The 12 Principles Behind the Agile Methodology

The need for Agile Methodology became apparent due to the enormous time lag between business requirements and the delivered technology. Due to this a lot of projects were being cancelled and customers & technology managers needed a solution for these challenges.

One of the prominent causes for these challenges was due to the lack of communication between client, project manager and stakeholders. The final product did not meet the client’s expectations.

The Agile methodology for development is the perfect resolution for these issues as it involves the customers at every stage of the project.

What is Agile?

The core of the Agile methodology is rooted around best practices that enable collaborative environments amongst diverse business units to ensure continuous learning, improvement, production & growth.

Agile model is a culmination of iterative and incremental project cycles focussed on process adaptability and customer satisfaction. By breaking the product into small incremental builds, Agile focussed development ensures rapid delivery of the project.

The main belief behind Agile is that every project needs to be handled differently and all the development methods need to be customised to best suit individual project requirements. All Agile tasks are divided into small time frames to deliver specific features in an iteration.

Each iteration involves cross-functional team coordination in various areas like −

• Planning & Requirement Analysis
• Coding
• Design
• Unit Testing and
• Acceptance Testing.

In order to effectively implement the agile methodology in your organisation, you need to follow its 12 principles that support teams in driving the project with agility. 

1: Prioritise Customer satisfaction with Continuous & consistent Delivery

Customers love to stay on top of things when their product is being developed. Which is providing them with regular updates and demonstrating phases of the working product greatly improves their confidence and keeps them satisfied? This also ensures all the detrimental bugs do not stay unnoticed until the end of the project.

2: Welcoming Change throughout the development process

Getting a major change at the end of the project can be somewhat disparaging. However, the agile methodology is designed to not handle late changes but welcome them. Due to the incremental iterations, the probability of a major change in the project’s late stages is reduced quite a bit.  

3: Deliver Working phase of project Frequently 

Deliver working product frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, preferably keep a shorter timescale. The faster you deliver an incremental product, the faster you’ll receive the feedback and identify a wrong turn or a miscommunication from the client.  

4: All stakeholders and Developers Should collaborate Daily

Better decision making and faster resolutions are achieved when everyone involved in the project works together. It not only brings the whole team on the same page but since everyone discusses what they are working on, valuable insights can be derived in terms of project improvement.  

5: Motivated Individuals deliver better projects 

Provide your team with a supportive environment and trust them to get the job done. The agile methodology encourages self-organised teams that are capable of managing themselves and the work. Micromanagement is not necessary for the Agile model.

6: Face To Face Communication

The most effective method of relaying information within a team is a face-to-face conversation. Most of the time the development teams are often distributed and not there at the same time. Which is why every effort must be made to communicate often and increase the use of technical communication tools.

7 Working model Is a Primary Measure of Success

It is crucial for agile project teams to focus on developing a working prototype to show their progress.  Irrespective of the number of bugs that have been fixed or the hours you have put in the product development, the only thing that counts is a working product.

8: Agile Methodology Promotes Sustainable Development

The stakeholders & developers should be able to maintain a constant and consistent pace. Setting the right pace is necessary for the success of an agile project. Working overtime without consideration of the quality is highly detrimental for the project. Constant pace also improves forecasting capabilities.

9: Focus on Technical Excellence and Good Design

These are two of the most important elements that play their part in a project’s success. While applying Agile methodology, you do not have to spend time refining the code. With every iteration, the code automatically improves so you do not have to worry about it. Using scrum tools can further amplify the speed of the process without compromising on the quality of the final product.

10: Simplicity is Essential

When it comes to managing projects through agile methodology, you should keep things simple and reduce the time required in the documentation. Prioritise the basic functionalities before another add ons which won’t have an impact on the overall project.

11: Self Organising Teams

The best architectures and designs emerge from the efforts of self-organizing teams. Well organised teams that are cross-functional as well as confident in their execution.  A project manager should encourage this sort of culture and plan to reduce dependency as much as possible

12: Reflects on How to Become More Effectively

At frequent intervals, the team should reflect on how to become more effective and tune their behaviour accordingly. The agile methodology defines several practices such as Retrospective. This is done after each iteration and makes sure that the mistakes of the past don’t get repeated.

Conclusion:

The main intent of the Agile methodology is to align development with business requirements, and the success of Agile is apparent. All Agile projects are customer-centric and encourage their feedback and participation. Due to these features, Agile has grown to be a model for product development.

If you have any questions regarding Agile methodology or need product developed, please feel free to contact us.