What is agile
In our previous articles we spoke briefly about methodology of software development, which, in its nature, is a set of acts that organize a successful creation of a new application by a team of developers.
As you already know, one of the first methodologies invented was so called “waterfall”. Due to its linear nature, the waterfall requires a lot of documentation and series of processes to be done before the development process could be initiated. That is why this method is often described as a heavyweight one. Regardless its pros and undeniable demand within certain business spheres, the lack of room for adaptation to constantly changing conditions created the need for a more flexible way to develop applications. And in 2001 such a method was created. In this article we would like to speak about waterfall’s antagonist – the agile.
As mentioned above, since 1970 the main methodology reined for decades was waterfall. In the beginning of XXI century a group of software developers created “The Manifesto for Agile Software Development”. According to the manifesto, the new methodology’s main principles are:
- The cooperation between developers and customers.
- Wiliness to adapt at any time to constant changes in a working process.
- Presenting to clients features of software as soon as they are ready.
- Prioritising face-to face communication over documentation.
- Team collaboration and cross-functionality.
- Constant improvement.
Let’s discuss these principles more in depth. As it was mentioned above, the agile welcomes customer collaboration. While delivering the updates of software to the client frequently, the team receives feedback and can adjust their development process accordingly. Therefore, choosing agile as working methodology results in constantly quality and actuality improvement of the final product.
Being development focused approach, agile requires developers to be able to communicate frequently, be flexible, to assist and to be able to substitute each other if the situation requires so. That is to say, for agile to be successfully executed, team members need to be highly motivated and skilful individuals.
In other words, agile can be described as a way to create a development process, where self-organized individuals are able to cooperate with each other, as well as their clients, in conditions of ever-changing requirements. Thus, this approach is indispensable in business models, where feedback from the customers can play a crucial role.
The Livex Software development team is highly skilled in all areas of development and can develop the perfect software system for your business needs.