Agile Development is one of the best ways for software development teams to do their jobs quickly and efficiently without sacrificing the quality of the product they are working on. If you are only starting your agile journey or even if you’re already familiar with the process itself, you are bound to have a few questions about agile.
This article answers the questions about who does agile, what is agile, why even do agile, and how agile is done.
What is Agile?
Agile is a methodology for project management that can be utilised in many industries but is particularly popular in software development. The people manning the project streamline the production process by breaking it down into “parts” that can be finished faster and easier. By using iterative cycles and building the product by part rather than whole, they can prioritise what they need to do and finish the project with better regard to quality assurance and without compromising on the quality of the product.
The Who’s of Agile
To keep it short, the answer to this question is the agile development team. The team usually varies depending on the type of framework used or the team’s size, but an agile team usually comprises the following.
- The Team Leader: these are people chosen to lead the whole team, they are the ones who oversee the project and members, and the process goes smoothly with as few problems as possible.
- The Team Members: they are the main force that makes up the bulk of an agile team. These are the developers or programmers who are responsible for the production of the product itself.
- The Product Owner: the product owner represents the client and is responsible for the product backlog. They are the ones that make important decisions regarding the project as a whole and relay them to the team leader and stakeholders.
- The Stakeholders: these are the people who create the product requirements and are responsible for funding and more. They provide their opinions, insights, and impressions of the product during the feedback cycle, which guides the team in achieving the project’s objectives.
There are a lot more roles that comprise the Development team when it comes to Agile software development like external consultants and independent testers that you can bring in, but these four are more important in the team.
The Whys of Agile
There are a lot of reasons as to why a lot of people have been adopting Agile in recent years but one of the biggest reasons is a balance between speed and quality. Companies that want to conquer the ever-unpredictable market need speed to their advantage while keeping themselves flexible for changes. Agile development gives them this speed. By building the product in short cycles, problems are also addressed more quickly, and adjustments can be made on the fly as the product is being created, thereby lessening the time made to create a great product.
This is the same with agile transformation, which gives organizations the ability to serve their clients better with less effort. It’s an application of agile principles for corporate management. This is why a lot of competitive development companies that offer digital transformation strategy consulting also offer Agile development services.
The Hows of Agile
There are plenty of things that you need to consider and think about when ongoing agile development, but there are five steps that you can take to get started.
- The first step to implementing Agile is recruiting an agile team and the project itself. It is important to prepare a team that’s suitable for the needs of the project needed by client stakeholders.
- The second step is preparing the backlog. The backlog is essentially the master list of things the team needs to do and accomplish in a given time. The agile team depends on this backlog to proceed with their work.
- The third step is identifying the needed methodology. Agile has several different frameworks that you can follow depending on what is needed to do. Some frameworks work better than others depending on the strategy your company want to promote. A popular methodology framework used for software development is Scrum.
- The fourth step is Tracking. As with everything, you need to keep track of everything that you do in agile. The Team Leader should keep track of his team’s backlogs, the process, testing, and feedback from test users and product owners.
- The fifth step is Learning. After finishing the product, you are bound to collect more information on usage by users and what has been learned during the product creation process. What you learned can be applied to your next project, adjusting parameters to improve the development process.
Conclusion
Now you might be thinking of adopting agile into your workflow but you don’t know who to contact. Look no further because when outsourcing Agile Development, companies like USER Experience Researchers Singapore (USER) are one of the best companies that provide these services. USER also provides a wide range of UI UX design, market research, and usability testing services. For more information, please don’t hesitate and get in touch with us at https://www.user.com.sg/contact-user.
