Time and again, technology is upgraded and with that, there are upgradations in the client’s requirements. To meet the client’s requirements with the latest cutting edge technologies, there has to be a methodology to drive the development progress.
The major aspects to look after in a development cycle are:
- Client’s requirements
- Current trends
- User friendliness
- Time span
- Budget
In order to meet these requirements for a software development, there came a lot of different methodologies. Various methodologies had their respective pros and cons and a set of followers. As said, Necessity is the mother of Invention, inventions kept taking place and developers started accepting the new methodologies. Take a look at various methodologies that evolved with the time frame:
- Waterfall Model
- Iterative Model
- Spiral Model
- V-Model
- Big Bang Model
- Agile Methodology
Let’s bring into lime light the most trendy methodology!
Agile Methodology – An Overview:
As opposed to the waterfall methodology, Agile Methodology does not initially focus a lot on detailed requirements, rather it focuses on the timeline. It is something like a client says I need an Employee Management System for my company and these are the major features.
The developer’s team, without going into a detailed description of the requirements gives a timeline. It is like “Okey, our team can do this in two months and according to our rates X amount would be the costing for this.”
Then comes the time for brainstorming, development, testing and review with the client. This cycle continues until the product is fully developed. In the Agile Methodology, there is no more requirement of testing at the end of the product development because it is a part of daily routine.
Here the client is involved at every stage of development and there are daily releases of the product. This way the client can exactly know how his product is taking up shape. As the client is involved in all the processes, he can ask for some new required features and can avoid the unwanted features on the go.
The Agile Development Team:
To work with Agile process, it is suggested to have smaller team size. If your team size is large, break it down into small teams. Rather than a lot of documentation over the plan to develop a product, ask your team to start working from day one.
Give your team, power to make decisions regarding the project development and its features. In a team, there shall not be different people for different tasks at different places. For an example, this should never be the scenario that your designer is sitting in another office, front-end developer into another office and the back-end developers at the other place.
All should be working near to each other to reduce the communication gap. As communication among the team members and with the client as well, is one of the most important and helpful aspects of Agile Methodology.
Benefits of Agile Methodology:
- Client engagement: This is one of the major benefits of the Agile Methodology. As the client is continuously associated with the project, the whole product is developed according to the need of the client. This reduces the time in changes at the end.
- No extra time for testing at the end: With the Agile Methodology, the testing is done while in the development stage, itself. Testing is done almost every day or on completion of every small module. So the time to be given for testing reduces to an almost negligible amount.
- Modifications are easy: There are releases almost every day. So, the client is in constant touch with the project and the developers. Thus, whenever the client needs a change, it could be done at the same time and the next modules could be developed accordingly.
- Fixed timeline: With the Agile development, the timeline almost remains steady. This helps to deliver the project on stipulated time and also the client can have a grip on the budget.
- Can create more value in terms of business and usefulness: As the client knows, in what flow is his product going, he can analyze more over it and can get some extra features. As there is constant communication between the developers and the client they together can generate some new ideas as well.
