Agile Software Development: Principles and

Benefits

5 minutes read

Audio description available

July 6, 2023

According to digital.ai’s 14th annual State of Agile report, 95% of their 40,000 respondents said that their organizations practice Agile development methods, with 61% using Agile for over three years. For those who embrace Agile, this approach has a number of advantages over other, traditional project management methodologies. How agile software development increases agility in your business and what business benefits it can offer will be discussed in this post. Let’s find out!

What is Agile Software Development?

The term ‘Agile’ means to move quickly and easily. In the context of software engineering, Agile software development is an iterative approach to software development mainly focusing on the delivery of high-quality software quickly and the ability to adapt to changing software requirements for ensuring customer satisfaction.

It involves breaking down a large project into smaller shippable units that can be executed and delivered by the team in shorter intervals of time termed sprints.

The Agile approach to software development tries to keep up with changing customer needs. With a continuous focus on both business value and technical quality, it delivers the most important features first. This incremental approach towards product development ensures close collaboration between team members and with customers or stakeholders to ensure that the project stays on track to meet its goals.

Why is Agile so popular?

According to management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, “agility is catching fire” as organizations recognize the value of the Agile methodology in a new era of work. The rapid technological advances of the 21st century have dominated the entire working landscape, affecting every industry.

Agility contrasts with more traditional methods of developing software, such as plan-driven or waterfall methods where requirements are outlined in advance, all at once, prior to writing any code, leading to too many bugs being discovered after significant development time has passed.

Compared with the waterfall model, agile software development proves to be more efficient and agile. It allows for scope changes when business needs change, which can lead to cost savings, higher customer satisfaction, and faster delivery times.

Now, other companies are opting for Agile to accelerate their workflows and keep up with the fast-paced future of work. According to a recent study by Organize Agile, surveying professionals in 19 countries, nearly half of all organizations have been using the Agile methodology for three years or longer.

To fully understand the burgeoning popularity of Agile project management, let’s take a deeper dive into some of the key benefits.

What are the Principles of Agile software development?

According to the latest analytics, the use of an agile approach in software development has become the most popular for many companies around the world. The Agile principles, as outlined in the Agile Manifesto, include:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools: Agile emphasizes the importance of effective communication and collaboration among team members, valuing human interactions over rigid processes and tools. It encourages face-to-face communication, open discussions, and teamwork.
Working software over comprehensive documentation: Agile promotes delivering working software that meets customer needs over extensive documentation. While documentation is important, Agile teams prioritize working software that can be tested, reviewed, and iteratively improved.
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation: Agile emphasizes close collaboration with customers and stakeholders throughout the development process. It involves regular customer feedback, incorporating changes as needed, and fostering a strong partnership to ensure that the software meets the customer's requirements.
Responding to change over following a plan: Agile acknowledges that change is inevitable in software development. It encourages teams to be adaptable, flexible, and responsive to changes in requirements, technology, and market conditions. Agile teams embrace change and adjust their plans and priorities accordingly.

Agile software development principles make it possible to use more flexible project management systems – in particular, Kanban and Scrum. Thanks to their use, it is possible to more reasonably use labor and time resources for product development, but without compromising its quality.

Why Go for Agile: Major Benefits Overview?

Up to date, over 70% of development teams prefer to use the Agile approach in their work. The growth of such popularity is based on a number of advantages granted by an agile approach to software development.

Workflow flexibility

Dividing a holistic workflow into small steps, or sprints makes it possible to quickly respond to customer needs and make changes to the project. There is also no need to develop a whole range of additional documentation to approve innovations in the project, which simplifies the process of working and collaborating with clients.

Higher work productivity

Agile software development often uses a cross-platform approach to team building. This means that a separate group of specialists is simultaneously working on each part of the project, maintaining constant communication with each other. At the same time, the division of work into several small time periods makes it possible to more reasonably use the labor resources of team members.

Better workflow control

Thanks to a transparent approach to management and the absence of unnecessary bureaucracy in the approval of the work process, the direct management process is improved. All team members provide progress reports almost daily, and thanks to the openness in the use of reporting tools, the results of the work can be analyzed without any extra effort. On top of that, Agile software development involves mutual communication between management and the rest of the team without excessive formalism.

Better optimized planning

Dividing the workflow into separate sprints makes it possible to more accurately calculate the time and cost of product development. Even at the initial stage, the client receives a rough estimate of each sprint with predicted costs, which contributes to a better understanding of the complexity of development and the formation of trusting relationships.

Tailored workflow

Each stage of agile development involves constant communication between clients and developers. If necessary, you can easily make changes to the project both at the request of the client and on the recommendations of the developers. At the same time, it does not matter at what stage of development the project is, because the iterative approach involves constant testing of the product at all stages of work.

Higher soft-ware quality

The division of work into separate sprints helps improve the quality of not only the work of developers but also the product itself. All changes that are made to the architecture are regularly tested, and any errors and shortcomings are promptly eliminated. Product testing is carried out holistically by assembly, and not only at certain stages of development of individual components. An important point is that product testing is carried out in the operating environment in which the software product will be used in the future.

Faster time-to-market

Agile sprints don’t usually take too long – weeks at most if the project is complex. This makes it possible to work faster on the creation of a finished product and bring it to the market – at least in beta testing mode. Short deadlines also make it possible to accumulate efforts on the development of a software product and not be distracted by extraneous issues – for example, approving necessary changes. It doesn’t matter how complex the project is – a flexible approach can be used for different tasks.

Streamline Agile workflows with BHSoft

Agile frameworks have proven to be a powerful approach for organizations looking to thrive in today’s dynamic business environment. By embracing flexibility, collaboration, and iterative progress, teams can build better products that truly speak to customers’ needs.

To harness the full potential of Agile software development without spendiưng too much time on initiation, why not contact BHSoft to streamline your workflow's business? Don’t miss out on the opportunity to revolutionize the way your organization works. Embrace Agile and leverage BHSoft’s Agile resources to supercharge your productivity, enhance team performance, and stay ahead of the competition.