Software Engineering | Agile Software Development

Agile is a time-bound, iterative approach to software delivery that builds software

incrementally from the start of the project, instead of trying to deliver all at once.
Why Agile?
Technology in this current era is progressing faster than ever, enforcing the global
software companies to work in a fast-paced changing environment. Because these
businesses are operating in an ever-changing environment, it is impossible to gather a
complete and exhaustive set of software requirements. Without these requirements, it
becomes practically hard for any conventional software model to work.
The conventional software models such as Waterfall Model that depends on completely
specifying the requirements, designing, and testing the system are not geared towards
rapid software development. As a consequence, a conventional software development
model fails to deliver the required product.
This is where the agile software development comes to the rescue. It was specially
designed to curate the needs of the rapidly changing environment by embracing the
idea of incremental development and develop the actual final product.
Let’s now read about the on which the Agile has laid its foundation:

Development in Agile: Let’s see a brief overview of how development occurs in Agile
philosophy.
 In Agile development, Design and Implementation are considered to be the central
activities in the software process.
 Design and Implementation phase also incorporate other activities such as
requirements elicitation and testing into it.
 In an agile approach, iteration occurs across activities. Therefore, the requirements
and the design are developed together, rather than separately.
 The allocation of requirements and the design planning and development as
executed in a series of increments. In contrast with the conventional model, where
requirements gathering needs to be completed in order to proceed to the design
and development phase, it gives Agile development an extra level of flexibility.
 An agile process focuses more on code development rather than documentation.
Example: Let’s go through an example to understand clearly about how agile actually
works.
A Software company named ABC wants to make a new web browser for the latest
release of its operating system. The deadline for the task is 10 months. The company’s
head assigned two teams named Team A and Team B for this task. In order to motivate
the teams, the company head says that the first team to develop the browser would be
given a salary hike and a one week full sponsored travel plan. With the dreams of their
wild travel fantasies, the two teams set out on the journey of the web browser. The team
A decided to play by the book and decided to choose the Waterfall model for the
development. Team B after a heavy discussion decided to take a leap of faith and
choose Agile as their development model.
The Development plan of the Team A is as follows:
 Requirement analysis and Gathering – 1.5 Months
  Design of System – 2 Months
 Coding phase – 4 Months
 System Integration and Testing – 2 Months
 User Acceptance Testing – 5 Weeks
The Development plan for the Team B is as follows:
 Since this was an Agile, the project was broken up into several iterations.
 The iterations are all of the same time duration.
 At the end of each iteration, a working product with a new feature has to be
delivered.
 Instead of Spending 1.5 months on requirements gathering, They will decide the
core features that are required in the product and decide which of these features
can be developed in the first iteration.
 Any remaining features that cannot be delivered in the first iteration will be
delivered in the next subsequent iteration, based in the priority
 At the end of the first iterations, the team will deliver a working software with the
core basic features.
Both the team have put their best efforts to get the product to a complete stage. But
then out of blue due to the rapidly changing environment, the company’s head come up
with an entirely new set of features and want to be implemented as quickly as possible
and wanted to push out a working model in 2 days. Team A was now in a fix, they were
still in their design phase and did not yet started coding and they had no working model
to display. And moreover, it was practically impossible for them to implement new
features since waterfall model there is not reverting back to the old phase once you
proceed to the next stage, that means they would have to start from the square one
again. That would incur them heavy cost and a lot of overtime. Team B was ahead of
Team A in a lot of aspects, all thanks to Agile Development. They also had the working
product with most of the core requirement since the first increment. And it was a piece
of cake for them to add the new requirements. All they had to do is schedule these
requirements for the next increment and then implement them.
Advantages:
 Deployment of software is quicker and thus helps in increasing the trust of the
customer.
 Can better adapt to rapidly changing requirements and respond faster.
 Helps in getting immediate feedback which can be used to improve the software in
the next increment.
 People – Not Process. People and interactions are given a higher priority rather
than process and tools.
 Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design.
Disadvantages:
 In case of large software projects, it is difficult to assess the effort required at the
initial stages of the software development life cycle.
 The Agile Development is more code focused and produces less documentation.
 Agile development is heavily depended on the inputs of the customer. If the
customer has ambiguity in his vision of the final outcome, it is highly likely for the
project to get off track.
  Face to Face communication is harder in large-scale organizations.
 Only senior programmers are capable of taking the kind of decisions required
during the development process. Hence it’s a difficult situation for new
programmers to adapt to the environment.
Agile is a framework which defines how the software development needs to be carried
on. Agile is not a single method, it represents the various collection of methods and
practices that follow the value statements provided in the manifesto. Agile methods and
practices do not promise to solve every problem present in the software industry (No
Software model ever can). But they sure help to establish a culture and environment
where solutions emerge.

Agile principles

 The highest priority of this process is to satisfy the customer.

 Acceptance of changing requirement even late in development.
 Frequently deliver a working software in small time span.
 Throughout the project business people and developers work together on daily
basis.
 Projects are created around motivated people if they are given the proper
environment and support.
 Face to face interaction is the most efficient method of moving information in
the development team.
 Primary measure of progress is a working software.
 Agile process helps in sustainable development.
 Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design increases agility.
 From self organizing teams the best architecture, design and requirements are
emerged.
 Simplicity is necessary in development.

Extreme Programming (XP)

 The Extreme Programming is commonly used agile process model.

 It uses the concept of object-oriented programming.
 A developer focuses on the framework activities like planning, design, coding
and testing. XP has a set of rules and practices.
 XP values

Following are the values for extreme programming:

1. Communication

 Building software development process needs communication between the

developer and the customer.
 Communication is important for requirement gathering and discussing the
concept.
2) Simplicity
The simple design is easy to implement in code.

3. Feedback
Feedback guides the development process in the right direction.

4. Courage
In every development process there will always be a pressure situation. The
courage or the discipline to deal with it surely makes the task easy.

5. Respect
Agile process should inculcate the habit to respect all team members, other
stake holders and customer.
 The XP Process

The XP process comprises four framework activities:

1. Planning

 Planning starts with the requirements gathering which enables XP team to

understand the rules for the software.
 The customer and developer work together for the final requirements.
2. Design

 The XP design follows the 'keep it simple' principle.

 A simple design always prefers the more difficult representation.
3. Coding

 The coding is started after the initial design work is over.

 After the initial design work is done, the team creates a set of unit tests which
can test each situation that should be a part of the release.
 The developer is focused on what must be implemented to pass the test.
 Two people are assigned to create the code. It is an important concept in
coding activity.
4. Testing

 Validation testing of the system occurs on a daily basis. It gives the XP team a
regular indication of the progress.
 'XP acceptance tests' are known as the customer test.

Scrum

 Scrum is an agile software development method.

 Scrum principles are consistent with the agile platform that are used to guide
development activities within a process.
 It includes the framework activities like requirement, analysis, design,
evolution and delivery.
 Work tasks occur within a process pattern in each framework activity called as
'sprint'.
 Scrum highlights the use of a set of software process pattern that are effective
for the projects with tight timelines, changing requirements and business
criticality.
 Scrum consists of the use of a set of software process patterns.
Each process patterns defines a set of development actions which are
as follows:

Backlog

 A prioritized list of project requirements or features that provide business value

for the customer.
 Items can be added to the backlog at any time.
 The product manager accesses the backlog and updates priorities, as required.
Sprints

 It consists of work units that are required to achieve a requirement defined in

the backlog.
 Changes are not introduced during the sprints. It allows team members to
work in short-term but in the stable environment.
Scrum meeting

 The short meetings are held daily by the scrum team.

 The key questions are asked and answered by all team members.
 Daily meetings guide to 'knowledge socialization' and that encourages a self-
organizing team structure.
Demos

 Deliver the software increment to the customer. Using which the customer
evaluates and demonstrates the functionalities.

The Manifesto for Agile Software Development[edit]

Agile software development values[edit]
Based on their combined experience of developing software and helping others do that, the
seventeen signatories to the manifesto proclaimed that they value:[4]

 Individuals and Interactions over processes and tools

 Working Software over comprehensive documentation
 Customer Collaboration over contract negotiation
 Responding to Change over following a plan
That is to say, the items on the left are valued more than the items on the right.
As Scott Ambler elucidated:[20]

 Tools and processes are important, but it is more important to have competent people working
together effectively.
 Good documentation is useful in helping people to understand how the software is built and how
to use it, but the main point of development is to create software, not documentation.
 A contract is important but is no substitute for working closely with customers to discover what
they need.
 A project plan is important, but it must not be too rigid to accommodate changes in technology or
the environment, stakeholders' priorities, and people's understanding of the problem and its
solution.
Some of the authors formed the Agile Alliance, a non-profit organization that promotes software
development according to the manifesto's values and principles. Introducing the manifesto on behalf
of the Agile Alliance, Jim Highsmith said,
The Agile movement is not anti-methodology, in fact many of us want to restore credibility to the
word methodology. We want to restore a balance. We embrace modeling, but not in order to file
some diagram in a dusty corporate repository. We embrace documentation, but not hundreds of
pages of never-maintained and rarely-used tomes. We plan, but recognize the limits of planning in a
turbulent environment. Those who would brand proponents of XP or SCRUM or any of the other
Agile Methodologies as "hackers" are ignorant of both the methodologies and the original definition
of the term hacker.

— Jim Highsmith, History: The Agile Manifesto[21]

Agile software development principles

The Manifesto for Agile Software Development is based on twelve principles:[22]

1. Customer satisfaction by early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

2. Welcome changing requirements, even in late development.
3. Deliver working software frequently (weeks rather than months)
4. Close, daily cooperation between business people and developers
5. Projects are built around motivated individuals, who should be trusted
6. Face-to-face conversation is the best form of communication (co-location)
7. Working software is the primary measure of progress
8. Sustainable development, able to maintain a constant pace
9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design
10. Simplicity—the art of maximizing the amount of work not done—is essential
11. Best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams
12. Regularly, the team reflects on how to become more effective, and adjusts accordingly