Agile Design Processes and Guidelines

Agile Design Processes and Guidelines is one of the most important topics to learn for software developers. In this article, we will learn about agile, agile design, agile manifesto, agile design processes, type of agile design process, advantages of agile design, and disadvantages of agile design. This article is designed to help students to get knowledge of agile design and related components, which are as follows:

What is Agile?

Agile is a method that helps us in the development of software.

1. It provides a way through which we build software that focuses on flexibility, collaboration, and customer satisfaction.
2. It is based on the principles of being quick, responsive, and focused on delivering the best possible outcomes.

Agile Values or Principles

Following are the basic values or principles of Agile:

1. It focuses more on the Individual’s interactions rather than the processes and tools.
2. Working software over comprehensive documentation.
3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.
4. Responding to change over following a plan.

Core Principles of Agile Design

1. Customer satisfaction is of the highest priority which is accomplished through early and continuous delivery of software.
2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.
3. Working software is delivered regularly with a preference for shorter periods.
4. The people handling the business and the developer should meet daily throughout the project.
5. Build projects around motivated individuals and provide them with the support and environment to get the job done.
6. face-to-face conversation is the most effective way to convey information within a development team.
7. Progress is measured in terms of the working software that is developed.
8. Agile processes promote sustainable development.
9. It consistently focuses on doing things well and designing them carefully which makes it easier to adapt and respond quickly.
10. It focuses on keeping things simple and avoiding unnecessary complexity.
11. Good team collaboration leads to the development of strong and effective plans and designs.
12. The team regularly thinks about how to work better together, makes adjustments, and improves its behavior.

What is Agile Design?

Agile design is defined as a way or process of designing and developing new products that break big tasks into groups of subtasks that are performed in short sprints. Agile design is iterative and is based on the principle of Build Measure and Learn.

Why We Use Agile Design?

1. It helps in addressing defects and maintenance tasks.
2. Changes in requirements are easily adjustable without affecting timelines.
3. It involves collaboration and total involvement of all team members.
4. It promotes active participation throughout the development process.
5. Divides the user requirements into user stories for better clarity of tasks.
6. Customer satisfaction is enhanced because of active involvement and frequent releases.

What are Agile Design Processes?

The process that allows us to utilize the iterative and incremental approach to deliver design to the customer is known as the agile design process. This process includes dividing the required functionality into small parts that can be delivered independently and start working on them.

Types of Agile Design Processes

1. Kanban

It is an agile method that aims at continuous improvement, flexibility in task management, and enhanced workflow. It is a simple and flexible way to organize work and track progress, which helps you to maintain focus on what’s important at each moment.

Kanban Project Management Framework

Core Principles of Kanban Methodology:

1. Initiate with the existing workflow
2. limit the existing tasks
3. Respect existing roles and responsibilities
4. Encourage leadership at all levels

Core Practices of Kanban:

1. Visualization of workflow
2. Reduction of WIP
3. Efficient workflow management
4. Explicit management policies
5. Take feedback

2. SCRUM

It is an agile development framework that streamlines software development through an iterative and incremental approach. It offers adaptability, agility, and efficiency to ensure a continuous flow of value to clients throughout project development.

Different Roles in Scrum:

1. Product owner: The product owner is the representative of the stakeholders and customers who use the software.
2. Scrum Master: The programmingperiods person who leads the team guiding them to comply with the rules and processes of the methodology is known as Scrum Master.
3. Scrum Team: They are a group of professionals with the necessary technical knowledge who develop the project jointly carrying out the stories they commit to at the start of each sprint.

Scrum Methodology

Benefits of Scrum Methodology:

1. Easily scalable
2. Flexible to changes
3. Time to market reduction
4. Higher software quality
5. Reduction of risks

3. Extreme Programming(XP)

It is a software development approach that involves close collaboration between developers and customers, frequent testing, and continuous improvement. This approach focuses on delivering high-quality software quickly and efficiently.

XP involves 5 phases or stages of the development process that iterate continuously:

1. Planning
2. Design
3. Coding
4. Testing
5. Listening

Values of Extreme Programming:

1. Communication: Communication is one of the most important values of XP. To have efficiency in work and operations carried it is important to have proper communication among the team members.
2. Simplicity: In XP, Simplicity refers to the art of writing simple code so that works can be carried out effectively and properly.
3. Feedback: In XP, Feedback is highly valued. Continuous feedback helps the team members to adapt to the changing requirements and evolve themselves.
4. Respect: In XP every team member in the team should respect other team members irrespective of their skills and position.
5. Courage: Courage is very important in XP. The team that uses XP should have the courage to be honest and speak the brutal truth even if the stakeholders don’t like the truth.

Values of Extreme Programming

Principles of Extreme Programming:

1. Rapid feedback
2. Assumed simplicity
3. Incremental changes
4. Embracing change
5. Quality work

Extreme Programming Principles

4. Feature Driven Development(FDD)

It is a software development approach that prioritizes building features systematically and efficiently. It breaks down a project into smaller, manageable features, and each feature is developed separately.

Feature-driven development consists of five steps which are the following:

1. Develop an overall model: Create an overall model of the system to understand its structure and functionality. Identify and define the overall features of the system.
2. Build feature list: Break down the overall features into smaller, more manageable features. Build a comprehensive list of features to be implemented in the system.
3. Plan by feature: Develop a plan for implementing each future. Assign development tasks for each future.
4. Design by feature: Create a detailed design for each feature. Helps in ensuring that the design aligns with the overall architecture.
5. Build by feature: This stage deals with developing features based on detailed designs. This focuses on implementing and delivering features iteratively.

Stages of Feature-Driven Development

5. Dynamic System Development Method(DSDM)

It is an agile project delivery framework for delivering high-quality systems on time and within budget. It promotes collaboration among team members, regular communication with stakeholders, and the delivery of functional software increments throughout the development process.

DSDM is based on the following eight principles:

1. Focus on the business need
2. Deliver on time
3. Collaborate
4. Never Compromise quality
5. Build Incrementally from firm foundations
6. Develop iteratively
7. Communicate clearly and continuously
8. Demonstrate control

6. Lean Methodology

It is a software development approach that focuses on efficiency and minimizing waste. The basic idea is to deliver value to customers with fewer resources by identifying and eliminating unnecessary steps and processes. It follows the principle of “Just in time production”.

The main principles of the lean methodology include:

1. Eliminating waste
2. Build quality in
3. Create knowledge
4. Defer commitment
5. Deliver fast
6. Respect people
7. Optimize the whole

7. Crystal Methodology

It is a software development approach that emphasizes flexibility and tailoring to the unique characteristics of a project. It provides a set of tools or guidelines that help to adapt to meet the specific needs and context of a software development project. The goal of this approach is to find the most suitable approach for a particular project, fostering collaboration and adaptability.

There are three concepts involved in this method :

1. Chartering: In this phase various activities like making a development team, performing feasibility analysis, developing plans, etc are involved.

2. Cyclic delivery: In this phase, two sub-activities are performed

• The team updates the release plan
• The integrated product delivers to the users

3. Wrap up: in this phase, deployment and post-deployment are performed according to the user environment

Agile Design Methodologies

1. Requirements Gathering: The customer’s requirements for the software are gathered and prioritized.
2. Planning: The development team creates a plan for delivering the software, including the features that will be delivered in each iteration.
3. Development: The development team works to build the software, using frequent and rapid iterations.
4. Testing: The software is thoroughly tested to ensure that it meets the customer’s requirements and is of high quality.
5. Deployment: The software is deployed and put into use.
6. Maintenance: The software is maintained to ensure that it continues to meet the customer’s needs and expectations.

Agile Design Methodologies

Agile Design Guidelines

Guidelines which need to be followed while implementing agile design are :

1. User-Centric Design: In the design process, the users are involved and their needs are prioritized.
2. Iterative Design: The design process follows an iterative approach, which allows for frequent feedback and adjustments.
3. Responsive to Change: The design should welcome the changes and be willing to adjust according to changing user needs.
4. Minimal Viable Product(MVP): It concentrates on creating the simplest version of your product that still brings value to users.
5. Cross-functional collaboration programming: Encourage everyone who works on the project, like designers, developers, and product owners, to work together.
6. Prototyping and Testing: It focuses on making models to see and test design ideas fast.
7. Continuous Integration and Deployment: It focuses on setting up a smooth way to release your work, and regularly sends out updates to meet changing needs.
8. Empirical Process Control: It involves the use of metrics and data to examine if your design choices are working well.
9. Collaborative workspaces: It involves setting up places, either real or virtual, where your team can easily work together and communicate with each other.
10. Feedback loops: It involves setting up ways for people to share their thoughts and feedback to make the design better.

Agile Design Tools and Techniques

Agile tools are defined as the set of methods and techniques that help in managing projects and developing software. These tools are designed to assist in tasks like planning, communication, adapting to changes, keeping track of progress, and monitoring tasks.

There are various agile tools which include:

1. ClickUp
2. Jira
3. Kanbanize
4. GitHub Project Management
5. Planview AgilePlace
6. Planbox
7. Active Collab
8. Proggio
9. Codegiant
10. ProProfs Project
11. Axosoft
12. Assembla
13. Zoho Projects
14. Asana
15. Wrike
16. Trello

Best Practices of Agile Design

1. Faster development
2. Reduced feature creep
3. On time, on cost
4. Happier development team
5. Improved quality
6. Focus on users
7. Stakeholder engagement
8. Transparency
9. Early and predictable delivery
10. Predictable cost and schedule
11. Allows for changes as you learn, or as the context changes

Challenges of Agile Design

1. Less predictable
2. More time and commitment’
3. Greater demands on developers and clients
4. Lack of necessary documentation.
5. Projects easily fall off track

What is Scrum Master?

A Scrum master is a facilitator/instructor/coach who is not directly involved in the development of a project (like coding, testing, designing) but he/she ensures that the team members are following the Scrum framework.

Roles and responsibilities of Scrum Master:

• They also ensure that the team members adhere to the agile principle and its value.
• They take responsibility as a mediator to exchange information among team members and stakeholders.
• Scrum master helps the team to work in a motivated and learning environment.
• They also encourage the idea of individuals so that the team comes out with the best product.
• Scrum master holds the soft skills with the latest tools and technologies to meet the stakeholder requirements.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Agile design is of utmost importance for software developers because it increases focus on being flexible, enhancing customer satisfaction, and prioritizing collaboration. It includes various methodologies like Scrum, Kanban, XP, FDD, DSDM, lean, and crystal each one having its principles and practices. It encompasses tools and techniques that help in the project management and development of software. It focuses on maintaining transparency and speeding up the development and collaboration of all stakeholders. However, challenges exist like less predictability and increasing demands on people like developers and clients. Despite having challenges, it offers advantages like faster development, improved flexibility, better quality, and enhanced customer satisfaction. This makes it a more valuable approach in the changing world of software development.