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A common difficulty experienced at the start of a project, is finding a way to make sure that the methods used during the process contribute to guaranteeing the quality of delivery that is in line with your initial proposal. It is with this scenario that agile development methodologies were created and now play an extremely important role in the success of execution.

Keeping the team productive, making sure there is good communication between members, and keeping everything in line with the project scope may not seem so complex at first glance, but it’s easy to see how complex this task can get.

That’s why it has been increasingly common to see the implementation of agile methodologies in many companies. This decision has improved the efficiency of routines and this applies to the development of any product, whether digital or not.

So, in today’s post we’ll talk about this topic in detail. We will explain what these methodologies are, how they emerged, what their advantages are, as well as talking about which ones are considered to be the principle methodologies. Want to check it all out? So read on and learn more!

What are agile methodologies?

Briefly, an agile development methodology is an alternative to the conventional project management model which has very specific stages. Agile methods, on the other hand, are made up of short iterations, which give more flexibility to production.

These short iterations are incremental cycles that provide the necessary adaptability in a variety of situations. The idea here is to continuously generate improvement, both for the teams involved and for the product being developed.

Some definitions also point out that agile development methodologies seek to go against bureaucracy and to move away from all the paperwork that goes along with projects of this nature. The focus then becomes what will, in fact, add value to production.

Another point is that agile development environments are usually created by multidisciplinary teams that are capable of organizing themselves in order to achieve goals and objectives.
Furthermore, it is worth noting that the use of these methods is global, as they are more efficient and yield more than conventional models do.

What is the origin of agile methodologies?

After World War II, Toyota developed the Toyota Production System—also known as Lean Manufacturing. TPS is a production system that aims to reduce costs by reducing waste.

When discussing the origin of agile methods, the association with the system created by Toyota is common. However, in the article, The New Product Development Game, written by professors Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka, several aspects of iterative production are addressed and, due to the similarity with the concepts of agile methodologies, there is also an association with the article.

Despite this, the term “Agile methodology” was only effectively created in the formation of the Agile Manifesto, which took place in 2001.

The Agile Manifesto

Although several methodologies have been used in the 20th century, it was only in 2001 that a group of 17 members got together to discuss these project development techniques.

It was from there that the Agile Manifesto emerged, a document that became the symbol of the existence of agile methodologies and that defines their principles. Among these principles are:

• communication: guaranteeing interaction between team members, before addressing processes and tools;
• practicality: prioritizing functional systems instead of extensive documentation;
• alignment of expectations and collaboration: cooperation in routines with the client and team, before focusing on contracts and business;
• adaptability and flexibility: prioritizing responsiveness to change rather than simply following a plan;

What are the advantages of agile methods for companies?

Agile methodologies have a number of advantages over traditional forms of project management. These are internal and external benefits, which are supported by several studies and research papers.

In reference to the benefits, increased productivity, team member satisfaction and improved management and monitoring of activities are among the main points cited in the second edition of the State of Agile Survey, in 2017.

The point is that these methods help to eliminate unproductive meetings, unnecessarily long planning, excessive hierarchy and division of departments, micromanagement and, consequently, the risk of developing products or services that the market does not need as much as before.

In addition to the greater speed in launching new products, the flexibility of the models allows them to adapt much more quickly to changes in the market, an essential factor in recent years.

Finally, we can see a clear change in the metrics influenced by agile teams, which is due to the fact that there is much greater collaboration between professionals from different sectors and with different kinds of knowledge.

What are the advantages of agile methods for a team?

Agile methodologies also offer a number of advantages for team members. Below, we list the main ones.

More speedy and frequent deliveries

Of course, this advantage includes both the team and customer perspective. But there is also the company producing the product, and for them the most notable benefit is the possibility to have smaller teams and more experienced professionals, which makes the entire process leaner.

The focus here is, that the use of agile methodologies allows each team to be subdivided, making each group responsible for smaller parts of the product, and then that at the end of each stage, the activities that were developed are integrated together.

This is an advantage because, in addition to keeping employees focused, it improves the final quality of deliveries. This is primarily because developers are able to focus on specific tasks, and so will be more focused on the attributions specific to their part. This being limited to specific tasks is also, consequently, good for the motivation of professionals.

In addition, the quality of deliveries is improved because, without the overload of activities, employees will be more available to dedicate more time to applying the desired technical excellence to the products.

Improvement in product quality

In the traditional model, customer feedback is only received when the product is ready to go. This increases the chances of errors in implementation and dissatisfaction with quality, and can also have a negative effect on the alignment with the original proposal.

So, agile methodologies are the ideal solution, as their iterations consist of weekly or monthly deliveries and make the customer a key part of the development process, through the feedback they provide.

All these features are essential for good management of quality and final product alignment, as all adjustments will be made long before completion. This above all, improves customer satisfaction and of course, favors the growth of the company producing the product.

Better cost and time planning

Sprints are part of the concept of agile methodologies. These are meetings that take place between project members in order to establish activities to be carried out within a period of time, which is also defined within the same meeting.

Through this feature of agile, it is possible to forecast how long the team will take to perform a function or task, as well as having more accurate data for planning schedules and cost estimates.

Thus, it is possible to define with the client, how the priority of resources should be organized, if there will be a need for additional sprints and, if so, how many.

Risk reduction

Considering the customer’s active participation in the development process, the many tests performed by the team and the greater focus on project activities, failures tend to be quickly detected and corrected, both through feedback and testing.

This risk reduction is made possible through the freedom that is provided by the flexibility and adaptability of agile methodologies. Conversely, when working with the traditional model, this advantage is lost due to constraints imposed by planning. These constraints increase the chance of failures that take longer to correct.

What are the main types of agile methodologies?

There are several models that can be adopted by the team. It is however, more important to understand that what is sought is not the best methodology, but the one that best adapts to the company’s needs. Let’s take a look at the main types of agile methods.

Scrum

Scrum is currently the most used agile methodology and the main reason for this is its ease of integration with other agile models. This makes it applicable not only to software development, in which it is quite common, but to pretty much any work environment.

Because it focuses on project management, Scrum is based on the iterative and incremental planning we mentioned earlier, that uses the Sprint meeting format. At these meetings, Scrum also reiterates the list of features to be developed, a practice known as product backlog.

The way the Scrum methodology works is simple: during the project’s progress, each resource to be implemented becomes a sprint. From there, its functionalities should be developed. This is where the details in question move from the product backlog to the sprint backlog.

After being in the sprint backlog, tasks are distributed among the members of the agile team, who must execute them within a defined timeframe, which is usually less than four weeks.

Finally, at the end of a sprint, a sprint review is held. A sprint review is a meeting that aligns what project objectives were completed and which points raised by the client were, or still need to be dealt with. As well as this, it is in the sprint review that the next cycle is planned, repeating this process until the product development is effectively completed.

Kanban

Kanban was born as a methodology for task management, but today it is widely used in project development due to its principle characteristic, the possibility of visualizing the progress of tasks.

To use this technique, it is first necessary to divide everything that needs to be done in the project into small parts. From there, each of these activities can be inserted into a small “post-it”.

To visualize these post-its, they should be divided on a board with the phases or steps that each task must go through. A common example is to divide the board into three sections with the headings “to do”, “doing” and “done”. In this model, all tasks start in the first section and advance as they are performed.

That way, the manager is able to view the progress of the project in more detail and adapt the sections of the chart as needed.

Iterative Development

Iterative Development is a precursor methodology to Agile. Its main difference is that, in software development coding only starts after each phase of the application is reviewed and testing, similarly, only starts when the code is done.

Furthermore, this method depends on a large software development project, as the process will be broken down into small parts that will be designed and tested in iterations, until the project is completed.

At each cycle, new features can be implemented and tested, so that the final application is fully compatible with the customer’s needs.

While iterative development is an easy method to combine with aspects of the waterfall methodology, there is no specific way to implement it, which can make it unsuitable for teams with little experience.

eXtreme Programming (XP)

eXtreme Programming, also known as XP, was a methodology created in the 1990s with a focus on software development based on three pillars: agility in creating the system, economizing resources and quality in the final delivery.

In order to achieve maximum software quality through this method, the team needs to have these values ​​as a foundation, so that there is a commitment to the behavior and attitudes that lead to the project objective.

These attitudes must be with those who direct an XP team in each of its activities and ensure the necessary integration and synchronization. These pillars give importance to communication, simplicity, respect, courage and the provision of feedback, being fundamental values ​​for an XP team.

In addition, XP also carries in its definitions its best practices for development, which seek to ensure the effectiveness of the work performed by the team and consequently, customer satisfaction throughout the process. The main ones are:

• use of metaphors;
• planning meetings;
• integration and continuous improvement;
• acceptance tests;
• incremental changes;
• brief daily meetings for alignment;
• frequent customer deliveries;
• simplicity in design and functions;

Feature Driven Development (FDD)

Developed in Asia in the late 1990s, Feature Driven Development, or simply FDD, is a methodology that brings together the best practices found within many other methods. Basically, the idea is to focus on functionalities, so that the development team can carry out planning in phases.

This action model is useful to speed up the creation of the product in uncertain scenarios, where changes are unavoidable. Also, since FDD is a development-focused tool, it can easily be integrated with Scrum, which can be very useful in many scenarios.

Programming by FDD starts with an overview of the business, as this methodology defines the whole as more important than the parts. After that, the next step is the specification of the product, followed by the division of development areas and finally, the detailing of each functionality.

Like any agile methodology, Feature Driven Development also has a set of best practices that give rise to the creation of an adequate environment for project development. They are:

• development by functionality;
• each role is given to a developer to be their responsibility;
• presence of quality control at all stages of the project;
• proper configuration management;
• continuous integration;
• incremental planning;
• software testing;

Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF)

The Microsoft Solutions Framework is one of the most used agile development methods for creating solutions with small teams and focuses on reducing risks to the company and also project quality. The idea is to detect where the most common errors are in projects of technology and eliminate them, consequently increasing the chances of success at each stage.

Thus, like Scrum, MSF focuses more on project management than on product development, having as its main premises, the alignment between the created technology and the client’s objectives, scope detailing, iterative development, risk management and agility in eventual alterations.

As with other agile methodologies, MSF also has best practices that need to be considered by the team so that the expected level of quality is achieved, both in product development and delivery. These principles are:

• maintain clear and open communication between employees;
• share the business vision among all members;
• rely on trained professionals;
• define roles by assigning responsibilities at the beginning of activities;
• perform deliveries incrementally;
• have the flexibility to make changes if necessary;
• maintain the level of quality for all deliveries;
• constantly learn from the experience gained;
• establish partnerships with customers;

Dynamic System Development Model (DSDM)

The Dynamic System Development Model is one of the pioneering agile methodologies within the technological environment, and not just in project development.

This method differs a little from the others in that it is dedicated to developing solutions with shorter deadlines and also with fixed budgets. As such, it takes situations in which the client cannot determine how much the final project will cost, into account.

Among DSDM’s best practices, you can find a number of familiar concepts, such as iterative and incremental development, continuous integration of developed functionality, and collaboration between team members and the customer.

It is also important to note that this method also has a different structure to what is normally seen in other techniques. At DSDM, this composition takes place through the interconnection of modeling, conception, development and implementation processes. In addition, as there is a time restriction, any changes cannot exceed the defined deadlines.

Lean Startup

Lean Startup is an agile method that emerged within the startup scene, but is widely used in product development.

It is highly recommended for businesses that need to validate hypotheses and is divided into three main steps: build, measure and learn. One of the focuses of Lean Startup is to effectively detect and mitigate all waste within a company or project.

In this model, only what is necessary to perform the tasks is kept, and the concepts of process simplification, improvement of deliveries, cost reduction, information sharing and productivity increase are ever present.

Smart

The Smart methodology is a great alternative for cases where it is necessary to set more easily attainable goals, both for business and personal goals. To use it, the professional must simply keep the principles of this technique in mind, as indicated by the acronym; S, M, A, R, T.

The letter S stands for Specific, showing that first of all, the goal must be clear and specific enough. It is only necessary to address one point at a time, without leaving room for ambiguity or misinterpretation.

The initial M is for Measurable, that is, its goal must be measurable and quantifiable. Thus, it is essential to define precise, numerical goals, so that when achieved it can be demonstrated.

The letter A is for Attainable. This is to say that defined goals need to be challenging but achievable. For this, it is important to consider the defined time and conditions for the project to proceed.

R is for Relevant. It should be understood that it is useless to reach a goal if there is no benefit or impact for the individual or business. Therefore, once a goal is set, it is of great importance to make sure that it is relevant.

Finally, T is for Time-related. It defines the importance of having a time limit for achieving this goal. This prevents procrastination, and in addition, it is possible to measure whether the objectives were achieved or not in a more precise way.

It is clear, therefore, that having agile methodologies in software development processes is one of the best ways to create a flexible but efficient management system. Thus, it becomes simpler to maintain deadlines and productivity, reduce costs and keep everyone in alignment with the customer goals.

We hope you can now see how agile methodologies can be so very useful for your business. Be sure to share this post on your social networks so your friends can learn about these techniques too!