Ways To Go Agile In Your Software Development

What's the best way of creating a relevant, high-quality software product? Some say it's agile development. What's so good about it? Saving money is not the forte of agile development (although there are ways to do it). The main thing is the flexibility of the process and of the product itself - vital relevance for the market.

A quick glance at the main values of the agile approach will allow you to understand whether it suits you and your own business approach:

• Individuals and interactions provide the self-organization and sharing of ideas and experience for the sake of the product quality.

• Working software is more important than comprehensive documentation, which rather distinguishes the waterfall model. You don't deploy documentation - you deploy the product. Your users don't need documentation - they need a great product to use. On the other hand we'd never underestimate the importance of every piece of documentation you have. Although the working result is of higher priority, you should invest into documentation to get the working software faster and with fewer problems on the way.

• Customer collaboration is required to keep the requirements relevant and clarify them in the process of development. You need to communicate with your software company to know that they are building exactly what you want - meanwhile they are sure they are building the product the way you want. Fruitful collaboration is valued over negotiating contract details - a must for result-oriented teams.

• Responding to change means everything in the mobile world. Your product doesn't run the risks to become dated or incompatible with your business or the mobile environment.

Most software companies embrace agile development, and they apply certain frameworks and methodologies to making your product. Here are five popular ways to go agile.

Scrum

Scrum is a widely used framework to manage projects incrementally: the whole project cycle is divided into short periods of time (sprints), at the end of each the Product Owner receives a tangible part of software. One sprint usually lasts 2 weeks. Goals for each subsequent sprint are based on the results achieved at the previous one, they are discussed and approved by the Product Owner.

Whatever is the amount of work, Scrum allows to divide and manage it efficiently, putting the common output of the team to the forefront. Other priorities are communication, transparency of actions, self-organization and motivation. It also values considering technological and business conditions to push the project in the right direction, keeping the work process structured but avoiding excessive bureaucracy.

Put all this together, and you'll get the flexibility to make and maintain a relevant product (satisfaction of the Product Owner's demands), effective planning of the budget (due to iterational approach), and convenience for the development team, where each voice is valued.

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