In contrast to the conventional Waterfall concept, the Agile development approach focuses not on the formal aspects of the product but its usability. Instead of meticulously sticking to the original plan, the development team constantly interacts with the customer and flexibly adjusts the product to the evolving requirements. Implementing Agile into the workflow of an established organization might be time-consuming and sometimes costly but the advantages of Agile fully justify this effort.
The Quality of the Product Will Be Noticeably Higher
Agile suggests breaking down the project into manageable units. It enables the team to more efficiently develop and test the product as well as more productively collaborate with their colleagues. Once an iteration is over, tests and reviews are carried out. Any potential bugs or expectation mismatches are detected at such a phase when they can be fixed with minimum costs and efforts.
Agile adoption statistics convincingly proves that the level of customer satisfaction will be higher. The developers will be able to meet their schedule without excessive stress. Your team will be grateful for an opportunity to timely receive feedback on demos and adjust their workflow according to this valuable information.
Business Value is Regarded as a Primary Priority
One of the indisputable benefits of Agile Scrum is that any software company using this methodology would invite the project stakeholders to take an active part in the development. The person who coordinates the interaction of all the parties involved is called Scrum master. By drawing the team’s attention to the essential business values, the stakeholders ensure that the product has all the features and properties that determine its future success. When all the concerned parties build stronger trust with each other and establish a mutually fruitful collaboration, the team obtains a clearer business vision and more distinctly identifies the ultimate goals of the project.
If compared to other methodologies, Agile suggests that all stakeholders and not just the major ones should be engaged in the development process. They should be able to interact with the team prior to, throughout and after each sprint. Before you invite your stakeholders to test and discuss your product, invest some time in explaining to them what is Agile technology and why you opt for it.
The Main Objective Is To Cater to the Needs of the End User
When working on the project, the developers think not about its abstract merits or the current industry standards but the profit of the user. Their main guidance is a user story accompanied by business-focused acceptance criteria. Like this, every feature of the product will be something more than an IT component — instead, it should deliver a tangible value. After each sprint, the team will beta test the product, gather feedback and promptly introduce changes.
Each Phase Is Transparent
Why use Agile project management if not for the sake of an unobstructed information flow? Customers and stakeholders have a right to ask as many questions as they want at any development phase. The team tries to provide the most exhaustive answers because it realizes that the quality of the product greatly depends on the information exchange. Transparency enables the team to more efficiently prioritize features, plan iterations and review sessions. The most challenging task for the customer is to understand that the product is still in the process of being built, so it would be premature to demand perfection of its certain aspects.
Changes Can Be Flexibly Implemented
The lists of Agile advantages and disadvantages often mention flexibility as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, proponents of the more conventional approach are afraid that introducing frequent changes might lead to delayed delivery. Being not sure of how you should be measuring Agile, they suspect that repeated discussions will blur the vision of the product.
On the other hand, the statistic proves that introducing changes at the final stage of development leads to much longer delays. The discussions, professionally coordinated by the Scrum master, remarkably differ from the casual chit-chat and greatly contribute to establishing the right priorities. The risks are minimized. It’s close to impossible that your project might become a complete failure even if you commit a major mistake at one of its crucial stages. If you are working in a fast-moving market, you’ll get a significant competitive edge over your rivals and will be able to enjoy a faster ROI.
You Will Calculate Time and Expenses with Greater Precision
Under the Agile project approach, the duration of each sprint is limited to 1-4 weeks. Within such a short timeframe, you can precisely predict which features should be delivered and plan their beta testing earlier, if the business value requires it.
As a consequence, you can calculate the expenses for each sprint before it starts. This allows you to correctly prioritize the tasks according to their cost and the efforts they require. Additional iterations, if needed, will be introduced at the most appropriate moments and with affordable spendings.
Conclusion
As you see, the benefits of Agile are quite evident. The most challenging part would be to convince your employees, partners and clients that this methodology is more productive and cost-efficient than the conventional Waterfall. Only if everyone agrees and is ready to support the innovation, you should integrate Agile guidelines in your company’s workflow. Once the whole team gets used to it, you’ll be able to assess the profitable output both in terms of quantity and quality.
