Monday, June 16, 2014

What is Agile Methodology?

Agile Methodology is considered a ground-breaking practice in project management. Tied closely with software development, Agile Methodology is essentially a practice that helps project management anticipate and counter unpredictability and vulnerability. The quintessential aim of the Agile Methodology is to help avoid project delays and overruns by addressing bottlenecks at all stages of the project development. This goes a long way in cutting the costs and other problems associated with keeping all these activities towards the end of the project, by when it could be either too expensive or impractical to carry out these critical changes.

Deeply related to software project management
As the discipline of software grew, it spawned and spanned several technologies, as well as business requirements, which had to accommodate the new changes. This necessitated the development of a flexible system or model of software development, the culmination of which resulted in the Agile Methodology.
Agile Methodology did not come into effect out of the blue. It took persistent effort from the IT community to arrive at a model of project management that addressed their needs in a comprehensive manner.

Agile Methodology is not a standalone
The term 'Agile' is a comprehensive term with which several models used for agile development –Scrum being the primary one among them –are identified.

Features of Agile Methodology
1.      The overwhelming emphasis that the Agile Methodology focuses on is that the whole team should be tightly knit. It takes everyone and all aspects, be it quality assurance, developers, the customer, as well as project management itself, in the loop.
2.      Since coordination and integration of such complex parts is integral to project management; the Agile Methodology attaches a high degree of importance to frequent communication. The frequency of these meetings is best determined by the team based on its convenience, but meeting at least once a day is considered an acceptable frequency to discuss and take action on the progress made, so that oversights can be spotted and rectified then and there.
3.      Agile Methodology also has what are called sprints. These are delivery cycles. These sprints are designed keeping in mind the fact that there could be short-term deliveries, ranging from one to four weeks.
4.      The Agile Methodology facilitates very open communication techniques and tools. Everyone in the team –the customer included –is encouraged to express views and offer feedback in an open and transparent manner. When the software is being implemented; these are considered seriously.
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