Agile Software Development

Agile software development is a group of software development methodologies based on iterative and incremental development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams. It promotes adaptive planning, evolutionary development and delivery; time boxed iterative approach and encourages rapid and flexible response to change. It is a conceptual framework that promotes foreseen interactions throughout the development cycle. The Agile Manifesto introduced the term in 2001. Agile management methods can also be applied in other development projects than software development.

 

 

Jeff Sutherland, one of the developers of the Scrum agile software development process.

 

Incremental software development methods have been traced back to 1957. In 1974, a paper by E. A. Edmonds introduced an adaptive software development process.

 

So-called lightweight software development methods evolved in the mid-1990s as a reaction against heavyweight methods, which were characterized by their critics as a heavily regulated, regimented, micromanaged, waterfall model of development. Proponents of lightweight methods (and now agile methods) contend that they are a return to development practices from early in the history of software development.

 

Early implementations of lightweight methods include Scrum (1995), Crystal Clear, Extreme Programming (1996), Adaptive Software Development, Feature Driven Development, and Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM) (1995). These are now typically referred to as agile methodologies, after the Agile Manifesto published in 2001.

 

 

We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:

 

 

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.