Agile Guide
The most profitable facts about the Agile methodology, its benefits, and prospects to businesses.
Agile is a software development methodology and approach to project management that is based on delivering software in small working parts and introducing changes if needed. The requirements and results can be evaluated and corrected during the development process, which allows the team to deliver exactly the software that the customer wants.
Agile values people more than processes, collaboration more than preset arrangements, and delivery of a working software more than creating precise documentation.
How was it before Agile development?
To understand why the Agile methodology became so popular, let’s go back to the Waterfall times.
Much time was wasted on documentation
The software development process required detailed documentation before developers could start coding. The traditional development process can be briefly explained the following way:
- First, Business analysts collaborated with stakeholders and elaborated a business requirements document. These documents contained detailed and comprehensive information about the software, including strategy, functional specifications, and UI designs.
- Second, the Tech team created a technical requirements document based on the business requirements document. The tech version of the customer’s requirements contained info about the software architecture, data structures, object-oriented functional designs, and user interfaces.
- Finally, developers could start coding, integrating, and testing.
As a result, the traditional development process could last for several years.
It was much harder for developers to introduce changes
Many development tools required additional training, there were no reusable parts, such as open-source components, APIs, or web services, and the communication tools were very limited. All this led to a big headcount in development teams and poor collaboration between members. That is why the specification document was the key element in the development process, and all developers were supposed to know it precisely (even though sometimes it could contain hundreds of pages). Any change had to go through a long review process and hence was very hard to introduce.
Stakeholders were blind until the very end of development
Lower-level parts of the architecture were developed first and followed by dependent artifacts. For example, database engineers delivered their piece of software, then developers added business logic, and after that, the UI was introduced. Stakeholders had to wait for months until they could finally try a working software. By that time, stakeholders could find what was inconvenient or unnecessary in their initial requirements. Some features became outdated, some required tweaks to resist the growing load. All these weaknesses developers and stakeholders found out only after a long development cycle.
What has Agile project management changed?
The Agile project management methodology became so popular with software developers for the flexibility and adaptivity it brought to the project. Agile proclaims close collaboration within the team and with stakeholders, continuous improvement, openness to changes, and development in short-term cycles. Agile rests on applying 4 values and 12 principles that are stated in the Agile Manifesto.
If a team follows Agile, they use the next six concepts every sprint.
- Product vision statement: a concise summary of the project’s goals.
- Product roadmap: an overview of all the requirements that are implied in the product vision.
- Product backlog: a list of all project tasks ordered by priority.
- Release plan: a schedule that specifies when a working product will be rolled out.
- Sprint backlog: the goals and tasks (user stories) that should be achieved in the current sprint.
- Increment: a complete product or functionality that the team delivers to the customer at the end of the sprint.
Though Agile principles are stated in the Agile manifesto, different companies apply them to their particular requirements, teams, and situations. Hence many Agile frameworks appeared to cover specific development cases.
What advantages can you get with Agile?
Agile brings benefits to all the parties involved in software development, including customers, vendors, developers, product managers, and stakeholders.
Customers
Customers can be sure that the vendor will precisely meet their needs. Customers avoid developing unnecessary functionality, have complete control over the development process, and see the results much faster than if they followed the Waterfall model.
Vendors
Vendors can focus on delivering high-value features, reduce unnecessary efforts and overhead, increase efficiency, and speed up the development process. They also get more satisfied customers and hence more recommendations.
Developers
Developers can avoid boring and unproductive work and focus on development. They can see that their competencies grow and their work is valuable. Customer satisfaction and participation in successful projects motivate and inspire them.
Product Managers
Product managers or Product owners are mediators between the development team and customers who ensure that customers will get what they want. Agile frameworks help managers to achieve this alignment much easier, effectively prioritize work, and react to feedback.
Project Managers
Project Managers who work with the Agile methodology can enjoy easier and more accurate planning and monitoring than if they follow the Waterfall model. They are constantly aware of the project state and can quickly resolve any problems.
Executives
Executives and stakeholders get full visibility into the state of the project and can plan their actions and develop strategies more accurately.
What are the key figures in the Agile environment?
Three main roles are typically involved in Agile processes.
User
Agile is focused on customers; therefore, developers create several user personas that represent various types of users. These user personas help developers check how the software workflows correspond to customer needs.
Product owner
The product owner is the person who gathers all the ideas and creates a coherent product vision. It is a short and accurate description of the product, consisting of the description of the end customer, their needs, and ways to cover those needs.
The product owner splits the product vision into:
- user stories that show how particular features satisfy users' specific needs;
- and technical stories that describe crucial functionality needed to support user-facing features.
The product owner defines the acceptance criteria for the solution, prioritizes user stories, and checks that all team members understand their parts of the work.
Software development team
In Agile, the development team’s responsibilities differ from those in traditional software development.
The software development team comprises members with diverse skills. Developers come up with their part of the application, be it a database, business logic, or a part of the UI, and show it in a demo. Collaboration happens daily, with all team members having up-to-date information about the progress of the team.
What are Agile methodology tips and best practices?
Though successful implementation of the Agile methodology depends on many factors, there are at least 7 rules that will help you to achieve greater results.
1. Collaboration with clients
The Agile Manifesto proclaimed a customer-centric approach to software development projects. Continuous communication and regular feedback help the team to ensure that the customer is aware of what is going on and how this or that idea transforms into a working feature.
2. User Stories
Simplified descriptions of software requirements in the format of: As a [role], I want [feature], because [reason]. User stories are much easier to understand than long requirements.
3. Continuous Integration
Continuous Integration (CI) is about keeping the software in a potentially deployable state all the time. The aim is to minimize the time that each integration takes.
4. Automated tests
Automated regression testing allows tracking how code changes affect performance. Automate to allocate time for other QA processes and prevent errors.
5. Pair programming
Pairs programming improves functionality and design, minimizes bugs, and exchanges expertise and tips within the team.
6. Test-driven development (TDD)
TDD focuses on simple designs. Development happens in short cycles and is based on passing unit tests.
7. Burndown charts
A burndown chart visually compares how many tasks and how much time is left, helping developers tell more accurately when work will be over.
What are Agile frameworks?
The two most popular Agile frameworks are Scrum and Kanban.
Scrum
Scrum is a time-tested Agile framework that introduces new concepts to the development process, such as Scrum events (sprints), Scrum artifacts (backlogs), and Scrum roles (product owner, development team, ScrumMaster).
Kanban
Kanban provides visibility of workflows and allows the team to identify weaknesses, issues, and deliver better software. Core practices include visualization, work in progress limits (WIP limits), and flow management.
Takeaways
Introduced 20 years ago, Agile methodology is still an effective software development methodology. Though frameworks and approaches can differ, they are all based on Agile principles, collaboration with stakeholders, teamwork, adoption of changes, and focus on quality and customer satisfaction.