What are the fundamentals of Agile?

Agile development– as the term suggests, defines a throughput oriented, strategic and human resource oriented software development approach. Many say it is an umbrella term that embraces some methodologies and principles. Interestingly, there is mass adoption of agile in enterprise development. It is a proven fact that agile can make a project process around 37% faster and 16% more productive than traditional projects. So, let’s overview why Agile is so popular and adopted widely in enterprise development!

The Root

Agile comes into the picture where the traditional development model known as the Waterfall model fails to meet the goal. In a fast-paced global economy where rapid change and quick adaptation are the need of the hour, it is often a common scenario that enterprises fail to meet that target with the linear approach of the Waterfall model.

The phase by phase (sequential) execution model of the traditional development model often exceeds the estimated timeline and delays the delivery. Additionally, we can say that the traditional development model follows a more predictive approach which encompasses the below:

-More focus on process and tools
-Stress on documentation
-Detailing on requirement at the upfront and strict change control
-Strong adherence to the project planning

Hence, the above points indicate that there is a high possibility that a project following a traditional approach is prone to struggle more with additional requirements.

Making this a point, and after analyzing the factors, a group of 17 experts came up with the Agile Manifesto. One point must be noted here that the Agile Manifesto is not developed in a few years. It evolved for an extended period where the first generation had a tenure of two decades from 1960 to 1980 and the second generation for another two decades. Finally, they came up with the Agile Manifesto in 2001, a combination of four values and 12 principles of development strategy.

What is Agile Manifesto?

As mentioned above Agile Manifesto describes four values and 12 principles. Let’s have a quick overview of those.

The Four Agile manifesto principles

1.Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

This signifies that human resources in a project and interactions among them are more critical factors for the smooth execution of a project than project process and tools.

2.Working software over comprehensive documentation

Though documentation is an essential part of any project process, it takes a considerable amount of time. Moreover, if every project's approval process is document-oriented, it sometimes becomes a long process. On the contrary, if frequent meetings and direct communication occur among the team and the customers, it helps to expedite the process.

3.Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Agile approach believes more in collaboration than contract negotiation considering customer approach. Continuous engagement and feedback process from a customer help to meet the project goal more efficiently. After all, it's the people who sign the contract and not the contract that will matter more!

4.Responding to change over following a plan

As opposed to the traditional model, Agile does not follow the project plan and accommodate changes more flexibly. That is the main reason why Agile is so popular in the industry.

The Twelve Agile development principles:

The Agile process's highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of software.
The agile process harnesses and accommodates changes even late in development as it considers change as an improvement scope for a project.
Frequently deliver software components where the duration could be a couple of weeks or a month.
Business stakeholders and developers work in collaboration throughout the project for smooth and faster delivery of the project.
Motivation, support, and trust among the project team members are the building blocks for an agile project.
Encourages and considers face-to-face interactions as the most effective communication strategy.
Considers working software as the primary measure of progress
Follows a consistent development pace
Attention towards excellent and detailed technical design
Maintains simplicity in work done pattern
Encourages self-organizes and motivated teams to help great requirements, architectures, and designs outcome.
The team assesses how to become more effective at regular interval and takes action to become productive accordingly

So, from the above described Agile Manifesto we can say that unlike the Waterfall model, Agile methodologies are more prescriptive.

What are the principal techniques used in Agile development?

Any agile workflow operates following the below-mentioned mechanics:

-Iterative development: – In an agile model, the development follows the iterative approach that is the entire project is fragmented into multiple chunks of deliverables or sprints with short time frames. This is known as iterations and lasts from 1-4 weeks.
-Change-management – In each iteration, the cross-functional team participates, and the performance is evaluated continuously. Hence, overall productivity improves significantly and reduces the chance of scope creep. Additionally, this aligns with customer satisfaction. Along with that, new changes are welcomed in the iterative approach as a part of improvement.
-Team involvement – In an agile model, all teams participate in all the phases of development like planning, designing, coding, testing, and implementation. Here all the teams maintain collaboration among them and try to resolve roadblocks in a faster way.

How Can Agile Development Life Cycle be described?

Like any traditional project development life cycle, the Agile Development Life Cycle can also be broken into the following steps. However, these steps are performed in each sprint of agile.

Planning:

Once the project scope is finalized, the entire scope is broken into short sprints to achieve goals easily.

Analysis:

This is one of the crucial phases where requirements are evaluated and prioritized for the sprints. This happens between the stakeholders and managers through meetings.

Design:

The team starts working on the design, aligning with the requirements and priorities.

Coding:

In this phase, the design is implemented to create the proper functionality of the product.

Testing:

Once the coding is over, the developed component undergoes all the testing like unit testing, systems testing, integration testing, and acceptance testing to ensure a perfect outcome.

Deployment:

The product generated out of the iterative cycle is then deployed for customer review. In case any change is required, it is incorporated in the next iteration cycle.

So the fundamental concepts of Agile emphasize on –

-Value-driven delivery means instead of focusing on sequential delivery, prioritizing the modules based on business needs. Besides, sprint-based distribution assures quality delivery.
-Customer engagement ensures continuous feedback and faster resolution of project issues.
-Enhances team performance by engaging team members throughout the project process motivates the team for better productivity and conflict resolution.
-Adaptive nature to embrace changes throughout the project for the enhancement of the project and meet the business needs.
-Lowers risk by early detection of problem and resolution.

Important roles, artifacts, and events of an Agile development

Roles:

There are three primary roles in an Agile project –

1.Product owner

2. Scrum master

3. Delivery Team

Apart from that Users also play a significant role like any other project.

Artifacts:

-Sprint backlog
-Product backlog
-Deployable software

Events:

-Sprint planning
-Scrum call
-Sprint review
-Sprint retrospective

Different Agile methodologies used in Agile Development

Agile is an umbrella term under which many methodologies and frameworks are practiced. Here are some of them:

Scrum
Agile Modeling
Kanban
Lean Software Development
Agile Software Development (ASD)
Extreme Programming (XP)
Feature-Driven Development (FDD)
Disciplined Agile Delivery
Agile Unified Process (AUP)
Crystal
Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM)
Rapid Application Development (RAD)

Not all the frameworks mentioned above are suitable for all projects and depend on the requirement and other demographic factors. You can look into a few differences between Scrum, Lean, and Kanban here.

Advantages of Agile development process

-A flexible and dynamic development approach
-Adaptive with ever-changing business requirements.
-Rapid delivery enhances customer satisfaction.
-Faster resolution of problem due to more team engagement and the onsite availability of customers.
-Transparent communication
-Collaborative approach
-Increased productivity due to the scope of continuous improvements
-Problems are detected at the early stages of the project, so complete failover is never possible.
-Cross-functional and self-motivated team performance.

Challenges associated with Agile development project

The primary challenge lies with an Agile project is its correct implementation or, better to say, setting the ‘agile mindset’ among the team. An agile project means aggressive deadlines while maintaining a collaborative work culture. Whether we think from a team culture perspective or project management perspective, it is a real challenge to maintain the agile culture throughout the project tenure. Some of the key areas where an Agile project may struggle are:

-As per Agile principles, customer engagement is an essential part of the project. However, the onsite availability of customers may not always be possible.

-Agile development needs skilled programmers, so senior and experienced resources are mostly considered in such projects. So, sometimes newbies are not the right fit for this program.

-Effort and cost estimation at the upfront is not possible like a traditional project. Hence, it is very much possible that the actual cost and effort may deviate from the estimated one.It could be either positive or negative for the project.

-Communication is a crucial part of an agile project, and here communication means open communication. In a large project there comes the interdependency between many cross-functional teams. Hence, unless the communication is clear among them, it is hard to synchronize between the activities.

Secondly, communication helps to view the bigger picture of a complex problem that is not from an individual module perspective instead of from an enterprise point of view. This means to get everybody on the same page, open communication is vital, and materializing this is a more significant challenge for agile project management.

-Leadership is another vital parameter while managing an Agile project. Because multiple teams collaborate at a time, whereas multiple leaders lead them, so, unless the leadership is consistent, it could create decision-making issues.

Is Agile development the right fit for every project?

Not always. Though it sounds like every project is embracing agile methodologies nowadays, however, for better success of an agile project, the most suitable scenarios are like:

-When the delivery timeline is aggressive.
-If there are high possibilities of scope changes in a project in between.
-When the final product is yet to figure out
-When the right skills are present in the team, who can adapt the changes.

Implementing 100% Agile sounds weird - the answer is an agile-waterfall hybrid

Theoretically, Agile methodologies have tremendous value for project management. However, in reality, it is sometimes difficult to implement those core concepts. Hence, most enterprises use the hybrid agile model for development, which is nothing but a modified waterfall model and applies a mix of waterfall and Agile.

Use of Waterfall model for -

-Planning phase
-Design phase

Use of Agile model for -

-Requirements collection
-Implementation
-Testing
-Deployment

To conclude, we can say that the fundamentals of Agile are to mitigate the project risks, enhance the speed of delivery, quality, and flexibility in project execution. However, moving to agile needs multiple points of considerations and should be taken wisely.

Please share your valuable inputs in comment area to make the article more informative.

What are the fundamentals of Agile?

The Root