How Agile Methodology Increases Customer Value

Agile is an incremental approach to project management and software development that enables teams to provide value to customers faster. Agile is set of values and principles that needs to practise. Many agile frameworks have arisen since then, including scrum, Kanban, lean, and Extreme Programming (XP). Each in its own way embodies the basic values of frequent iterations, continuous learning.  Scrum and XP are popular among software development teams, but Kanban is popular among service-oriented teams such as IT or human resources.

 

Agile development is an umbrella term for a set of values and practices based on the values and principles articulated in the Agile manifesto. There are four values and 12 Principles which are below.

Agile values:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change by following a plan

Agile Principles:

1. Customer satisfaction by early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
2. Welcome changing requirements, even in late development.
3. Deliver working software frequently (weeks rather than months).
4. Close, daily cooperation between business people and developers.
5. Projects are built around motivated individuals who should be trusted.
6. A face-to-face conversation is the best form of communication (co-location).
7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.
8. Sustainable development, able to maintain a constant pace.
9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and sound design.
10. Simplicity—the art of maximizing the amount of work not done—is essential.
11. Best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
12. Regularly, the team reflects on how to become more effective and adjusts accordingly.

Source: Agile software development – Wikipedia

Measuring agility and mindset

Agile software development approaches can be used with any programming language and were first popularized in object-oriented environments like Smalltalk, Lisp and later Java, C#. Agile methods were commonly adopted by small to medium-sized teams building new systems with evolving requirements. As a Microsoft Dynamics 365 partner, we understand businesses often face challenges implementing agile processes and measuring agile team effectiveness. This section discusses common agile adoption issues businesses encounter and ways to assess agile team quality and performance. With deep expertise as Dynamics 365 partners, we can help companies successfully transition to agile development by providing coaching and change management guidance. By partnering with experienced Dynamics 365 partners, organizations can overcome hurdles in adopting agile methodologies and realize the full benefits.

• Internal assessment to assess product development against five product development parameters (duration, risk, novelty, effort, and interaction) below are points we can’t overlook.

• Organizations and teams adopting agile software development frequently encounter issues migrating from traditional approaches, such as waterfall development, such as teams being compelled to adopt an agile methodology.
• Agile software development aims to focus on creating working software rather than documentation. In contrast to waterfall models, where the process is typically highly regulated, and slight changes to the system require a considerable rewrite of supporting documentation, this is not the case. However, this does not justify doing any analysis or design at all. On the contrary, failure to pay attention to design might lead to a team moving too quickly initially.
• Adding stories to an iteration in the process affects the flow of work. These should be added to the product backlog and prioritized for a later iteration, or the iteration should be canceled in extreme cases. This is not to say that a story cannot be added. However, teams must deal with new information, which may lead to additional story assignments. If the further information prevents the story from being completed during the iteration, it should be carried over to the next one. However, because the new information may have affected the story’s initial priority, it should be prioritized against all other stories.
• Insufficient training is the leading cause of failed agile implementations. Teams have fallen into the trap of believing that because agile software development processes are simplified compared to other approaches, such as waterfall, there are no actual rules for agile software development.
• A daily stand-up meeting should be focused and timely, including all team members distributing information. If problem-solving happens, it may include only a few team members and may not be the optimal use of the entire team’s time. If the unit begins plunging into problem-solving during the daily stand-up, it should be placed aside until a sub-team can address it, generally shortly after the stand-up concludes.

Conclusion

Teams choose agile to respond quickly to market changes or customer input without derailing a year’s worth of planning. One significant difference between Agile and traditional software development methods is the emphasis on the people performing the job and how they collaborate. Collaboration between self-organizing cross-functional teams using the proper approaches for their context leads to the development of solutions. When most groups and businesses start using Agile development, they focus on methods that support collaboration and excellent task structure. Specific technical practices that directly deal with designing software in a way that helps your team deal with uncertainty are another key set of practices that are not as commonly followed but should be. Those technological procedures are essential and should not be overlooked.