Over the years, software development methodologies continued to evolve, and many new approaches have arrived out of the actual experiences of software developers and project managers. The shortcomings of the erstwhile waterfall methodology of development were too many. The Agile methodology was mainly developed to address these shortcomings.
Agile is an approach with several key advantages for software development projects. Besides ensuring optimum efficiency and streamlined process in software development projects, it delivers a wide array of advantages for modern enterprises as well. Thanks to the Agile approach, software developers and project managers can stay clear of many common pitfalls and shortcomings. Agile ensures lower cost of development, great predictability in terms of output and optimum productivity for the developer team.
Presently all over the globe, agile methodology is widely appreciated by the web app development partners as a software developer in India, and across the spectrum. Here we are going to explain some of the most important benefits of the agile development model.
1. Huge Quality Enhancement
One of the key reasons companies develop to embrace the Agile approach is the unparalleled quality of the software products. Agile development breaks down the software project into several small and well-contented units with specific objectives similar to the mobile app designing process, allowing developers to concentrate on one unit at a time. Thanks to this modular approach, the developer team can have enhanced focus and ensure high-quality development powered by disintegrated testing and team collaboration.
Since Agile allows carrying out testing for different development units simultaneously, the project can easily accommodate iteration allowing the developers to detect faults and fix them more easily. With the continuous development and testing of different software units, software projects can be completed in time and involving the least delay.
2. Engaging the Team and Stakeholders
The agile approach of development comes with a greater scope of engaging different teams and stakeholders for building software projects. As the whole project is segregated into different simultaneously running sprints, it becomes easier to engage the stakeholders and clients for iteration.
Agile, thanks to its approach of building a software product involving multiple segregated units, allows the understanding of the client’s vision more easily, and this helps in facilitating easier and more streamlined collaboration among the team members and the clients. This also helps to improve the trustworthiness of the software product to a great extent.
3. Optimum Transparency
As the Agile approach allows continuous iteration and collaboration with the stakeholders and the clients in a project, it maintains optimum transparency that leaves no one in the dark about the project outcome and the feature set.
Enhanced project transparency is one of the key advantages of any software development project. As the software projects go through sprint-based development, the total picture corresponding to a software product’s outcome becomes quite transparent and clear.
4. Managing Software Project Risks
Thanks to agile methodology, software development projects can completely reduce the chances of meeting failure. Agile by mapping the entire development path through multiple units or sprints makes the entire project outcome very predictable, and hence there is the least chance of project failure.
Another major aspect of agile development is that it leaves no big-time gap between the first investment and the project’s evaluation at the first stage. Instead of going through the entire development process and meeting, the failure cannot happen with an agile development approach. As the project is segregated into different units, the entire project outcome can be evaluated initially, leaving no scope of worries about meeting failure in the end.
As agile development allows frequent and repeated iteration, meeting client expectations and preferences becomes very easy and leaves no scope of the enhanced development cost for introducing new features and design elements. You allow clients total control and optimum predictability of the software projects.
5. Quick Revenue Growth
Thanks to the iterative development approach of agile, it also ensures faster growth of revenue and steady return from the early stage just after the software launch. As new features continue to get added incrementally over time, the customers benefit from the software product to the optimum level, which ensures faster user acquisition, revenue flow, and business conversion.
Early development with faster project completion gives a software product a huge competitive edge. As Agile allows easy iteration based upon customer or user feedback, it is more likely to generate customer satisfaction.
6. Evaluating a Project More Accurately
Software project managers need to evaluate the final outcome of a project just at the very beginning and allow iteration accordingly. This is another area where an agile approach fits the project manager’s needs and concerns perfectly. Since companies need to evaluate the development cost and market returns from a software product, the agile approach appears to be more precise in properly estimating.
For a precise and accurate evaluation of project costing and return predictability of the project it is essential, and this is where an agile approach appears to be more efficient. With a project segregated into different units, evaluating the project cost becomes very easy.
7. Conclusion
From all angles, the agile development method seems to pack everything that a modern software project needs to stay competitive, economically solvent, and user-focused. No wonder leading development companies around the world have embraced the agile approach. The future of software development cannot be thought of without an agile approach.
