How To Develop Fantastic Software With Agile Development Services

In the software development world, using an agile approach to tackle day-to-day workings is an apparent first step to survival, as is breathing to a human body! But does using the agile methodology best ensure you can develop fantastic software? Judge for yourself with this beautifully crafted knowledge piece before you.

This will help answer the most basic yet essential question regarding the agile methodology for developers and designers. Namely, a few, such as – Do we know what Agile means? Does Agile always work as expected? Can Agile work well with every software development project type? Before all that, let’s dive deep into understanding what Agile is.

What is the Agile Concept or Methodology?

One of the most significant issues of any initial stage of a new software project is ascertaining the complexity and, naturally, defining the project requirements further down the line as the project progresses. The software development industry first adopted the Agile methodology due to the previously mentioned issue. However, it’s essential to emphasize that the agile methodology is not merely a methodology; but a philosophical approach that focuses on applying the correct principles and values needed to build top-notch software development products with immense credibility.

Agile is an umbrella term used for methodologies that follow the Agile Manifesto. This documentation consists of 4 fundamental values and 12 principles that help deliver quality-oriented and value-driven solutions to meet customer needs. There are many types of Agile methodologies that you can implement for your project based on the specific needs of the project. The most commonly used ones are – the Scrum methodology, Kanban, Extreme Programming or XP, the Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM), Crystal, and even the Lean Methodology. As stipulated by the State of Agile, a whopping 95% of organizations report regularly practicing using the Agile development methodology in their project. As high as 75% of whom primarily practice Scrum Methodology.

It is worth mentioning that Netsmartz preemptively follows the Agile principles and is scrum certified.

We are learning sprint by sprint and project by project to ensure producing the best quality deliverables for our clientele.

How does the Agile Methodology Work?

The four fundamental values of the Agile Methodology are:

1. Focus on individuals and interactions over processes or tools.

2. Focus on creating a working software solution over creating comprehensive documentation.

3. Focus on creating customer collaborations rather than contracting negotiations.

4. Focus on responding to reactions and change over following a set plan.

The Nitty-Gritty of How Agile Works

The process divides the entire project into smaller parts called ‘user stories.’ Each one of these user stories is a desired feature that users want in the software. Agile developers work through these user stories like a to-do list based on their priority level. The priorities are grouped into iterations, with specific deadline estimates, usually set to two-week intervals.

Once each iteration is marked complete, the developers have potentially shippable products that users can test. Simply put, agile projects create simple structures that can be iterated based on user feedback, ensuring the product is user-focused and vetted to minimize the complexity of the product and ensure mass market appeal.

[Also Read: Agile Software Development Life Cycle]

The Ultimate Aim of Agile Methodology

The ultimate aim of every agile project is to ensure customer satisfaction and achieve user-friendliness. However, the project is bound to fail if the team doesn’t take ownership of the product and executes the development without confidence.

How Does Agile Solve Project Issues?

We started the article by discussing how agile could help build fantastic software. Adding to that aspect, let’s now focus on how agile tackles and solves issues projects face going the traditional route and how, with agile, the issues are solved quite easily.

1. Tackles Long-Delivery

Traditional methodologies focus on having a fixed amount of work, whereas the customer aspect is not engaged and therefore gets derailed from the project. Focusing on the agile principle of keeping the project customer-centric and deriving customer feedback to build the product helps tackle the issue of traditionally long delivery. In the Agile formula, with a precise estimate of the work scope and 2-4 iterations, each stage of the product development is set up for success.

2. Tackles the issues of making unending changes

After months of writing and testing code, the team delivers a full-blown product using traditional software development methods. And although the product complies with the pre-set requirements, they aren’t tested against user needs. It doesn’t go through user tests and garners feedback from legitimate product customers. Therefore, falling short in the product’s quality may lead to another round of new changes. 

On the contrary, in an agile process, similar risks are eliminated as the project coding, and testing is conducted simultaneously alongside user testing and user feedback to ensure fast changes and frequent value delivery.

3. Tackles expensive delivery

Unlike traditional development methods, Agile methods focus on delivering continuous functionality, wherein you receive results months quicker. Once the end solution is ready for user testing, we collect and process user feedback. Doing so helps implement changes and improves the product overall at a quicker rate which tackles the issue of expensive delivery, cutting down costs significantly.

4. Tackles the issues of feature prioritization

An agile team creates a backlog before making an app or website. The backlog contains a list of features and changes to the current functionality, the bug fixes required, and the other changes that engineers may need to deliver.

Based on the project roadmap, the developers’ recommendations, and the customer feedback, the team adds features to the present backlog list. This backlog documentation helps identify the priority-based task list. Thus the project progresses.

5. Tackles the issues of ineffective communication.

Agile principles are the way to proceed if you aim to achieve communication transparency and garner close collaboration with clientele. The agile methodology focuses on effective communication, ensuring better collaborative efforts and the end product surpasses set expectations.

Agile processes solve these five issues that projects face commonly. Using Agile has changed the way we at Netsmartz handle projects. It’s pushed the envelope for our software development.

Our Expert Takes on the Agile Methodology

1. Looks easy to implement. 

2. Implementing Agile into practice is neither easy nor straightforward.

Fortunately, the scrum guide reads, “Scrum is simple to understand but difficult to master,” and we second that!

Unfortunately, it seems to be the main reason agile fails in software development projects when used and implemented by teams without adequate training.

[Also Read: Why Enterprise Agile Teams Fail: The Challenges & The Solutions]

The Netsmartz project management teams are adequately trained to take on Agile Methodology and are implemented by certified Scrum Masters. Doing so helps our masters tackle problems and convert them into value for our clientele.

In Conclusion

By opting to choose an agile-based software development agency, you can build high-functioning, collaborative and top-notch software geared to engage your customers. With the ease of communication, the team implements the best features, making your development process less complex and easy to understand.

If you are looking for a team of dedicated software developers trained to develop the best software based on Agile formulae, get in touch with the Netsmartz Team.

We build our best for you!