in 1974 by Edmonds in a research paper.Some of the most popular agile methods that later on evolved were Scrum in 1995, Extreme program in 1996, Adaptive Software Development, Dynamic Systems Development Method and Feature Driven Development. In 2001, a team of 17 pioneers in agile software development coined the terms Agile Software development and agile methods. An Agile Manifesto was declared that was regarded as a set of canonical rules for agile software development methods and accompanying principles. Similarly, some of these people formed The Agile Alliance, a non-profit organization that promotes agile development.Extreme ProgrammingOne of the several popular agile processes which stresses on customer satisfaction is Extreme programming. It improves a software project by focusing on communication, feedback, simplicity, courage and respect. Empowerment of the developers ensures speedier responses to changing customer requirements. Teamwork and collaboration is an integral part of extreme programming that improves the productivity and efficiency of the problem solving approach.Comparing Agile With Waterfall ModelAgile methodology can be compared and contrasted with traditional Waterfall model under the following heads.Conceptual Difference Sequential Vs IterativeWaterfall method is a sequential process of software development. Similar to a waterfall, the development team in such a model proceeds to the next stage of development once the commencement ceremony step is entirely accomplished. The waterfall model phases of software development are requirement specification, conception, analysis, design, coding, testing debugging, installation and finally maintenance. A goo d amount of time is spent in each stage of development, till all requirements are met.Compared to this set-in-stone approach of waterfall models, the agile models focus on adaptability and agility during development. As an alternate(a) to one rigid development schedule, agile models involve multiple iterative development schedules. Each iteration goes through the entire steps of design, coding and testing. A closely-knit, cross functional and self-organizing team structure exists.Documentation Substantial Vs MinimalWhile emphasis is placed on documentation at every stage of software development in a waterfall model, agile methodology emphasizes increased face-to-face communication and reduced documentation.Suitability Predictive Vs AdaptiveWhile waterfall model is suitable for development of stable programs, agile methodology is best suited for web based applications because of its iterative nature that helps in incorporating correcting the different bugs that arise over time.Natu re Process oriented Vs People orientedWaterfall Methodology is Process-oriented as it focuses on pre-planning of processes in great detail and subsequently coming up with a defined overall process to be used by whosoever uses it. Agile Methodologies on the other hand are People-oriented as they believe process definition is not an independent thing and the development of software relies heavily on the skills of the development team rather than on defined processes. Agile Methodologies use processes only to support the development team in doing their work more effectively and efficiently. Process never takes a lead in agile methodologies.Efficiency Low Vs HighEfficiency is determined by the quality of software product, the lead development time and the number of bugs. Due to the adaptability of agile methods and the rigid development cycle of waterfall model, agile methods can incorporate changes and release products in lesser time.http//www.extremeprogramming.org/.http//www.buzzle.c om/articles/waterfall-model-vs-agile.html.