Agile Software Development Life Cycle
If tech companies all around the world wish to stay relevant in the present time then they all must keep up their pace with all the other competitive companies. Software development is undoubtedly one of the most important aspects of a tech company. A software development company must always strive to push their products as further as possible. This should also be done in the shortest span of time. This is when Agile came to rescue. The methodology of Agile software development priorities
The needs and requirements of customers all around the world are changing fast, as far as software development services are concerned. Agile completely makes sure that the needs of the customers are met. Agile takes an iterative approach to development and technology design which eases out the entire process.
No matter if you a software development company and have an in-house software development team, or you have taken the decision to hire software developers, in both cases, it is not possible that you are not aware of the term Agile. In the present time, this very term is being attached to almost every word. Few examples of the same are agile testing, agile methodology, agile marketing and agile sales.
This very blog is going to explore this term and mainly focus on its development life cycle. To start things off, let’s talk about about what Agile actually means and why is it important.
What is Agile?
The term Agile has been there in the development cosmos for a considerable period of time, but it has gained popularity very recently. It obviously remiss people of the Latin term ‘agilis’ meaning ‘ quick or nimble’ and also of the term ‘agere’ which refers to ‘to keep or set in movement’.
The modern usage of agile in development purposes can be traced back directly all the back to the year 2001. At that time development of most software involved heavy and complex methodologies, which included a lot of documentation and process and were based on stage-gates and phases. These were inherently complicated and did require a lot of time, energy and hassle, so developers all around the world kept working towards building a technology that will complete the same processes, but with far less hassle. This is when the Agile Manifesto was created. The definition of agile project management can only be understood by getting to know about its values.
The four main agile values are as following:
- Interactions and Individuals over tools and processes.
- Functional software over detailed documentation.
- Collaboration with Customers over a negotiation of contracts.
- Response to change over following a specific plan.
After getting to know what agile project management system actually means, lets come to our main topic of the agile development life cycle.
Stages of the Agile Life Cycle
The main purpose of this cycle is adding structure to an otherwise flexible and wobbly manner of delivering a specific product. The key here is breaking down a build into tiny parts so that the product delivered van be more valuable and the delivery itself can be done in lesser time. Agile life cycle, as talked about previously consists of five main stages.
- Initiating a Project
This is the first stage in the life cycle of the agile methodology of software development. This stage is also referred to as the envision or inception phase. This stage consists of a discussion of the inception phase and also about the ROI justification. This discussion, however, does not delve into specific details.
Your main responsibility during this stage is to properly identify all your team members properly and to understand the amount of time and resources will be required for completing the project.
- Making plans
This is that crucial phase when the agile life cycle takes a form for the team. The planning phase involves the team members communicating with the sponsor or the owner of the software about what they are actually looking for. They all discuss how the demands of the owner will be met.
- Development
Once all the requirements of the owner have been understood and defined, the actual work commences.
Developers get busy in building the first iteration of the product, with the aim of obviously having a functional output at the end of the race. This involves just the first iteration, which means that it might suffer from a lack of functionality. This very version will go through a huge array of modifications in the later stages of the life cycle.
You need to keep in mind that testing, a very crucial part of the process of software development is also included in this very state of the cycle.
- Production
This is the penultimate stage of the cycle, which involves users around the world making use of your software and giving their reactions.
Keeping a close eye on the reactions of the users is important as that would help you identify any kind of bugs or defects in the software.
This production stage comes to an end only after a particular product is ready for retirement.
- Retirement
This brings us to the final stage of the agile life cycle. The particular software is at the end of its life in this stage. All the users are notified about alternative options or migration to newer releases.
Products can be retired for a variety of reasons, the most common of them being, a newer and similar product is about to be released and the old one will not be supported.
Conclusion
This very blog has hopefully been informative enough to provide you knowledge about what agile project management actually refers to, and also about how a particular product is developed following the agile life cycle.