What is Agile Methodology & How It Can help the teams

What is Agile Methodology? And, Why are most companies behind in the following agile.

Let’s take a look at the Top Agile Methodologies You Should Learn About.

• Scrum
• Scrum/XP Hybrid
• Kanban
• Scrumban

What is Agile Methodology?

Agile software development refers to a set of iterative software development methodologies in which requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing cross-functional teams.

What is the Scrum Methodology?

A term derived from Rugby, the process is more inclined toward Empirical Process Control against the Command and Control.

There are three main pillars on which the process relies.

• Transparency
• Inspection
• Adaptation

If we talk about the team then the whole process requires three categories.

• Development Team
• Product Owner
• Scrum Master

Development Team in Agile

As the name suggests is concerned with creating value and is cross-functional.

Product Owner in the Scrum team

The product owner, On the other hand, is concerned with the Return on Investment of the project and managing the Product Backlog.

Scrum Master in Agile team

Scrum Master is responsible for the whole scrum process, coaching the team. However, he should not be confused with the Project Manager. The scrum process involves regular iterations and continuous feedback. Therefore the end product is one that matches the customer’s needs.

Scrum/XP Hybrid

Although Scrum is a widely used methodology, some experts feel that this method alone might be less effective than the Hybrid approach.

Extreme Programming or XP increases the capability of Scrum by adding User Stories, Estimation, Velocity, and Technical Practices.

The framework of Scrum and XP is similar and therefore it often becomes difficult to identify one from the other. There are however certain points based on which it becomes easier to identify between the two processes.

For instance, in Scrum, after Sprint Planning and Sprint Backlog decision, Sprint Backlog cannot be changed.

In XP on the other hand, teams can replace any feature with another feature of the same size that is yet to start by the team.

What is the kanban process?

Introduced by Taiichi Ohno in the manufacturing industry, Kanban is concerned with the entire value chain.

The Kanban method is an amalgamation of 6 core practices

• Visualization of WorkFlow
• Limit Work in Progress
• Manage Flow
• Transparent Process Policies
• Implementation of Feedback Loops
• Improve and Evolve.

The core concept of Kanban is Flow which implies that the card should flow through the system as smoothly as possible without having to wait for the longest time and hurdles.

What is Scrumban?

While Scrum is widely in use in Products and developments, Kanban is better for production support.

However, when we combine the synergies of both these processes together, it becomes Scrumban.

The latest agile methodology is becoming quite popular in the Service Industry where development and maintenance projects execute together. 

This methodology revolves around using the prescriptive nature of the Scrum and process improvement tactics of Kanban. The methodology should ideally be used wherein there is Event-driven work and so on.

In addition to these basic Agile methodologies used, there are so many others such as Agile Unified Process, DSDM Atern, Agile Modelling, and so on.