How Agile Influences Business: People Talk

Everyone is talking about Agile development in the IT world. That’s why we decided to get to know it better and even asked active Agile-adopters to help us with this. To check out results take a look at our white paper “How Agile Influences Business”. A short overview can be found below.

The crucial point Agile stands on is that business cannot know all its needs and requirements upfront. There is just not enough understanding of what the system should do at the very beginning of the development process.

We defined four main agile development approaches: extreme programming (XP), scrum, lean software, and crystal. XP is an Agile methodology with a high level of involvement between the customer and the development team. Best suited for smaller development teams consisting of senior developers with excellent communication skills who are able to work with and manage non-IT people.

Agile Development Team

The crucial point Agile stands on is that business cannot know all its needs and requirements upfront. There is just not enough understanding of what the system should do at the very beginning of the development process.

We defined four main agile development approaches extreme programming (XP), scrum, lean software, and crystal. XP is an Agile methodology with a high level of involvement between the customer and the development team. Best suited for smaller development teams consisting of senior developers with excellent communication skills who are able to work with and manage non-IT people.

CrystalL methods focus on people, interaction, community, skills, talents, and communications. It is very tolerant to the fact that teams can achieve success in different ways, so it is easy to implement.

Lean Software Development

The lean software applies the lean manufacturing method to the software development process that aims at minimizing waste without sacrificing productivity.

To the benefits of lean software development belong overall efficiency of the development process and its speed-up, early delivery of the project.

Scrum takes a more broad-brush approach to building software. It is a framework for managing and controlling iterative work at the project level.

Agile has proven to win the market: 67 percent is constituted by companies that either has implemented the pure Agile or are leaning toward it. However, not all of these companies fully implement agile methodologies.

Large enterprises are the most active adopters of agile approaches, dispelling the belief that Agile is better for smaller projects.

Agile is the most popular with High Tech, discrete manufacturing, real estate, banking, and finance.

The key motivation to switch to Agile is enhanced collaboration, increased software quality, increased customer satisfaction, shortened time-to-market, and reduced cost.

People actively adopting Agile has outlined the following benefits of Agile:

• better flexibility
• less work in progress
• more feedback cycles
• constant review
• better quality
• healthy habits
• increased team rhythm,
• visible results
• increased motivation
• predictable development
• constant discussion
• less misunderstanding
• continuous improvement
• real value for customers
• faster time-to-market
• focus on business goals,
• pen culture promotion
• project transparency.

As the main goals, they defined achievement of adaptive approach, improvement of collaboration, upgrade of the quality of soft delivered, customer satisfaction, shorter time-to-market, a decrease of cost, and consistent delivery of value.

The Structure of an Agile Team

The most popular structure and hierarchy inside the Agile team turned out to be cross-functional teams, little/flat hierarchy, empowered people, and respectful and open communication.

The most challenging was the rhythm of adaptation, lack of procedures, lack of structured planning, time planning in estimation, company culture, an absence of product owner, and lack of management support.

Agile adopters see the main disadvantages in uneven sprints, not-balanced load, and underbidding.

The main metrics to measure Agile success are speed of change, goals achieved, customers feedback and satisfaction, rapid implementation of new strategic directions, a value generated before and after Agile, on-time delivery, product quality, efficiency and work in process.

Will Agile Remain a Dominating Software Development Methodology?

The publication of the Agile Manifesto in 2001 marks the birth of agile as a methodology. As we’ve managed before, many agile frameworks have emerged (scrum, kanban, lean, and Extreme Programming (XP)). Each embodies the core principles of frequent iteration, continuous learning, and high quality in its own way.

Scrum and XP are favored by software development teams, while Kanban is a darling among service-oriented teams like IT or human resources.

Today, many agile teams combine practices from a few different frameworks, spiced up with practices unique to the team.

Some teams adopt some agile rituals (like regular stand-ups, retros, backlogs, etc.), while others created a new agile practice (agile marketing teams who adhere to the Agile Marketing Manifesto).

To be honest, scrum goes well beyond software development, reaching areas outside of traditional product development.

Many organizations adopt the so-called ‘Spotify’ model, renaming departments and project teams to tribes, squads, etc.

Renamed departments will need to move from names to execution and start adopting a different way of thinking about collaboration, incentives, and promotion models.

The reality is that renaming existing functions does not actually change them, but sometimes is a good place to start as long as the intent is considered and impediments to that intent are resolved.

Conclusion: Main Predictions for Agile

Everyone will continue to talk Agile: media and marketing organizations will continue to use this word Agile, but increasingly in the context of digital transformation and new ways of working.

This buzz will increase the value of everyone who has these skills and increase demand for experienced people and better content.

Only eclipsed by full-stack developers, real Agile skills and experience will be harder and harder to find.

This leads to the internal development of people and their skills with the rise of internal Agile academies.

The rise of online courses with COVID pandemics will also contribute to the number of Agile adepts, and more qualified ones, obviously.

AboutAndrei Kasyanau

As CEO at Glorium Technologies, I help tech startups bolster their teams with agile product development services on demand. Our custom development can reduce time to market by up to 30% with 40% in savings compared to in-house teams.