7 Types Of Agile Methodologies

Each highly-operating enterprise necessitates to evolve swift, unveil and accomplish remarkably in less time, at the same time, when an individual is employed in teams of extremely talented and galvanized people, there would be some restrictions and differences in terms of notion, perspective and approaches. All these matrices of differences can be normalized/derived by implementing Agile method and the main objective behind this blog. 

 

Following a contributed mode of thinking for problems and arranging task could possibly be helpful in maintaining organization forwarding at a good pace.

 

Through this blog, you will learn about various Agile Methodologies, its benedits and types & their role for the highly dynamic environment and to obtain desired outputs.

 

However, this is the second part, withal, discover and learn about what is Agile Software Development that covers basics of it along with benefits, advantages and principles from the link.

 

What is Agile Methodology?

 

By definition, Agile methodology, a variety of project management approach, that is confirmedly deployed for software development, also where requirements and solutions unfold via the collaborative work of self- systemized and cross-functional teams and their users. 

 

Agile retains its control in software development and has also expanded into marketing, finance, sales, and other departments. 

 

The software industry is considered as a profoundly antagonistic market because of the fact that software is an entity that seeks continuous upgrade. It implies that developers oblige to advance and introduce their products constantly to sustain on top among rivals. And for this, the straight and persistent approach is offered by Agile software.

 

(Related read: What is Agile Business Analyst?)

 

Any Agile Methodology that is suitable for any enterprise, can be depending on various factors;

 

1. Team types: In relevance to the means of Agile processes, an individual is willing to deploy.

2. Organization size and the condition on which an individual looks to scale agile from lower to top 

3. Organizational culture: To determine whether an organization is ready, or would be interested, for a highly-configurated agile strategy, or looking for more compliant approaches.

 

(Must read: What is Risk Management?)

 

Types of Agile Methodologies

 

Below is the brief description of types of Agile Methodologies; 

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Top 7 Agile Methodologies

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1. Agile Scrum Methodology

 

Scrum is a lightweight framework of Agile Project Management, it can be adopted to conduct iterative and all types of incremental projects.

 

Due to its specific characteristics like simplicity, sustained productivity, and strength for blending several underlying approaches adopted by other agile methods, Scrum has obtained popularity over the years.

 

The hands-on system under Scrum includes easy steps and elements, that are the following; 

 

• Product owner, who creates an estimated wish list that is identified as a product backlog.

• Scrum team, that takes one little part of the top wish list, termed as Sprint Backlog and work out in order to implement it.

• After that scrum team concludes their sprint backlog task in a Sprint, i.e., a period of 2-4 weeks. In addition to that, the progress of their work can be accessed through a meeting that is called Daily Scrum.

• The Scrum Master maintains the team focused toward their targets.

• At the end of a sprint, the task is able to represent or transmit, and team finishes that particular sprint with a review and feedback and initiates with a new one.

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Advantages and Disadvantages of Scrum, Source

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2. Lean 

 

It is the iterative, agile methodology that directs the team on addressing customer values by compelling value stream mapping, although, it is a deeply adaptable, emerging methodology with the absence of solid guidelines, laws, or methods.

 

The fundamental principles of Lean including;

 

• Uninterrupted advancement,
• Respect for other people,
• Eradicate waste,
• Rapid delivery,
• Knowledge-making and
• Defer commitment. 

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Lean Principles

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Lean gives the authority of decision-making to every individual and small teams as it is considered as the most faster and effective method in comparison to the hierarchical flow of control. It focuses on the proficient implementation of team resources and assures to make everyone as productive as possible for maximum time.  

 

3. Kanban 

 

Kanban is an eminently visual workflow management approach, famous amidst Lean teams, that can be employed for visualizing and thoroughly maintaining the making of products, it focuses on continual delivery of the product, but is not making stress to the entire software development life cycle.

 

Similar to Scrum, Kanban is the process developed for supporting collaborative teamwork more effectively. It works adequately on three principles;

 

• For visualizing what to perform today, i.e, workflow automation, that specifies all the elements, under the context of each other, could be very informative.

• For bounding the quantity of work in progress to maintain harmony in the flow-based approach, so that teams can‘t begin and commit extra work at once.

• For boosting flow, like, when some task is about to complete, the next priority would be item into play from the backlog.

 

However, Kanban encourages steadily collaboration and maintains active, continuous learning and enhancement through describing the best plausible team workflow. 

 

(Referred blog: What is Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?)

 

4. Extreme Programming(XP)

 

Generally being used with Scrum, it can focus on how Agile can increase customer satisfaction, instead of delivering at the entirety, the customer seeks for the near future, it provides them what they demand at present.

 

XP is concentrated on regular propaganda and precise development cycles. In addition to that, it implements code review, pair programming and regular communication with customers.

 

XP method is basically based on the four simple values:

 

• Uniformity,
• Simplicity
• Communication,
• Feedback and
• Endurance. 

 

5. Crystal

 

In actual, the Crystal Methodology is a class of small agile methodologies that incorporate Crystal Clear, Crystal Yellow, Crystal Red and many more. Every methodology has its own specific framework. It is introduced by Alistair Cockburn while participated in writing the Agile manifesto for software development.

 

Including three factors that define that traits of a project are team size, system seriousness, and project preferences where projects are categorized into four levels, based on the system criticality, that are; 

 

• Comfort (C),
• Discretionary Money (D),
• Essential Money (E), and
• Life (L).

 

Depending on the size of the project, the most number of people can be involved in the project, i.e., gigantic the project, more the people involved. 

 

If the project is large, many roles can be accounted for and vice versa. Moreover, crystal methodology is converged on interaction, people, expertise, communication, skills, and community.

 

6. Dynamic System Development Method (DSDM)

 

DSDM gives a broad work-frame that is outlined;

 

• To plan, handle, execute, and scale the complete process of software development,
• It directs on the business-driven approach and
• It doesn’t negotiate on quality and timely delivery.

 

However, this is iterative, incremental and Rapid Application Development(RAD) methodology. The framework of DSDM incorporates feasibility and business studies, prototype iteration and functional model, design and develop iteration, and deployment.

 

Basically, DSDM works on eight principles, that guide the team and build a perspective for delivering a product on time and under budget, are

 

• To converge on the business requirement,
• Deliver on time,
• Collaborate,
• Nevermore negotiate quality,
• Create incrementally from firm associations,
• Expand iteratively,
• Communicate frequently and clearly, and
• Manifest control.

 

7. Feature Driven Development (FDD)

 

Being an iterative and accumulative development process, FDD is a lightweight, agile methodology to develop software. It mixes various industry-established best practices into united as a whole. These practices are encouraged in terms of a feature-first perspective while aiming at creating values for the client. 

 

However, the main purpose lies in delivering stable, working software frequently on time. The five core activities under FDD involve;

 

• Designing an entire model,
• Making features lists,
• Designing,
• Developing and
• Building through features.

 

FDD is a constructive, arranged, centred method for the entire software workflow management and a reliable choice for software-focused teams and associations.

 

 

Benefits of Agile Methodology

 

As defined, Agile is a mindset that directly benefits faster, lighter, and more efficient development processes. The process delivers products and services that customers look for, and the entire product development process is more quicker in response to changes;

 

1. Faster: One of the major benefits of Agile methodology is faster/speedy development and response. A quicker software development process significantly reduces times between paying and getting paid and leads to a profitable business. 

2. Upgrade customer satisfaction: There is no requirement for a longer queue to get exactly what customers want with agile development. Infact, a swift set of iterations are done very closely for what they look for, very quickly. The system adjusts rapidly to reshape successful customer solutions and adapt it as it would alter the overall environment of product development.

3. Values executives: Employees are highly valued when providing productive ideas rather than following a fixed set of rules. Agile methodologies enable employees to set their goals and achieve them appropriately. With these methodologies,employees are in the best position to respond to challenges, resolve obstacles and meet the goals and objectives at hand.

4. Eradicate rework: Implicating more customers into each phase of the requirements and delivery helps in aligning project on-task and in-tune with customer requirements at each step that lead to less backtracking and save time amid development cycle and customer suggested revisions.

 

 

Conclusion

As the race of competition increases with time across the market, agile development provides several advantages and restricted drawbacks.

 

More and more organizations are moving towards a digital environment which broadly relies on agility, extensibility, and augmented productivity along with agile methodologies.

 

(Also read: 7-Top Trends in Software Development)

 

However, their numerou applications in various industries and associated benefits over digital workplace-environment that definitely lead to the adoption of agile software around the world.