Software agile process

Scrum is just one of the many iterative and incremental agile software development methods. You can find here a very detailed description of the process. Sep 12, Scrum is a form of Agile methodology used to manage environments of complex software and product development.

Productivity is higher, time-to-benefits is minimal, and the product is adapted easily to fast-changing requirements. Jul 29, Agile Scrum Methodology is one of the popular Agile software development methods. Each Sprint starts with a planning meeting, where the tasks for the sprint are identified and an estimated commitment for the sprint goal is made. A Sprint ends with a review or retrospective meeting where the progress is reviewed and lessons for the next sprint are identified.

During each Sprint, the team creates finished portions of a Product. In the Agile methods each iteration involves a team working through a full software development cycle, including planning, requirements analysis, design, coding, unit testing, and acceptance testing when a working product is demonstrated to stakeholders.

Scrum is an iterative and incremental agile software development method for managing software projects and product or application development. So Scrum is in fact a type of Agile approach which is used widely in software developments. Agile allows constant and better client interaction and involvement and is very much flexible with requirement changes at any stage.

While Waterfall focuses majorly on product completion, Agile majorly focus on customer engagement and satisfaction. Instead of focusing on phases, agile focuses on small releases sprint wise and gives high priority to client feedback. Unlike waterfall model, where all processes are divided into phases and one phase is followed after another, in case of Agile, all the processes are iterative and are repeated in every sprint. For example, while in case of waterfall model, Design phase is followed by Development phase and which is again followed by Testing phase, in case of Agile, every sprint comprises of a design process followed by development and then testing.

User acceptance is performed at the end of every sprint. This enables enhanced and effective team interaction and more client involvement in the project. Unlike waterfall model, where testing is done once development phase is finished, developers and testers work together in case of agile. While Agile altogether can be defined as a software development approach with sets of ideas and principles of its own or more of a manifesto, there are different type of models through which it can be implemented in a real time development process.

One of the widely known and followed agile types, Scrum process usually is followed in a small team. It majorly focuses on managing the process in a development team.

It uses a scrum board and divides the whole development process into sprints. While the duration of the sprint may vary between 2 weeks to 1 month, each of them is defined by analysis, development as well as user acceptance.

Scrum also focuses on team interaction as well as effective client involvement. The product owner also assigns and manages the requirements based on their priority order in each sprint. For each sprint, the product backlog is prepared by the product owner which comprises of requirements or tasks and user stories for that particular sprint.

Once the tasks are selected for that sprint backlog, the development team works on those tasks and executes them as a product sprint wise.

The scrum master manages the whole sprint process and takes care of the smooth execution of plan. Everyday there is a small meeting of around 15 mins, called the daily Scrum or stand up meeting, where the scrum master gets the status update regarding the product backlog and tries to find out if there is any blockage for further action.

Some non-functional testing types include load testing, compatibility testing, usability testing, scalability testing and so on. The Kanban methodology is somehow similar to Scrum. Developed by Taiichi Ohno, it is derived from a Japanese word meaning an instruction card which gets followed during the production cycle of a product.

It is more of a visual methodology which is quite dependent on its Kanban Board similar to a Scrum board, which contains the complete workflow schedule of the development process. Unlike Scrum, where only the sprint tasks are added to the board, all the tasks related to the production schedule are added into the Kanban board in form of cards. Typically the tasks are divided into 3 columns such as Completed tasks, To-do tasks, ongoing tasks. Unlike Scrum, task completion based on priority is optional in Kanban and it can contain all the tasks related to the whole developmental cycle at one place.

Extreme Programming or simply called as XP prioritizes customer satisfaction over anything else. Managers make sure team members have, or obtain, the right skill sets. Managers provide the environment that allows the team to be successful. Managers mostly step back and let their team figure out how they are going to deliver products, but they step in when the teams try but are unable to resolve issues. When most teams and organizations start doing Agile development, they focus on the practices that help with collaboration and organizing the work, which is great.

However, another key set of practices that are not as frequently followed but should be are specific technical practices that directly deal with developing software in a way that helps your team deal with uncertainty.

Here is a look at how Agile emerged, how it acquired the label Agile, and where it went from there. Many people peg the start of Agile software development, and to some extent Agile in general, to a meeting that occurred in when the term Agile software development was coined. However, people started working in an Agile fashion before that meeting.

These software developers started mixing old and new ideas, and when they found a combination that worked, they created a methodology for their team to help them remember the combination of ideas that worked in a given situation. These methodologies emphasized close collaboration between the development team and business stakeholders; frequent delivery of business value, tight, self-organizing teams; and smart ways to craft, confirm, and deliver code.

The people who created those methodologies figured that others might be interested in getting some of the same benefits they were experiencing, so they created frameworks to spread the ideas to other teams in other organizations and contexts. The spread of the ideas at this time was very organic, and all of those different approaches started to grow in a very grassroots manner.

People borrowed the original frameworks and tweaked them with different practices to make them appropriate for their own contexts. When they got together, they did some skiing and also discussed where their approaches to software development had commonalities and differences. The two main things the Agile Manifesto did was to provide a set of value statements that form the foundation for Agile software development and to coin the term Agile software development itself.

In the months afterward, the authors expanded on the ideas of the Agile Manifesto with the 12 Principles Behind the Agile Manifesto. People could go online and sign it to show their support. Agile Alliance was officially formed in late as a place for people who are developing software and helping others develop software to explore and share ideas and experiences.

Teams and organizations started to adopt Agile, led primarily by people doing the development work in the teams. Gradually, managers of those teams also started introducing Agile approaches in their organizations. As Agile became more widely known, an ecosystem formed that included the people who were doing Agile software development and the people and organizations who helped them through consulting, training, frameworks, and tools. As the ecosystem began to grow and Agile ideas began to spread, some adopters lost sight of the values and principles espoused in the manifesto and corresponding principles.

Organizations that focus solely on the practices and the rituals experience difficulties working in an Agile fashion. Instead, it simply becomes the way they approach work. Agile Alliance continues to curate resources to help you adopt Agile practices and improve your ability to develop software with agility. The Agile Alliance website provides access to those resources including videos and presentations from our conferences , experience reports , an Agile Glossary , a directory of local community groups , and several other resources.

Those values and principles provide guidance on how to create and respond to change and how to deal with uncertainty. When you face uncertainty, try something you think might work, get feedback, and adjust accordingly. Keep the values and principles in mind when you do this. Let your context guide which frameworks, practices, and techniques you use to collaborate with your team and deliver value to your customers.

If Agile is a mindset, then what does that say about the idea of Agile methodologies? To answer this question, you may find it helpful to have a clear definition of methodology. Alistair Cockburn suggested that a methodology is the set of conventions that a team agrees to follow. So Agile methodologies are the conventions that a team chooses to follow in a way that follows Agile values and principles.

The team will always need to adapt its use of a framework to fit properly in its context. The Agile Manifesto and the 12 Principles were written by a group of software developers and a tester to address issues that software developers faced. When you think of Agile as a mindset, that mindset can be applied to other activities. When you do that, Agile becomes an adjective. It describes how you perform some activity. It does not create a new methodology for the reasons explained above.

You might say that business agility is a recognition that in order for people in an organization to operate with an Agile mindset, the entire organization needs to support that mindset. Agile software development was never truly Agile until the organization changed its structure and operations to work in an uncertain environment.

Below are a few key Agile concepts. You can see more in our glossary section. A small minority of team members may be part-time contributors, or may have competing responsibilities. To put in simple terms, Agile helps teams in delivering value to customers quickly and effortlessly. The work provided, although small, is in usable increments.

The requirements, plans, and results are evaluated consistently. Thanks to this, teams are able to respond to changes swiftly and efficiently. The agile manifesto mainly focuses on these values:. Extreme Programming is a framework that helps teams create the highest quality of software while improving their quality of life. It combines software development with appropriate engineering processes.

This method is primarily used for designing, managing, and improving the flow of systems. With Kanban, organizations can better visualize their workflow and reduce the amount of work in progress. It is a set of tools and principles that identify and remove waste, to speed up process development. It emphasizes on maximizing value to the client while minimizing waste.