The world we live in today moves fast! Businesses are advancing with every single moment, and to be relevant, we have to catch up with these technological advancements. In this race of not being obsolete, agile software development helps you to stay relevant and technologically advanced!
The agile method basically focuses on the iterative method in software development, which means it will keep getting used and improved until the final finished product.
You might not fully understand what the agile approach actually is, but by the end of this blog, you will definitely have a good idea about this approach, the advantages of using this approach, and how you can implement it to get the best software development services.
We will try to keep everything from scratch, so even if you have no idea about it or haven’t even heard it before, you’ll know most about it after this blog!
Understanding The Life Cycle
Before we can move forward, we must know that agile software development services work in six major steps, namely Planning or idea, Inception, Development, Release, Maintenance, and Retirement. These steps are called the life cycle in agile software development services.
There is no strict requirement to follow the life cycle, and you can change it a bit according to your and your team’s convenience. As long as the goal is the same, there is no limitation to which method you choose.
The Six Steps Explained
These six steps are the backbone of agile development, and most tech solutions providers use these steps for agile development. Here, we have briefly explained all of them.
Idea
The first step is the idea or concept, and in this step, the idea of the project and the scope of it. If the project is ideal and there are multiple branches of the project, then it should be determined by the owner which project requires the most attention. It is also the duty of the project owner to discuss the most important needs of the project, such as the features and functionalities they want in their software. There is no need to list all the features in the first step. You can tell about these in the later steps. Also, in this stage, the owner would take a rough estimate of the total cost and the time required to build this project and then make the decision on whether this project is feasible or should be dropped in this early stage to avoid the waste of resources and effort.
Inception
After the idea, it is now the time to gather all the resources and the team that will work on this project. The team lead will gather the employees according to their availability, check which tools would be required, and what are the other necessary requirements for this project. After this, a basic design would be created, and then it would be shown to the client; if the client agrees on the basic design, then the development team would get the green signal to start working on the project.
Development
In this step, the construction or the development of the project actually starts. It is considered the longest phase of the software development cycle as most of the work is done in this single step. UX designers would be contacted to build a design according to the customer’s demand, and then once that design is accepted and approved by the customers, the development team would start converting that design into code.
The basic goal of this step is to create the first prototype of the software that contains all the functionalities and satisfies all the requirements that were provided by the user. In the later steps, more functions can be added. This is the main stone in the Agile Software development cycle, and in this step, more and more iterations would be done to satisfy the client’s needs.
Release
Now, the product is almost ready, but before finally launching it to people, the QA team would do some tests in order to make sure that the software does not have any problems. In this step, the team would also check the code to spot potential bugs and send it back to the development team to make the corrections. In this step, if this is a special purpose software, then user training would be done as well to operate the software correctly.
Maintenance
Now, the software is flagged totally okay by the development team, and then its maintenance period will start. During this period, the software is in use by the customers, and the software development services agency provides customer support during this period so that the software can be kept free from issues or bugs. The team would also offer training during this period to any new person who will use the software. Also, during this phase, new updates would be released in order to increase the software’s usability or to introduce some new features.
Retirement
This is the last stage of any software, and there are only two reasons why software is moved towards its retirement stage. First is that it is being replaced by a totally new system. If this is the case, the users are automatically transferred or are requested to transfer to the new software. Second is that the purpose or system has become useless or meaningless. In this case, the users would then be notified that the support for this software would be discontinued from a certain date and then removed from the software later.
Advantages Of Using The Agile Software Development Method
Many software development services providers and tech solution providers all over the world use the agile development cycle. The reason behind this immense use is that it has a lot of advantages. Some of them are listed below.
1. Improved Final Product
Compared to other approaches, agile approaches focus more on breaking the entire project into bits and pieces and assigning them to smaller teams. This means that they have to focus on their part only. Later on, they will collaborate with each other and then connect the bits and pieces to construct the final product. In this way, smaller things would also be focused, and no part would be left unnoticed.
2. Changes Are Efficiently Done
Changes can be made during different phases of the agile method. This means that in each iteration, the team would work on some new agenda, and the iterations would be done again until everyone was satisfied with the final product.
3. More Involvement Of The Client
In this method, the client is more involved, and the method is way more transparent than other methods. The client has a say in everything that is happening, and feedback is required from the client at every stage, which means that they have a say in everything and every step. They become a part of the development process. It also decreases the chance of clients canceling the project at the last moment because it doesn’t live up to their expectations.
4. Easy Estimations
This process offers easy estimations as well. With this approach, you can make a very good prediction about the time the project would take and the budget it would require. Documentation can be done on these bases, and it would avoid conflicts regarding these issues, such as website maintenance extra costs or hidden charges for each iteration.
5. Early Deliveries
This process also offers early deliveries in most cases. Since in the development phase, each iteration is delivered to the client, if the client agrees on the earlier prototypes, the development phase would end right away, and then the team would move towards testing. This would save a lot of time and effort for the team.
Where Agile Method Is Used?
The agile method is implemented while making software for various domains. Some of the most famous industries in which the use of the agile method would be valuable are:
IT
IT companies need to be updated from time to time, they need to train workers frequently, and they also need continuous support, so using the agile method would be optimal here.
Construction and Engineering
These industries require special-purpose software, and for making these, the involvement of engineers and skilled workers is necessary, and the agile method encourages this involvement.
General Purpose
This approach can be used in general-purpose software development as well. Many experienced individuals from renowned software development services providers use this approach because it is more convenient and cost-efficient.
Wrap Up!
We hope that now you know all about agile software development, and if you want the best agile software development services or website maintenance services, then contact us now! We have the best development team on board that totally understands the agile development process and delivers the best final products.
