A Report On Agile Methodology

Agile development and project management has its roots in the Information Technology world. A large portion of the information that follows in the next two chapters refers to IT related development and projects. That being said, Agile is not limited to IT and in fact the model is expanding well beyond strictly IT.

To this point, one stark contrast between the Waterfall and Agile methods of software development is the degree to which they involve the customer. In this sense it is easier to think of the Waterfall model as being more “predictive” and the Agile model as being more “adaptive”. There are milestones in either case, but the changes that are a result of customer input drive the flow of development in an Agile system (Arken 2008). One can see how the “adaptive vs. predictive” differences can become more of a problem where finances are concerned.

Stages are groups of activities that can be performed in series or parallel. Stage gates are structured decision points at the end of each state. They are needed between phases in order to make a decision of whether the project should continue with original objectives, should be terminated or should continue with revised objectives. The purpose of stage gates is also to allow sponsors to identify any failures and help in taking decisions for better utilization of resources. Stage gates make way for a standard and structured decision making process. However, good project management also suggests that too many gates can lead to excessive time getting spent on preparing gate reviews as opposed to actually managing the

In order to achieve successful results within established time-frames and budgets, project managers are likely to employ methodologies models. A project methodology is a model that aids managers to plan, design and implement their project goals. Project methodologies are helpful to project manager in any field, for instance, Niel Nickolaisen CIO at the Western Governors University, is an advocate for the agile software development methodology. As these models grants flexibility when dealing with stipulations and scope changes on a project. Needless to say the agile software development methodology is just one example of a varied assortment of methodologies, each with their strengths and weakness. As such, it is up to the project manager to decide which methodology fits their needs, as there isn`t a one fits all solution.

“Agile” was first introduced in 2001, by a team of software engineers looking to improve their adaptiveness and responsiveness to ever-changing requirements. Not knowing where to begin, the team began by formulating principles, which they would use to guide their new development process. Which, in turn, lead to the creation of the Agile Manifesto, and thus a new methodology was born.

The Agile Methodology Principles makes the development much faster because the primary importance is given to the customer satisfaction and continuously delivers product. Even though requirements change at the ending phase the product is developed. The Agile development insist the self-organizing team which can create requirements, best architectures, best models. The Agile development promotes a distinct way of thinking to build things and methods to deliver continuous improvement of product. It facilitates to make best practices and decisions together. It a development to promote the adaptive planning, continuous improvement, evolutionary development and delivery, and required time to complete work. It encourages for rapid response to change in the whole development cycle. The project team prefers agile development to move in a creative and quick way. The project progress also depends on working software and project environment and support is provided and built by the individuals. They promote the sustainable environment. Constant attention is provided to the technical excellence and best models are given by the agile methodology. This principle helps the project team members

Agile project works in detail. The second paper covers three major plan-driven methodologies -PSP, TSP,

XP is one of the agile methods which is defined as Extreme Programming, many new developers and designers are tending to follow these methodologies than the age old techniques. But managers who are accustomed to the traditional way of software development are finding it difficult in accepting these new approaches. Furthermore the plan-driven approach also has many underlying advantages such as focusing on the major goals of the project which is named as “major milestone” on the contrary to “micro milestones or inch pebbles”. In the plan-driven approach more planning is emphasized which pressurize the development teams to follow the pre specified documentation even at the minor levels of modification at technology, commercial and personal aspects. The author of the article suggests that there should be at least three milestones in the software development process. Firstly for the progress of the project in order to know the current status of the project. Secondly for the stakeholder’s checkpoint i.e. to check the progress on the development process form the stakeholders point of view whether the commitment given to them is fulfilled or not. The planning spectrum demonstrates the models on straight line where the unplanned hacking is on the left of the spectrum and the inch pebble in on the extreme right.

By adopting Agile practices, the organization will pursue consistent, successful delivery of projects regardless of company department or project size.

The idea behind Agile is to put people before processes, to deliver working software versus mountains of documentation, to collaborate with clients rather than negotiate contracts, and lastly to be agile rather than rigidly following a plan (History: The Agile Manifesto).

Agile methodology is an approach to project management and agile software methodology is not a one methodology but a set of methodologies which share common characteristics to achieve business goals. Before 1950’s project management have taken place in an informal way for many eras and after an ameliorating of formal project management methodologies began to be defined and swiftly spared through the industry rather than traditional methodologies. The traditional approach of project management identified a set of sequences of steps to be completed such as initiation, planning and design, execution and construction, monitoring and controlling and completion but not all projects will have every stage and some projects can be terminated before they reach completion. When it derived to IT industry in the past few years there’s been

Ones the requirements are collected a target can be planned but it can also very difficult to know form the beginning how the project will be looking because changes are welcome in any stage of the development. Changes can occur during the development process which can change the whole process but is also very flexible. A strong developer and customer can be established during every iteration which can help to identify the user needs and make clearer about project and what the user actually wants from the project and what his or her expectations are. Faults can be detected in better because of the

Agile techniques should be used to solve the current issues faced by the company as agile techniques normally being used by the software industry help the business to act in response under the unpredictable situations faced. In Agile methodologies opportunities are been provided to evaluate whether the project is under the direction all through its development cycle. All this is being accomplished with the help of regular tempo kept in work, and the teams must show a product which is having the desired potential.

Over the last 13 years, since the publication of Agile Manifesto, Agile has become very popular and there has been a steady rise in the adoption of agile development methodologies resulting into an increased volume of successful projects and highly motivated and self-organized IT development teams.

In conclusion, agile software development is a very exciting and useful approach, although some project suit agile more than others. The collaboration and visibility can provide a much better and rewarding experience for the team to develop software products. Over the last years, many companies dramatically improved their performances