Agile methodology is a famous project management approach that has reportedly brought 64% success rate* for projects as compared to the traditional waterfall method. The Agile model is famous for its flexible and dynamic nature as it fosters the idea of delivering product features early and often. Famous for the increased visibility that it offers for all stakeholders, Agile methodology also allows to incorporate user feedback while maintaining high standards of software quality through frequent testing and integration.
Why use agile for custom software development? Following the best practices for agile custom software development, companies have proven to achieve high ROIs, win the trust of their customers, and deliver top quality products in less time – all with minimal development costs.
Let’s dive into this article to explore why Agile methodology has become a top choice for companies offering custom software development.
Quicker Time to Market
One of the biggest strengths of Agile project management is that it enables you to get ahead of competitors by launching the custom software faster than anyone else. This is possible as the features are developed and delivered in short cycles (i.e., sprints), allowing the product's alignment to business needs. It adopts an incremental approach for development, thus ensuring early feedback from your users is incorporated and any issues are addressed before they generate the snowball effect. This faster release cycle leads to a quicker time-to-market, giving your business a competitive edge.
Enhanced Collaboration and Visibility
One of the biggest agile development advantages is improved communication between all stakeholders. In contrast to other software development methodologies, Agile offers transparency between project managers, designers, developers, and most importantly, the client. Regular standup, review, and retrospective meetings keep everyone on top of things. This allows the team members to share status updates, discuss challenges, and align to the client’s goals.
Tetra Technology’s groundbreaking custom software WayLoader provides user friendly yet feature-rich Chat that enables you for clear interaction amongst all team members. WayLoader comes with a specialised chat module known as People Module that delivers abundant features like media file attachments, text formatting, and ability to forward messages in groups and personal chats – thus providing a smoother collaboration experience to its users.
Unparalleled Customer Satisfaction
Agile methodology facilitates both the software service provider and the client. Like other innumerable benefits of agile practices, the customer centric approach also holds a lot of significance. This is because the agile method emphasises involving the client during the development cycle and integrating their feedback to improve the product on the go. This guarantees that the sprint product increment is right according to the client’s ideas. Also, the ability to show a tangible output after every sprint helps to acquire client’s confidence and satisfaction.
High Adaptability to Modifications
Agile methodology is a highly flexible model for custom software development process. Since it follows an incremental approach towards development, the teams get a chance to respond to any changes swiftly. Managing these ad hoc requests from clients is a challenging task for software teams. Unlike the traditional waterfall technique, Agile methods like Scrum, Kanban, and Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) methods allow you to make those modifications to the product smoothly via short, manageable development cycles.
Constant Evolution of Software
Agile focuses on nonstop improvement of the software due to continuous testing and bug fixing throughout the sprint. This not only improves the overall quality of the custom software but also minimises the risks of any costly rework. Since each sprint ends with review and testing phases, all test plans are thoroughly executed, ensuring the outcome of the sprint is high quality and right according to the needs of the customer.
Reduced Risks and Mitigation Costs
With agile software development, risk management becomes so much easier. The incremental nature of agile methodology helps to detect any potential issues early in the software development lifecycle. Following both software development best practices and agile methodology require you to devise risk management processes, create test plans, and develop release rollback strategies. This allows for proactive mitigation strategies, reducing the risk of project failure and keeping costs under control.
Smarter Project Management
Agile methodology such as Kanban and Scrum for custom software development enables companies for smarter project management. In contrast to typical waterfall methodology where the project's overall performance is hidden for involved stakeholders, this method allows visibility via sprint planning, grooming sessions, demos, and retrospective sessions. The off-the-track items are quickly aligned after user feedback on sprint's deliverables and product increment. Daily standup meetings enable the Product team to identify the challenges, make improvements, and share progress of the sprint goals.
Tetra Technology’s WayLoader is a feature rich agile project management tool that offers effective task and milestone management at both macro and micro levels.
Conclusion
There are numerous benefits of agile methodology for custom software development projects. The importance of agile methodology can be determined by realizing that development teams can deliver faster in less time and budget when adopting Agile methods. Enhanced flexibility, cross-functional collaboration, and focus on user feedback rooted in continuous improvement make Agile a powerful tool for businesses looking to stay ahead of the curve in today's dynamic market.
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*This source was last updated on November 22, 2022.