A software development methodology is a way of organizing the dev process so that vendors and their customers can plan and manage projects more effectively. In a world where only 30% of software projects are delivered on time and budget, you can’t implement Waterfall where Agile is preferable (and vice versa). What is the best software development project management methodology?
Comparing the Agile and Waterfall software development project management methodologies
Waterfall The Waterfall (or traditional) project management methodology is widely implemented by software vendors. At R-Style Lab, Waterfall accounts for 50% of all projects delivered to end customers. Waterfall suggests the adoption of a linear approach to software development. Here’s how it works:
Agile Agile enables continuous (or rapid) product delivery to the end customer in complete functional components. Unlike Waterfall, the methodology is flexible and does not need a defined scope. Instead, software requirements evolve over time (with tasks being constantly prioritized by a customer and dev team). Companies that deliver projects under the Time & Material pricing model and offer dedicated development center services always turn to Agile best practices. What are the benefits of taking the Agile approach to software development?
Agile frameworks: choosing between Scrum and Kanban
There are several types of Agile frameworks that streamline software project management (including Extreme Programming, Crystal Clear and Feature-driven Development). However, Scrum and Kanban are definitely the biggest buzz makers. Which of the two should you pick? Scrum teams are largely self-organized. Although the work of middle and junior developers is overseen by a senior software engineer, there’s no leader who distributes tasks between the team members. Such projects are often guided by a Scrum master – a person who facilitates the development process, ensures communication between developers and a customer, removes obstacles and helps the team stay focused on their activities. During daily meetings the Scrum Master asks his colleagues how things have been going since their last talk, what their plans for the near future are and what prevents them from reaching the current goal. The Scrum Master closely cooperates with the Product Owner (that’s you or a third-party company you’ve trusted your project to) to achieve consistent product delivery. The dev process is often visualized on a Scrum Board where sprints gradually move from the backlog to the Work in Progress/Completion stage. Scrum project timeline
Back in the 40s, Toyota studied stock replenishment techniques applied in supermarkets and aligned their actual material consumption with inventory levels, achieving the so-called “just in time” (JIT) manufacturing process. Today the JTA approach is often taken by software vendors who try to match the amount of tasks in progress with the available dev capacity using the Kanban board (either physical or virtual). The key difference between Scrum and Kanban lies in the sprint duration. Kanban teams are only focused on the tasks in progress; once a certain feature has been deployed, they pick up the top task from the prioritized to-do list. Thanks to continuous knowledge sharing, regular code reviews and mentoring, each member of a Kanban team has a varied skill set, so there are fewer bottlenecks in the dev process. Meanwhile, you are free to reprioritize tasks in the backlog. The choice of a pricing model and project management methodology directly impacts the dev costs, project life span and time to market. That’s why you should conduct a comprehensive marketing research to determine what features would help your product stand out from the competition (if there is any), analyze software requirements and address a reliable custom software development company.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
February 2018
Categories
|