Agile software development methodology allows you to use different approaches to develop your software. Although they differ greatly in their implementation details, they share a common philosophy. Experts say that agile methods are quite systematic and each element of the methodology contributes to its success of the agile methodology. Therefore, it is imperative that all elements have the same meaning in order to avoid so-called “technical debt”. Failure to account for all elements calls for trouble. Now follow the tips below:
1. Complex codes are complex – so break them
Encourage your team to develop simple code as complex code can slow down the software. Even if you have to do additional work later, complex code as it is is much more difficult to manage and takes more time.
2. Smaller teams are much better
In Agile development, it is always better to have a small team, let’s say a team of 7 people. Give or take a few more. Small teams make it more productive. If necessary, you can move the different people between teams, as this would help cross-pollinate ideas. By regularly moving people around, teams communicate with each other continuously, so no team is isolated. However, when it comes to agile development, physical locations have been more successful than others.
3. Testing with sandboxes
If you’re worried about the complexity of end-to-end testing, then Sandbox would be a good solution. Sandbox is an isolated computing environment and fits well with an agile methodology where one or more components of the application are unstable or evolving. With Sandbox’s safe simulation of the real production environment, you can push your team to test the code and take prime software development in a completely different direction.
4. Automated test analysis
If you use automated test analysis, you can spot errors immediately. This would be of great help as it eliminates the need to wait for manual tests and even then you might miss a bug or two. With complex data, you can feed complex data, and each time the tests would be repeated at precise times.
5. Change-Based Testing
This is easy. With change-based testing, you and your team can perform bug testing when source code changes are made. With change-based testing, you can be sure of enormous quality assurance and save time for other value-adding tasks in the project.
6. Focus on Continuous Delivery first
With Continuous Delivery, you can count on the right path. And with feedback for every delivery, you can complete the project on time. The team would also be comfortable with sudden changes in the project and eventually could develop a technique that would produce a usable version of the software. The new version of the software would then be error-free.
7. Enjoy shorter prime software development cycles
The company that ordered it first can turn down software that has gone through long development cycles. They probably don’t want it anymore because their customers’ tastes have changed. So use the build method and have shorter development cycles.
8. Enjoy automation right from the start
Make sure you automate tasks from day one. Automation is also known as AD1 and if you do it from the beginning everything will be ready on time. It saves your team a lot of unnecessary work. Therefore, automation is a lifesaver.
9. What about feedback?
Feedback is one of the main sources by which the software can become “Acceptable Software”. So to create the best software through Agile Development, get feedback from everyone associated with the project, including the customer and definitely upper management.
10. Process Review
With process assessment, you can refine your development process and ensure that the current project is delivering the best results in the given timeframe.
11. Use the 5 levels
The five levels of agile planning are:
Product vision where the seed of the project is generated
A roadmap of what the product should look like; is updated every 6 months
Release Plan, the set of increments to be released to the customer
Sprint plan in which meetings are held on the status of the project progress
Daily engagement where stand-up meetings are conducted
12. Are you preparing your team for the transition?
Agile software is a completely different stream of software application development, very different from the traditional stream. So first, your team needs to be ready for the transition. When there is hostility in the team, you have to take control because there are always people who are against change. You must gain their support and trust before moving on. Many companies have already switched to agile methods, so there is no point in holding back and fumbling with the traditional approaches. Shifting to agile methods is a matter of survival, so you have to convince them that this is where the future lies.
Conclusion
When you transition to agile technology, everyone in the organization needs to embrace it because the agile transition is not happening in chunks. Everyone who works there will have something to do with it, from software engineers, and project managers to the marketing team. And your customers need to be trained, too. You must explain to them that they will receive the software in small portions but all the software without any delay.
