Introduction to Agile Models:
Agile is a software development process, as everyone is aware.
We also learned about the concepts and values that the agile pioneers stated in their manifesto. We also avoided talking about the distinctions between agile and the conventional waterfall methods in our early conversations.
This lesson will teach us about the benefits and drawbacks of the agile methodology.
Can we see what the scrum is? and how it is different from agile. Then we will understand the various agile methodologies that are being used by different organizations and how we can implement agile use them.
You will also be able to appreciate the difference and also the advantages/disadvantages of these methodologies.
Advantages of Agile Methodology
Given below are the various advantages of Agile Methodology:
- At the conclusion of each iteration or sprint, the client is consistently given a glimpse and feel of the project’s development.
- Every sprint gives the client a functional piece of software that satisfies their requirements based on their own definition of done.
- Even at the most advanced phases of development, our development team can adapt to changes in requirements since they are highly responsive.
- All stakeholders, including business and technical ones, have clear visibility into the project’s development because of the continuous two-way communication that keeps the consumers interested.
- The product’s design is effective and meets the needs of the company.
Disadvantages of Agile Methodology
Though there are several advantages of Agile methodology, there are certain disadvantages involved in it too.
They are:
#1) Because thorough documentation is not recommended, agile teams may mistakenly believe that documentation is not necessary for agile. As a result, documentation loses its rigor. By constantly asking oneself if this is enough information to move forward or not, you may avoid this.
#2) The needs may not always be very evident at the start of a project. As the project progresses, the team may discover that the client’s vision has changed. In these cases, numerous adjustments must be made, and it can be challenging to predict the final outcome.
Types of Agile Methodologies
There are several agile methodologies in practice across the world. We are going to learn more in detail about four of the most popular ones.
#1) Scrum
Scrum is without a doubt the most widely used agile framework. Most practitioners regard “scrum” to be equivalent with “agile.” However, that is not true. One framework that can be used to deploy agile is Scrum.
Sports rugby is where the word scrum originates. where the players press against their opponents while huddled together in an interlaced configuration. Every player has a certain job to play in their position and can switch between offensive and defensive play depending on the circumstances.
In a similar vein, the IT scrum philosophy supports giving self-managed development teams three distinct and well-defined roles. These positions include those of Scrum Master (SM), Product Owner (PO), and the development team, which consists of testers and programmers. They collaborate in iterative time boxed durations called sprints..
The first step is the creation of the product backlog by the PO. It’s a to-do list of stuff to be done by the scrum team. Then the scrum team selects the top priority items and tries to finish them within the time box called a sprint.
An easier way to remember all of this is to memorize the 3-3-5 framework. It means that a scrum project has 3 roles, 3 artifacts, and 5 events.
These are –
Roles: PO, Scrum master, and development team.
Artifacts: Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog and Product increment.
Events: Sprint, Sprint planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint review and Sprint retrospective.
We will get to know more in detail about each of these in our subsequent tutorials.
#2) Kanban
The Japanese word “kanban” means “card.” These cards include information on the software work that needs to be done. Visualization is the goal. With the help of these visual aids, each team member is aware of the task at hand.
These Kanban cards are used by teams to ensure continuous delivery. Similar to Scrum, Kanban encourages self-managed and cooperative teams and aids in team productivity.
“Kanban” is a Japanese term that means “card.” The software work that has to be done is detailed on these cards. The objective is visualization. Each team member is aware of the task at hand thanks to these visual aids.
Teams utilize these Kanban cards to guarantee continuous supply. Like Scrum, Kanban promotes autonomous, collaborative teams and increases team output.
Another distinction is that Kanban is completely optional and does not require product backlog prioritization, whereas Scrum must. As a result, Kanban requires less organization, stays away from non-value-added operations, and works well for processes that need to be flexible.
#3) Lean
Lean is a philosophy that focuses on waste reduction. How does it do that?
Value-adding, non-value-adding, and key non-value-adding activities are the three categories into which lean processes are divided. Any operation that falls under the category of non-value adding is waste, and in order to make the process leaner, we should attempt to eliminate that waste.
Faster delivery and less work wasted on tasks that don’t advance the team’s objectives are two benefits of a leaner approach. This makes each stage of the software development cycle more efficient. For this reason, lean manufacturing ideas were applied to software development.
Lean software development can be used in any IT project by applying the seven lean principles which are shown below:
These are quite self-explanatory as their names suggest. Eliminating wastage is the first and most important lean principle and we saw how to do that, we just classify activities as value and non-value add.
A non-value add activity can be any part of the code which might make it less robust, increase the effort involved and take up a lot of time while not adding justifiable business value. It can also be vague user stories or poor testing or adding features that are not required in the big picture.
The second principle amplifying learning is again easy to understand as a team needs various skills to deliver products in a rapidly changing environment with new technologies cropping up in quick durations.
Making late decisions can be rewarding in circumstances where it reduces rework as if there are any changes expected then it is better to delay it so that the team does not have to redo the work as the business needs to change.
But there is always a trade-off here as the teams need to balance this with the fourth principle of delivering faster. Delayed decisions should not impact overall delivery and must not reduce the pace of work. One eye should always be on the complete picture.
Having empowered teams is also very common nowadays and this is something that even agile suggests. Empowered teams are more responsible and can make decisions faster. The sense of ownership in an empowered team leads to better results. To empower a team, they should be allowed to organize themselves and make decisions on their own.
Thus, we see that lean and agile have a lot in common, with one stark difference – while lean teams can help to refine a product, agile teams are the ones who build the product.
#4) Extreme Programming (XP)
Another well-liked agile method is extreme programming. According to extremeprogramming.org, on March 6, 1996, the first XP project was launched. Additionally, they point out that XP influences software project development in five ways: courage, respect, communication, simplicity, and feedback. These are referred to as the XP values.
The first step in all of these is communication. XP teams begin writing code on the first day and regularly work together with business teams and other programmers. Using additional visual aids, the emphasis here is on face-to-face communication as much as possible.
Additionally, extreme programmers create a basic piece of code and begin receiving feedback on it right away. The emphasis is on staying within reasonable bounds or forecasting uncommunicated requirements. This keeps the design straightforward and creates the bare minimum of a product that satisfies the specifications.
Feedback helps the team to improve and produce a better quality of work. This helps them build respect for each other as they learn from each other and learn how to share their views.
This also gives them the courage as they know that they have gathered everyone’s best ideas and produced a good product with feedback from others. Thus, they are also not afraid to include changes or receive further feedback on their work.
This is especially helpful for projects whose requirements will change frequently. Teams will be able to bravely implement these changes with the support of ongoing feedback.
Thus, the various agile approaches—such as Scrum, XP, Kanban, and Lean—as well as their benefits and drawbacks have been shown.
We are now able to distinguish between them with ease and recognize their more nuanced variations. Additionally, we studied the foundations of each of these approaches and saw how to use them in our projects as necessary.
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