Agile Project Management

Introduction to Agile Methods by Hayes and Andrews gives detailed-oriented information about different aspects of agile methods like why there is a need for new software development processes and pitfalls of traditionally methodologies and how this lead to emergence of agile methods. They describe various existing agile methods but describes only one in great detailed – Extreme Programming(XP). They define Extreme Programming as agile, adaptive software methodology having well defined values - Communication, Simplicity, Feedback, and Courage. Failing in achieving this values will result in failing Extreme Programming. Extreme Programming is used only when you have complete understanding of the business and requirements. Extreme Programming follow a series of iteration to deliver the final project. Initially the story heard from the customer is broken down into smaller stories such that the developers can assign time to develop that stories and then its deliver to the customers for feedback. Coach plays a vital role in Extreme Programming. Afterwards Hayes and Andrews describe how XP differs from traditional methodologies. They also explain the common misconception about Extreme Programming is spread around the world. There are only fewer companies in the world that uses Extreme Programming because people are afraid of changing to new methods.

One of the initial steps in researching a problem is to know exactly what the problem is and compose a problem statement that unambiguously identifies and defines the problem to research. Sekaran (2003) said, “No amount of good research can find solutions to the situation, if the critical issue or the problem to be studied is not clearly pinpointed” (p. 69). The area of research for this paper focuses on software development, in particular, the study of agile software development methodologies and if these methodologies are successful in delivering software on time, within budget, and includes the requested features.

Abstract: Agile software development is a conceptual framework for software engineering that promotes development in iterations throughout the life-cycle of the project .Software developed during one unit of time is referred to as an iteration, which may last from one to four week Scrum is part of the Agile movement. It is a lightweight process framework for agile development. The Scrum method is most often used to manage complex software and product development, using iterative and incremental practices. And results have been shown about significantly increase in productivity and reduces time to benefits relative to classic “waterfall” processes. But scrum method also have some problems and to overcome the problems a new approach is proposed

Agile Software Development: The iterative development strategy focuses on incremental delivery of usable software ("What is Agile Software Development?", 2017)

Also, agile software engineering sought to ensure the continued and rapid delivery of changes and new ideas would impress upon the customer that the engineers were able to react to constantly changing situations (Cockburn, 2001). Meanwhile, it was also considered important to allow for constant changes, including changes at the very last minute, just as the product was ready to be unveiled. Finally, it was felt that the process had become almost more important than the outcome, so agile software engineering favoured the production of working software, which it saw as the principal measure of progress (in terms of regular deliveries of beta versions), rather than long-term targets (Eckstein, 2004).

In conclusion to this paper I have found that the Agile Manifesto is a great approach to use when it comes to understanding Agile and was that it can better our future. The three principals can be viewed as 1) prediction do not always come out to expectations but learn to adapt to the outcome,2) find people with the skills needed to accomplish the goal but that can also work as a team and 3) figure a way to adapt to new and refine way of things. I know that the principals that have been established are not only great tools to help build, maintain and move software but are great steps to use when really working with any type of project.

Agile development is a relatively new management framework for knowledge work projects, focusing on the socio-technical nature of project teams and creative collaboration (Gandomani & Nafchi, 2016). Software development is at the forefront of the transition to agile methodologies (Lechler & Siwen, 2017) and I am currently studying for the PMI Agile

Agile Development is a term coined in 2001 during two-day meeting between seventeen people who gathered at Snowbird Ski Resort in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah(Highsmith, 2001)[3]. The people gathered were the software pioneers trying to establish a common ground and a united stance in worldwide software development community. The outcome was an extraordinary Agile Manifesto for software development. The below table gives an influential value set from The Agile Manifesto of 2001.

The way that software is developed has been rapidly evolving over time, going through many iterations, one genre of which is Agile software development. The Agile Manifesto1 was published in 2001, however the ideas behind it have existed and used since the early 1970’s when E. A. Edmonds published a paper that introduced the idea of an adaptive software development process2. Then in the 1990’s there was a rapid evolution of software development processes. This lead to the creation of scrum in 1995, extreme programming in 1996 and feature-driven development in 1997. Though they were devised before the Agile Manifesto was created, they now all fall under Agile software development. Agile software development methods are generally considered much better than previous methods, such as the Waterfall method, though it is still considered to be in its early stages with many issues3.

Agile software development has steadily gained momentum and acceptability over the decade as a variable approach of software development and it is a favorable perspective to design Fantasy

Agile methodology is sound approach for software development. The main focus is on people. Customer as well as team members are base of success and failure of a project in agile environment (Mohammad et al., 2013). Agile methodology is based on some core values and principles that should be followed by an agile practitioner while developing projects in agile environment (Stellman & Greene, 2014). The main characteristics of agile includes its iterative nature, high customer satisfaction and quick adaptation to changes (Sharma, Sarkar, & Gupta, 2012).

Today’s world market is much faster. Every industry is now become the result orientated. They need results in quick time. Like any other industry IT industries also force to make the changes in concepts and techniques they were using traditionally. The traditional models like waterfall, Incremental model, RAID model are not useful for most of the current project requirement. Nowadays project requirements depend on many other unstable concepts, which make the project less predictable. Because of these entire unpredictable project, agile becomes the first choice of most of the clients. The agile software development methods are more adaptive approach, while conventional/traditional software development methods are predictive approach. In traditional method all the project development plan is created before starting the actual development. Once the designing is completed we can’t make changes. On the other hand an agile methodology has the provision to acquire such changes even after the coding is started. Agile relies more on the incremental, iterative development cycles. Agile methodology software is developed in the small periods. Agile is for the projects whose requirements are not fully discovered, projects where output is not predictable. This makes the agile methodology more suitable for the current market situation.

Software development is one of the highest demands in all over the world. We use software development techniques to solve the problems and to satisfy customers. Agile software development is a conceptual framework for software; it is also a group of software development methods based on iterative development. In 2001, agile software development was created by seventeen people with a desire to find alternative approaches to software development. The most important thing about agile methods are team work, conveying information to the team, face to face conversation, and satisfy the customer. There are various methodologies but I am going to describe the most popular ones.

Project methodology is a model in which project managers integrate the planning, implementation, design and achievement of project goals and objectives. There are different types of the project management methodologies are used in the different types of the projects (Charvat, 2003). Following are the most frequently used project management methodologies.

Matharu, Mishra, Singh, & Upadhyay (2015, p. 1) state that, “agile methods are characterized by shorter development cycles, higher customer interaction, incremental delivery, frequent redesign with accommodation of changes necessitated by dynamic user requirements.” The Agarwal et al. text explores three of the most popular agile methods, Scrum, Extreme Programming (EP), and Kanban. All of these agile methods follow The Agile Manifesto (Beck, et al., 2001).