What are Agile Frameworks
Continuing the agile topic, we would like to refer to the subject of agile frameworks. What are these frameworks? How were they developed? How to choose the one that is suitable for your business? The answers for the questions and more you will find in this article.
We have already spoken about agile and its differences with the waterfall methodology. But there is one common thing they share: they are not universal. Every business model is unique; thus, it requires a unique approach. Nowadays a great number of companies admit the implementation of a hybrid methodology in their organisation. Another word to call a hybrid approach is a framework.
Currently there are more than fifty agile frameworks. All of them could be differentiated by two main parameters: the size of an organisation it was designed for and the loyalty to the agile’s initial values and principles.
Let’s briefly speak about the most known and used agile frameworks.
Scrum
Scrum is a framework designed for small teams. According to Scrum Guide it is described as, “…a framework within which people can address complex adaptive problems, while productively and creatively delivering products of the highest possible value.”
Scrum processes are executed by three roles, such as scrum master, scrum team and product owner, where a scrum muster is a leader guiding the team and product owner is a person setting the project priorities.
Extreme Programming (XP)
Extreme Programming is another team-level framework. One of the main XP focuses is releasing new features for the project as frequent as possible. Core values for this framework are communication, simplicity, respect and constant feedback.
Worth mentioning that Extreme Programming prioritizes technical practices. It implements methods like pair programming, simple design, behaviour and test-driven development, etc.
Kanban
Same as Scrum and Extreme Programming, Kanban is best suited for small teams. The main characteristic of this framework that differentiates it from others is visualising of the work progress. Even the word “kanban” originating from Japanese language that means “visual signal” or “card”. One of the ways to execute it by using the Kanban board, where all the work processes and their statuses are displayed.
Kanban is a flexible framework, which can be used outside of software development.
SAFe
Scaled Agile Framework or SAFe is a framework created for big teams or software companies. It helps bigger organisations to implement the agile methodology and manage multiple small agile teams. Scaled Agile Framework uses practices designed for Scrum, Extreme Programming and Kanban.
Nexus
Nexus can be described as the Scrum framework created for managing multiple teams. This framework helps three to nine Scrum teams to release a single product, using sprints of up to thirty days.
One of the main goals of Nexus framework is decreasing the complexity of cross-team dependencies.
DA
Disciplined Agile or DA is an agile framework for multiple teams, which accents “people first” approach among others. This framework provides a lightweight guidance for software development teams to practice Agile in big organisations. DA can often be described as a hybrid of Scrum, XP and Kanban.
To conclude, we would like to say that the choice of the right approach among more than fifty different frameworks may look quite challenging. The only way to implement the suitable one for your business is through the trial-and-error method.
In our next article we discuss in detail the topic of Scrum framework.
The Livex Software development team is highly skilled in all areas of development and can develop the perfect software system for your business needs.