Agile Methodology

Agile methodology is an approach to project management, typically used in software development. It helps teams respond to the unpredictability of building software through incremental, iterative work cadences, known as sprints. But before discussing agile methodologies further, it’s best to first turn to the methodology that inspired it: waterfall, or traditional sequential development.

Agile development methodology attempts to provide many opportunities to assess the direction of a project throughout the development lifecycle. This is achieved through regular cadences of work, known as sprints or iterations, at the end of which teams must present a shippable increment of work. Thus by focusing on the repetition of abbreviated work cycles as well as the functional product they yield, agile methodology could be described as iterative and “incremental.” In waterfall, development teams only have one chance to get each aspect of a project right. In an agile paradigm, every aspect of development requirements, design, etc. is continually revisited throughout the lifecycle. When a team stops and re-evaluates the direction of a project every two weeks, there’s always time to steer it in another direction.

The results of this “inspect-and-adapt” approach to development greatly reduce both development costs and time to market. Because teams can gather requirements at the same time they’re gathering requirements, the phenomenon known as “analysis paralysis” can’t really impede a team from making progress. And because a team’s work cycle is limited to two weeks, it gives stakeholders recurring opportunities to calibrate releases for success in the real world. In essence, it could be said that the agile development methodology helps companies build the right product. Instead of committing to market a piece of software that hasn’t even been written yet, agile empowers teams to optimize their release as it’s developed, to be as competitive as possible in the marketplace. In the end, a development agile methodology that preserves a product’s critical market relevance and ensures a team’s work doesn’t wind up on a shelf, never released, is an attractive option for stakeholders and developers alike.

Agile Methodology having multiple process like Scrum and so on.

Scrum is an iterative, incremental methodology for project management often seen in agile software development.
Although Scrum was intended for management of software development projects, it can be used to run s
oftware maintenance teams, or as a general project/program management approach.

Scrum Diagram 

  

Sprint: Scrum is divided into small parts. Each part of Scrum is called a Sprint. 

Sprint Planning Meeting

At the beginning of the sprint cycle (every 7–30 days), a “Sprint Planning Meeting” is held.

·        Select what work is to be done

·        Prepare the Sprint Backlog that details the time it will take to do that work, with the entire team

·        Identify and communicate how much of the work is likely to be done during the current sprint

·        Eight hour time limit

·        (1st four hours) Product Owner + Team: dialog for prioritizing the Product Backlog

·        (2nd four hours) Team only: hashing out a plan for the Sprint, resulting in the Sprint Backlog

At the end of a sprint cycle, two meetings are held: the “Sprint Review Meeting” and the “Sprint Retrospective”

Sprint Review Meeting

·        Review the work that was completed and not completed

·        Present the completed work to the stakeholders (a.k.a. “the demo”)

·        Incomplete work cannot be demonstrated

·        Four hour time limit

Sprint Retrospective

·        All team members reflect on the past sprint

·        Make continuous process improvements

·        Two main questions are asked in the sprint retrospective: What went well during the sprint? What could be improved in the next sprint?

·        Three hour time limit