The concept of agile is not a new one. Its origins come from the 1990s, but some organizations still have not adopted agile despite its many inherent benefits. Agile believes in the faster adaptation and iterative life cycle, and brings the beauty of constant refinement of the goals, requirements and solutions during the development process.
However, if you are still undecided on whether to choose agile as your preferred method of software development, or if you need a few arguments to convince your colleagues, perhaps these five reasons will help you make a quicker decision:
Agile adapts well to changing priorities. Implementing agile ensures that your software development is up to date. Unlike the traditional software development methods, you do not need to spend a number of years in the development process only to realize that the world has actually moved past the original project requirements. With agile, your company will be better able adapt their portfolio to meet the ever changing business priorities. In agile, working software is delivered on a regular basis. The high value features are prioritized first against lower value features. With Agile you do not have to wait years to discover you have built an obsolete product.
Agile responds quickly to customer needs. Unlike in traditional software methodologies, the customer changing his priority midway does not affect the entire project drastically. Agile makes use of iterations so that the customer can access the progress of the project at any given time. Agile helps the project development team deliver products based on the feedback they receive from the customers.
There are fewer defects with agile. There far fewer defects associated with agile than with traditional methodologies. It is far preferable to test software in smaller installments as it is being developed than develop a whole project and test it at the last stage. Iterations make it possible for the defects and errors to be detected earlier and corrected. This makes it possible to have products with zero defects.
Marketing is faster with agile. It is possible for products made though agile to reach the market faster than those made through traditional methods. Research shows that there is a 37% chance of products developed using agile reaching the market faster than using traditional software development methods. In a competitive environment, it is essential to get the products to the market faster than the competition. Agile leads to better productivity as well as having the right scope delivered at the right time.
There is greater transparency with agile: The use of agile inherently leads to great transparency between the team members. This is because of the improved communication between team members. Communication can take place daily in which each team members update on deliverables and make commitments to better quality products. Through communication, problems are discovered, discussed and resolved faster, hence bringing higher transparency to the company.
Do you know other ways how agile benefits organizations? Share them in the comments!
