What is an Agile Process?

Agile process is a process that is taking up the field of software engineering for the good. In this article the topic of the agile process has been taken up in depth. 

Agile processes or agile software development processes constitute a group of processes that are based up on the principles of the agile values and principles and follow up the idea of the iterative and incremental development for developing the software products. 

Here the solutions to the software problems are meant to be evolved via the collaboration between the development teams having characteristics like:

     1. Self organization and

     2. Cross functioning

The agile process are known world wide for the promotion of the following features:

     1. Adaptive planning

     2. Evolutionary development

     3. A time boxed iterative approach

     4. Flexible and rapid response to the change in requirements.

     

What is an Agile Process?

- Agile processes can be thought of as a conceptual frame work promoting the above mentioned aspects plus the foreseen interactions that take place throughout the development cycle. 

- The term “agile processes” came in to existence by the virtue of the agile manifesto in the year of 2001. 

- The concept of the agile processes is not so new to the software industry. 

- The incremental software development aspect of the agile development can be dated back to the year of 1957.  

- The category of the light weight software development methodologies houses all the agile software development methodologies. 

- The agile processes were first mentioned in the “manifesto for agile software development”. 

Principles that govern Agile Process

There are 12 principles that govern the agile processes as mentioned below:

1. Rapid delivery of the software that is useful to the customer.

2. To accept the changes in the requirements in all the phases of the development process.

3. Frequent delivery of the working software.

4. A principal measure of the progress is the working software.

5. The development takes place at a constant pace known as the sustainable development.

6. Daily co- operation takes place between the developers and the clients.

7. Face to face conversation is maintained.

8. The project is centered around the motivated individuals who are trust worthy.

9. Regular attention is paid to the design and the technical excellence.

10. Simplicity is maintained.

11. Self organizing teams.

12. Ability to adapt to the changing circumstances.

Till date so many agile software development methods have come up and they are known to promote the following elements:

1. Team work

2. Collaboration

3. Process adaptability

- These elements are promoted all along the development process and throughout the development cycle of the software project.

- The main methodology of the agile processes is that the problem is broken down in to small increments or iterations and is developed according to the short term planning rather than using the long term planning. 

- These iterations are nothing but kind of short frame works having duration of development ranging from one to four weeks. 

Activities in Agile Process

Full agile software development iteration includes the following activities:

1. Planning

2. Requirements analysis

3. Design

4. Coding

5. Unit testing and

6. Acceptance testing

More about Agile Process

- The agile processes are known for their typical strategy that works on minimizing the risk to a great extent. 

- The documentation is produced by the stake holder as and when required.

- The goal here is develop a release that is available as a sample but not for market release. 

- A market release is facilitated by multiple iterations.

- The work burden is divided by the individual team members among themselves. 

- For the agile development the team needs to be in the same region and size of the team is typically small at the most ten members.