Introduction to Agile Project Management

Agile development methodology is the process of developing a software product through incremental changes and iterations; in order to ensure that it gets created faster, and more efficiently.

Agile methodology allows different teams to work on a project simultaneously, to constantly keep testing the changes that have been made. This makes it possible to develop products that are in-line with the client's requirements, and still flexible enough to be changed or modified according to dynamic, real-time changes in the business environment.

Agile development methodology framework is based on optimizing two critical aspects of production; people and processes. It has the following advantages over traditional development methods:

1. It is Simple and does not have any added overheads. It is flexible enough to be adapted into any production scenario.

2. It integrates Metrics that can measure cost of development, time-to-market, product quality and other success determinants; in order to enhance productivity.

3. Based on the SCRUM methodology, it embodies Agile development characteristics like frequently delivering working software and being able to incorporate changes even in later stages of development.

4. It is Reliable, delivers the product within 95% of budgeted time and cost.5. This Agile methodology technique leverages many proprietary and open source Tools for

management, design, code review and reporting, integrated build and deployment, test automation and reporting, knowledge management, and project management.

6. The need for higher profitability has pushed many organizations to make their production and supply chains as flexible and modular as possible, whereby independent pieces of a product and their processes can be decoupled and sourced from cheaper markets.

7. In such situations, success calls for frequent and close collaboration between vendors and their customer organization

Agile Methodology Process Flow

Agile methods adopt an iterative approach and involve the customer more closely in the development of a product than a Waterfall development.

The development team and customers agree a set of requirements and a project schedule upfront. The development is planned as a series of separate phases (also called iterations or sprints) allowing incremental delivery of product features.

Within a sprint, new product features are planned, designed, implemented and tested. At the end of each sprint, the new features are demonstrated or delivered to the customer. The activities for the next sprint are then planned and a further iteration is performed. This increases confidence on the part of the customer because they can see visible signs of progress.

Another key aspect of agile software development is ongoing involvement of the customer in the development. This doesn’t just mean that at the end of a sprint, the customer has a chance to make comments on the partial delivery. Rather, the intention is that the customer is consulted whenever it is not clear how a particular feature should be implemented. The intention is to reduce the possibility of misunderstanding or mistakes in the requirement as soon as possible in the development process.

This method allows a good interaction between the customer and the project teams to ensure the product are constantly reviewed and adaptable for changes during the development process which is not possible using the traditional methods.

Agile project management also allows product to be released in a periodical stages rather than waiting for all the deliverables to be completed.

This method are suitable in addressing to the rapid request from customer in maintaining the existing products or development of new products.