3 Main Agile Processes That Help Your Project Development
We continue to delve into the study of the features of Agile methodology because it is a truly inexhaustible topic. And today would like to touch the essence of the project development processes in Agile.
Agile transformation is the topic relevant to so many companies nowadays. In our article, you can meet with the most important values and the main working processes in Agile. Moreover, every Agile process is provided with examples of its practical use, so you can try it all in your personal work and choose the best one from them!
Agile values and their impact on project development
It was no coincidence that we decided to start with the description of Agile values. It is important to remember that all the practices and techniques are all subject to certain values and purposes. Before embarking on the active use of a particular practice, you need to get into the ideology of Agile and understand its essence and main values.
Agile methodology welcomes the following values:
- the principles of economy, frugality and lean methods in the project development process;
- democratic business decisions and different flexible approaches to work;
- the activities that are aimed at the care for available resources and reasonable ways of work time spending;
- attention to the needs of people – both project customers and all persons involved in its development.
Therefore, Agile practices teach specialists to respect every aspect of the whole work and appreciate the above and other related values of the project development in order to achieve the desired business results.
Three types of Agile processes
Every technique from a big Agile family has its own features and peculiarities, but there is one common thing for them all. Every Agile practice is performed according to a specific scenario – here we will call it as Agile process, and we will consider the most popular of them.
Agile process №1: Iterative process
This approach implies a performance of work in the form of several phases that are being executed in parallel to each other. The obtained work results are analyzed and can be also corrected in order to increase the quality of such a project management practice.
Iterative Agile process has its certain scheme called PDCA – it is a special cycle consisting of ‘plan-do-check-act’ algorithm. Such an approach allows developers to have the following advantages in the project development process:
- a tangible risk reduction in the early stages of project production
- a continuous work planning and testing of the project’s produced elements simultaneously with its development
- a uniform workload on all the specialists involved in the project development
- an easy assessment of the current state of the project
As it can be seen, such a process looks like a streamlined production mechanism that is absolutely available for the project development process. However, it should be noted that iterative Agile process requires a lot of working experience.
The point is that in some cases, the developers can come across with some problems that will force them to return to the previous phases (to previous iterations) of production again and again, thereby making the development of the project not only protracted but also extremely expensive, what reduces interest in further support and promotion of the product.
Agile process №2: Adaptive process
There is an opinion that adaptive Agile process can not be considered individually – it is a kind of the entire strategy of Agile. In fact, it is possible to analyze this approach to project development in a very simple way.
In this context, adaptive Agile process gives an opportunity to make changes to the project structure at any stage of its development. It means that a long-term Agile planning is absent, and the project is always on alert to accept any changes in the form of adding new features or removing any existing functions.
It may seem that such a spontaneity is unacceptable in a proper project development, however, it is not actually so. Adaptive process can be ideal in the following cases, when:
- the project has no clear requirements for its development, and everything can be solved at the last minute
- the project is undergoing constant structural changes (top management, sponsors and investors, stakeholders and others)
- the previous version of the project was subjected to a deep marketing analysis, and at the earliest possible time it may require constant but not consistent additions or changes
That is, the adaptive Agile process may be an informed choice for primarily ‘undecided’ projects and a certain desperate measure for the projects that are in tenterhook. Nevertheless, it is happened to be.
Agile process №3: Two-level process
It is one of the most complex approaches to project development.
The name speaks for itself – it is a special structural process when the project is being developed in two dimensions: the first level implies some short iterations and periods of the active implementation of some components, and the second level is presented as the structuring and systematizing of all these components and their filling into releases.
Two-level system shows its effectiveness in that the first level usually consists of a purely technical development, while the second level already includes all other additions to the project structure. Such a project development method is perfect for the projects with very complex structures and that require their gradual and phased development, like banking systems, programs for high-security enterprises and other covert facilities.
Conclusion
Today we have achieved one more great goal – we have learned more interesting features of such a complicated methodology as Agile. The processes play their important roles in the project development and make the entire project workflow more consistent and smooth.
We are always glad to know your personal opinion about Agile methodology and the processes that you usually prefer to use in your project work. Please write to us about your experience in the comments below!
