Change is the most common attribute of this world. Nothing always remains similar for the entire period of time, although minor in some cases but a change is compulsory. In the field of software engineering this word “Change” plays a significant role because the user’s requirement does not always remain the same.
A software requires change when the user’s requirement is changed. “Agility” is the term in software engineering that is related to change, that is effective (rapid and adaptive) response to change.
In order to response to change effectively there must be effective communication between all the stakeholders. Here I should clear one point, that stakeholders means all those people who are involved in the development of a software, e.g. analyst, designer, programmer and etc. In agility drawing the customer onto the team that is working on the software is very necessary and for that a team should be organised; that includes all the skilled and professional people so that it is in control of the work performed. Dissatisfaction with the overheads involved in software design methods of the 1980s and 1990s led to the creation of agile methods.
The agile methods are given below:
- Focus of the software engineer should be on the code instead of design
- Agility should be based on the interactive approach to software development.
- The method of agility is intended to work on the software efficiently and quickly and deliver the project as early as possible because delivery of the software in time helps the team to meet the changing requirements.
In agile software development, there are some principles that are to be followed:
- Satisfaction of the customer should be the highest priority of a software engineer and this goal can be achieved by early and nonstop deliveries of the valuable software.
- A software engineer should welcome the change requirements open heartedly from the customer.
- Software developers and the business people should work together with effective co-ordination
- There should be face-to-face communication among all the stakeholders
- Non-stop attention should be given to the technical work and to the design of software. This helps in enhancing agility.
- Simplicity should be followed and complexity should be avoided because it is not necessary that the customer always will be a technical person. Complexity can cause various problems for a non-technical customer
A team that is involved in the software development should have creative thinking. A team should be always busy in thinking that how they (as a team) can become more and more effective. We all know that agile methods are so effective but there are some problems through which a software development team undergoes in agile methods, like: I
It can be very complex task to keep the interest of the customer especially when the customer is non-technical
Maintenance of simplicity requires some extra amount of work
Setting priorities for changes can be very difficult when there are multiple stakeholders
Team members may be unsuited to the intense involvement that characterises agile methods.
To follow the principles to agility is very necessary for a software development team in order to achieve the best results. A team should always try to overcome these problems in agility. The quality of a software engineer to give quick and effective response to change can lead any software engineer to the steps of success.
