What is the main purpose of agile methodologies?

The Agile methodology is a way to manage a project by breaking it up into several phases. It involves constant collaboration with stakeholders and continuous improvement at every stage. Once the work begins, teams cycle through a process of planning, executing, and evaluating. Continuous collaboration is vital, both with team members and project stakeholders.

Agile methodologies overview

The Agile Manifesto of Software Development put forth a groundbreaking mindset on delivering value and collaborating with customers when it was created in 2001. Agile's four main values are:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan

Agile project management

So what is Agile methodology in project management? It’s a process for managing a project that involves constant collaboration and working in iterations. Agile project management works off the basis that a project can be continuously improved upon throughout its life cycle, with changes being made quickly and responsively.

Agile is one of the most popular approaches to project management due to its flexibility, adaptability to change, and high level of customer input.

Agile methodologies frameworks

Agile project management is not a singular framework — rather, it can be used as an umbrella term to include many different frameworks. Agile project management can refer to terms including Scrum, Kanban, Extreme Programming (XP), and Adaptive Project Framework (APF).

Where did Agile come from?

In 2001, a small group of people, tired of the traditional approach to managing software development products, designed the agile manifesto. It is a more improved method for managing the progress of software product.

The agile manifesto has four important values:

The focus should be more on individuals and interactions instead of processes and tools
Working software is more important than comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration is more vital than contract negotiation
The process should respond to change rather than follow a plan

There are 12 principles of agile software development:

Deliver customer satisfaction by delivering valuable software continuously
Always accept change of requirements matter how early or late in the project
Deliver software that works within a shorter timescale
Both developers and business professionals must work closely together daily throughout the project
Information is best transferred between parties in face-to-face conversations
Motivate people to build a project by creating an environment of appreciation, trust, and empowerment
Working software is the key measure of progress
The agile process promotes sustainable development
Continuous attention to excellence and quality in technical development and design boosts the agility
10 Simplicity is a vital part of effective agile management
Self-organized teams produce the best architecture, requirements, and design
Teams should reflect through inspection and adaption to be more effective

There are different methods of agile that promote the values and principles of the manifesto. Scrum and XP are two well-known examples.

The Benefits of Agile Software Development

Top software developers developed agile meetings. After repeatedly experiencing challenges and limitations from traditional waterfall development in real-life products, they wanted to create a more efficient process for analyzing product development. The approach they used addresses the issues regarding the philosophies and processes of traditional methods directly.

Stakeholder Engagement and Satisfaction

The agile process creates many opportunities throughout each sprint meeting for genuine engagement between the team and the stakeholders. Because the client is actively involved in the entire product, there is a continuous level of collaboration between all parties. This gives the team a chance to fully understand the client’s vision. By delivering high quality, working software frequently, the stakeholders quickly develop a trusting and authentic relationship with the team. This also further promotes engagement between the client and the team.

Transparency

The agile approach actively involves the client throughout the entire product including the iteration planning, review sessions, and new feature builds in the software. Clients, however, must understand that during the transparency of the product, they are seeing a work in progress and not the final product.

Early and Predictable Delivery

Sprints are held on a fixed schedule of 1 to 4 weeks duration. By using this time-boxed method, predictability is high as new features can be delivered to the stakeholders quickly and frequently. It also allows the team to beta test or release the software sooner if it has sufficient business value.

Predictable Costs and Schedule

Because the Sprints are on a fixed schedule, the costs are limited and predictable and based on the amount of work done. By combining the estimated costs before each Sprint, the client will better understand the approximate costs of each feature. This offers more improved decision-making opportunities when prioritizing the features or adding iterations.

Flexible Prioritization

Scrum methodologies allow more flexibility by prioritizing the customer-driven features. The team has more control in managing the shippable units of work with each sprint boundary; making continued progress towards the final product milestone. To get a prompt RIO from the engineering, the work needs to be shipped early to the customers so they will realize the value from the features.

Allows for Change

While the focus should be to deliver the agreed subset of the features of the product, Agile processes create an opportunity to continually reprioritize and refine the product backlog. These changes can be added to the next iteration so the new changes can be introduced within a few weeks.

Focuses on Business Value

The team has a better understanding of what is most important for the client’s business and can deliver features that give the most value to the business.

Focuses on Users

The user’s stories are commonly used to define the product features as they relate to business-focused acceptance criteria. By focusing on the user’s needs, each feature delivers real value and not just an IT component. It provides a better opportunity to gain valuable feedback through beta testing the software after each Sprint. This provides vital feedback earlier in the product so that changes can be made as needed.

Improves Quality

The product is broken down into manageable units, making it easier for the team or focus on high-quality development, testing, and collaboration. By creating builds and conducts tests or reviews throughout the iteration, defects and mismatches can be found and fixed early, improving over-all quality.

It gives your team Purpose

Most agile processes focus on creating a shared sense of ownership and goals for all team members. This gives your team purpose rather than creating a false sense of urgency. Purposeful teams are more productive and challenge themselves to be faster and more efficient.

Do You Want To Do An Agile Transformation But You Do Not Know Where To Start? Our Agility Module From The Digital Leadership Accelerator teaches You How To Do It! Become A Highly Recognised Digital Leader In Your Industry By Leading Your Agile Transformation!

The Business Benefits of Agile

Agile management reduces the common risks that are associated with the delivery, scope, and budget of the product.

It encourages collaboration between the customer and the team; offering mutual benefits in the mitigation of the high risks during the development of the software.

In 2009, Dr David F Rico compared Agile with traditional methods of software product management. During his research and synthesis, he analyzed 23 Agile processes, comparing them with 7,500 traditional projects.

He found 20 benefits to Agile products:

41% were better in terms of overall business value
83% showed quicker time-to-market speeds
50% were higher in quality
50% were less costly
83% were more productive

Agile Methodologies

There are several agile methodologies; all share similar philosophies, characteristics, and practices. However, from the point of implementation, each agile has its practices, terminology, and tactics. Some of the main agile software development methodology components include:

Scrum

Scrum is a management framework with far-reaching abilities to control and manage the iterations and increments in all project types. They are lightweight and can be used with other agile methodologies for various engineering practices. Scrums have grown in popularity within the agile software development community because they are simple and have a proven productivity rate.

Lean and Kanban

1.Lean Software Development

Lean software development is an iteration methodology originally developed by Mary and Tom Poppendieck. Many of the principles and practices in Lean Software Development came from the lean enterprise movement and were first used by big companies like Toyota. This value-based method focuses on giving the customer an efficient “Value Stream” mechanism that delivers the value to the product.

The main principles of this methodology are:

Eliminate waste
Amplify learning
Make decisions as late as possible
Deliver results as quickly as possible
Empower the team
Build integrity
Envision the whole project

By choosing only the features that have real value for the system, prioritizing and delivering them in small batches eliminates waste. Instead, the lean methodology emphasizes on speed and efficiency; relying on rapid, reliable feedback between the customers and programmers. It focuses on the idea that customer requests “pull” the product. The focus is more about the faster and more efficient decision-making abilities of individuals or small teams instead of a hierarchy controlled method. This methodology concentrates on the efficiencies of its team’s resources, ensuring everyone is as productive as possible always.

2.The Kanban Method

Organizations use the Kanban method to manage the product’s creation while emphasizing on the continued delivery and not overburdening the development team. Like Scrum, Kanban processes are designed to help teams work more efficiently together.

There are three principles:

Visualize what you do: see all the items within the context of each other – more informative
Limit the amount of work in progress (WIP): balance the flow-based approach so teams are not committed to doing too much work at once
Enhance the flow: as soon as one task is finished, start on the next highest job from the backlog

The Kanban method promotes continued collaboration with the client and team. It encourages ongoing learning and improvements to provide the best possible workflow for the team.

Extreme Programming (XP)

Extreme Programming (XP) was originally described by Kent Beck. It is one of the most popular and controversial agile methodologies. XP is a highly disciplined method of continually delivering high-quality software faster. The customer is actively involved with the close-knit team to perform continued planning, testing and rapid feedback to deliver working software frequently. The software should be delivered in intervals everyone to three weeks.

The original XP method is based on four simple values:

Simplicity
Communication
Feedback
Courage

It has 12 supporting practices:

Planning game
Small releases
Customer acceptance tests
Simple design
Pair programming
Test-driven development
Refactoring
Continuous integration
Collective code ownership
Coding standards
Metaphor
Sustainable pace

Crystal

Crystal methodology is one of the most lightweight and adaptable approaches in developing software. It is made up of several agile processes including Clear, Crystal Yellow, Crystal Orange, and other uniquely characterized methods. Several factors drive these processes including the size of the team, the criticality of the system, and the priorities of the product.

The Crystal family focuses on the realization that each product has unique characteristics, therefore, the policies and practices must be custom-tailored to accommodate these features.

The Crystal method has several essential tenets including:

Teamwork
Communication
Simplicity
Reflection
Frequent adjustments
Improve processes

This agile process, like other methodologies, promotes early and frequent working software delivery. It encourages high user involvement, adaptability, and eliminations of distractions and bureaucracy.

Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM)

The Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM) originated in 1994 to provide an industry-standard framework for product delivery for what was then known as Rapid Application Development (RAD).

Although it was very popular in the 1990s, the RAD approach developed in an unstructured fashion.

Since its beginning, the DSDM has evolved and matured; it provides a comprehensive foundation in planning, management, execution, and scaling of the agile process and iteration products.

DSDM has six key principles revolving around the business needs:

Value
Active user involvement
Empowered teams
Frequent delivery
Integrated testing
Stakeholder collaboration

DSDM uses a “fitness for business purpose” approach for delivery and acceptance criteria. It focuses on the formula: 80% system deployment in 20% time.

Feature-Driven Development (FDD)

Jeff De Luca, along with contributors A.m. Rajashima, Lim Bak Wee, Paul Szego, Jon Kern, and Stephen Palmer developed Feature-Driven Development (FDD). It is a model-driven, short iteration process that begins by first establishing the shape of the agile model.

Iterations on “design by feature, build by feature” are held biweekly. The features appeal to clients because they are small and useful.

The FDD design and development is delivered using these eight practices:

Domain object modelling
Development of features
Component and class ownership
Feature teams
Inspections
Configuration management
Regular builds
Visibility of progress and results

Agile Process

The agile process breaks a larger software product into several smaller parts that can be developed in increments and iterations. Studies have proven that there is a negative correlation between product size and success (i.e.: the shorter the product, the higher the success rate).

The agile approach reduces the size of the project by creating several smaller product. This iteration approach distinguishes Agile management from other management methods.

Unlike other methods, Agile management uses iterations during the planning and development phases. Each iteration is usually a week long.

During these sessions, the product team and customer team collaborate to prioritize what needs to be added to the iteration. The final result is a working software program delivered quickly to the customer in a production-like environment.

Customers can then test their program and make changes if needed. Many releases are made throughout the process as changes to the program are made. This iteration process is repeated until the project is completed.

General management and Agile

Software programming is a critical component for almost every business today. This means that Agile is an essential process for every type of organization and form of work.

Agile methodologies that incorporate new values, practices, principles, and benefits are a better alternative to the traditional command-and-control style of project management. Agile process is even spreading throughout different industries and functions, including C-suites.

However, while many companies are adopting some Agile processes, they are still operating with a bureaucratic top-down method. In today’s digital dominant economy, companies need to develop agile management practices. But many companies still struggle with this transition and operate in a command style culture. This is reflected in the mindset and skills of the senior management and is the greatest obstacle companies face today.

Agile Practices

There are many different agile practices; many are not used by agile practitioners. Those who want to convert to using the agile process should understand the different practices to help under how they can apply the practice to their environment. The following examples help illustrate how Agile practices can be applied.

Daily Standup (Stand-Up Meetings)

Daily stand-up meetings are also called Daily Scrum meetings. The Scrum sessions are held daily by the team so they can share pertinent information. These meetings are designed to keep all team members equally informed and updated on the status of the project. The key to each meeting is brevity.

During the daily scrum meetings, each member should answer these three questions:

What did I do yesterday?
What will I do today?
What problems are hindering my progress?

User Stories

A user story is a brief description of the function wanted by the end-user. There are three elements to the user story. They are:

A written description, planning the story (usually written on a card)
A conversation about the story to gain a better understanding
A series of tests confirming the story.

The stories are written from the end user’s perspective and uses language that they understand. Stories act as currency between developers and customers; both parties clearly understand them. You can read more about 4 reasons why User Stories are not getting “done”.

Automated Testing

Implementing formal and thorough automated testing is a vital part of the agile process. The tests find and eliminate defects at their source to ensure that a working software package is delivered to the customer.

Developers can create the test code under a safety net using a variety of available frameworks while simultaneously developing the software code. This method protects other features while making changes to the software. It is also a faster, more efficient way to find bugs in the program.

Automated Builds

A key principle for Agile methodologies is to have running software at all times. In practice, the only way to do this is by ensuring that all software development is regularly and automatically compiled, built, deployed and tested. This is usually done many times a day and at least once every time a developer “checks in” code as a main part of the development branch.

Agile Planning: Release, Iteration and Task

There are three levels of Agile development planning: release, iteration, and task. In the beginning stages, project developers and customers meet to discuss the primary user stories that are needed for the software. The meeting’s initial focus is on the must-have features to estimate and prioritize what needs to be done.

Release planning is a customer-driven planning session. Both customers and developers choose a date for the first product release series. They collaboratively decide what stories to incorporate during each release. The developers focus on the estimate efforts of the story while the customers focus on the story selections. There are a variety of forms of estimate efforts that are determined by the needs and wants of the customer and development teams.

Iteration planning requires collaborative efforts between customers and developers to initiate part of the release plan. During iterations, the customer defines and prioritizes the user stories while the developers estimate how much effort is required to develop each user story. The timeline is much shorter for iterations, taking only weeks instead of months.

Task planning occurs after the iteration planning. Stories are broken down into a series of doable steps by the development team. Task lists are developed and posted in the project room so they are visible to all party members. Common tools used during this planning session include post-it notes and whiteboards. Each developer volunteers to perform a task and assign an estimate to it.

Pair Programming

In pair programming, two developers work as a team on one programming task. One person is the Driver, the person who enters the code, while the second person is the navigator, the one who plans the next steps while fitting the code into the whole picture.

One common complaint to pair programming is the waste of human resources to do the task. It should not take two people to do a job that can be done by one person. However, while the programming uses more manpower, the final output justifies the expense.

A recent study has found that pair programming uses 15% more effort but produces 15% fewer defects. While results may vary from case-to-case, developers often find that the reduction in errors is worth the extra resources used.

Another benefit is that pairing is not required the full time. Teams can establish their own rules and schedules when deciding if it’s better to pair.

Continuous Integration

During continuous integration, development teams input their code into the system several times throughout the day. A series of tests are run before the code is added to make sure it won’t damage other pre-existing tests or functions in the system.

The developer must run all the test for the system first and fix any problems before integrating the other codes. The more often code is integrated into the software, the quicker and easier it is to merge and spot errors.

Retrospectives

Retrospectives are meetings held at or near the end of a sprint. They give all parties involved a chance to look back and reflect on the work done during the process.

The entire team looks at what went well, what did not, where improvements can be made and, most importantly, how they can take the lessons that they have learned and turn them into actionable change.

Conclusion

Agile management is an exciting and fascinating approach to software development. By integrating the product developers and customers in the planning and implementing processes, the result is a more rewarding experience for everyone involved.

When Agile programming is done properly, organizations can continually find ways to increase the value to their customers. It gives more meaning to those who are actively working on the product and creates a more positive experience for the customer, producing more generous results for the company.

Did you like this article?

We enable leaders to become highly valued and recognized in order to make an impact on the World by helping them to design Digital Product Companies that will thrive and nourish in the Digital Age, we do this by applying our own ADAPT Methodology®.

If you want to know how we can help you check the page: Work With Us.

If you are interested in knowing if you have what it takes to build a Digital Product Company take the Scorecard.

If you want to learn how to build a Digital Product Company take a look at our Digital Leadership Accelerator.