Choosing Agile Software to Improve Development Life Cycle

The core values of Agile, as expressed in the Agile Manifesto, include:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools: The Agile software development methodology emphasizes effective collaboration between competent people over overly complex processes and tools.
• Working software over comprehensive documentation: A key element of Agile is frequent, iterative development – planning and producing work in small batches, and then testing that work in the market. As such, Agile methodology values working software – software that can be delivered to the market – over comprehensive documentation. Agile thinking is that good documentation is useful in helping people understand how a piece of software was built and how to use it, but ultimately the purpose of development is to create software (or in other disciplines, a functional product or service), not documentation.
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation: What determines whether a product or service is successful? Ultimately, it’s whether the product or service meets the customer’s needs. Agile methodology engages the voice of the customer in the development of products. It values active, frequent collaboration with customers to develop work that truly addresses real needs.
• Responding to change over following a plan: Agile development methodology allows teams to deliver in small batches, frequently, with short planning cycles – so as plans change, teams can change with it.

There are many benefits to using the Agile software development process, which explains why the methodology is so popular. Agile teams have been found to deliver higher-quality products, faster, with greater predictability. Having the right Agile tool can help to ensure that your team maximizes these benefits.

The importance your methodology plays when choosing Agile software

We’ve shared that the term ‘Agile’ is an umbrella term which describes many practices, principles, and values used in software development and beyond. You might be familiar with team-level Agile methods such as Scrum, Kanban, etc.

Agile has evolved from software development to be a team-level methodology and a big-picture organizational strategy.

Agile Program Management is a term you might be familiar with, which describes the application of Agile practices and principles to planning and executing initiatives in teams of teams. With the growth of Agile Program Management, has come a host of Agile software designed to facilitate Agile Program Management and even Enterprise Agile Planning, an approach that involved planning, funding and managing delivery from the portfolio, down to the Agile teams.

Although you might be in the market for this (now or in the future), it’s also possible that software with Agile portfolio management capabilities might be overkill for your team’s needs.

So, in addition to understanding what type of Agile your team practices, when looking at Agile tools, it’s important to consider what scale of Agile you are looking to practice.

Like with any software buying decision, when you’re looking for Agile software, you’ll likely follow this process:

1) Identify the key attributes that define the software category.

2) Research which capabilities are essential in a possible solution.

3) Make a list of the questions you need to ask vendors to ensure a good fit.

Types of Agile methodologies

There are a variety of Agile development methodologies, including, but not limited to:

• Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD)
• Adaptive Software Development
• Kanban
• Scrum
• Scrumban
• Extreme Programming (XP)
• Dynamic Systems Development (DSDM)
• Feature Driven Development
• Lean Software Development

The overall goal of each of these Agile methodologies is to adapt to change and deliver working software as quickly as possible. However, each methodology has slight variations in the way it defines the phases of software development.

Furthermore, even though the goal is the same, each team’s process flow may vary depending on the specific project or situation. Most Agile teams follow a software development life cycle that includes a step to plan, design, develop, test, and evaluate their software. Another commonality between most versions of Agile methodologies is that teams plan and execute in sprints, iterations that are usually two or four weeks in duration. This is distinctly different from traditional workflow management methods which might have indefinite timelines.