Trends+in+Adoption+of+Agile+Methods

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Introduction
According to the Forrester Report 2007, Agile processes are a group of development processes which are similar such as eXtreme Programming (XP), Scrum and Feature Driven Development (FDD). These processes came about in the early 1990s. Agile has only recently been affiliated with these processes after 2001 when the Agile Manifesto was written and signed.

Scrum appears to be the most favoured agile principle in selection of agile methods. Scrum mainly focuses on how people carryout the works rather than the work they carryout. This method basically relies on the laid down principles in the agile manifesto. In addition, Scrum has become popular for the following reasons: Scrum is simple to use with easy guidelines that shows key roles interactions. Scrum is delivery and practically orientated and not focused on activities, forms and procedures, thus allowing teams to focus on determining how to undertake the required tasks. Scrum is practical as it reports the practicalities of organizing the team by showing the scope of the work required such as status, reviews, owner.

Reasons for adopting Agile methods
The Forrester report (2010) proposes a number of ways in which the agile strategy should be adopted: Firstly, it should have a support plan for instance, presence of outside trainers, coaching materials and in-house support groups will enhance the rate of successful adoption of the methodology. Models are flexible, meaning solutions are varied and dependent on the context of the project, the people involved and specific problems. There is no single solution tailored to resolve all challenges or situations.

Agile methods focus on team empowerment which includes making decisions under specific requirements and clear objectives. Agile methods gain a lot from strategic tools, therefore teams should aspire to implement agile life-cycle management (ALM) tools which will enable the management of backlogs, support planning and enhance support to their agile approach.

Agile attracts critics however, successful companies such as but not limited to Yahoo, BT, Google and Sabre have adopted methods of Agile Software Development at various levels in projects and it can be suggested that this works invariably on projects with some high level of uncertainty around requirements .It has also been used on medium sized projects which have support from stakeholders, project and management teams. Agile is initially adopted by most application development organizations to improve productivity in their teams. Furthermore, these oganisations find that they gain further benefits in increased quality in software development and less waste of resources which increases efficiency of staff working on Projects. The benefits of adopting the agile process includes;
 * Reduced time to market
 * Increased quality and production of software that meets business needs
 * Reduce waste and increased efficiency
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Better predictability by being able to track the Project against the clients expectations
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Increased Agile team and members morale



<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The figure above shows how Agile has reached mainstream proportions, The Forrester report (2010) states that teams chose agile techniques that are suitable for them, thus agile adoption is a reality. The general trend is that across all industries, businesses are more inclined to embrace agile principles. This also include software engineers and several project team members who are presently picking these techniques.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Factors of the Agile process
<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">There are five factors that distinguish Agile processes from other iterative processes, these are:


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Delivery of software that works on each iteration
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Concurrent phases on each iteration
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Use of specific engineering practices to keep the code base fresh and flexible (good quality)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Existence of self managing teams with adoption of bottom - up management styles
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Lean principles and techniques, eliminating waste where possible which increases efficiency

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Main Agile Trends and Tools
<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">According to the Forrester report (2010), agile processes have not only gained increasing adoption levels; they have also rapidly joined the mainstream of development approaches. Agile development methods have become very popular. The waterfall and iterative approaches are becoming less popular as companies are being opened to delivery focused methods based on the principles of the Agile Manifesto.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Agile evolution has perhaps made some tools used in delivery of Projects in the traditional way obsolete. Agile teams now need more interactive systems such as Wiki's and excel spreadsheets. Tools like MS Project are not suitable for delivering projects

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">According to Forrester report (2007) Agile teams rely heavily on feedback and user stories to deliver projects that conform to specification. This in turn has helped teams identify customers needs and acceptability of the customers requirements built on strong relationships as they are in regular contact with the client, this perhaps brings benefits of delivering suitable products for the end user which is delivered in a timely fashion and overall reduces waste. The relationship between customer and developer is very important because it is very easy for project teams to assume or predict what the customer wants which leads to customer dissatisfactions and potential loss of business.

> Augustine, S. (2005) Managing Agile Projects. NJ: Prentice Hall. Cohn, M. (2005) Agile Estimating and Planning. NJ: Prentice Hall. West D and Grant T (2010) Agile Development: Mainstream Adoption Has Changed Agility. Schwarter C ,Leganza G, D D'silva ( 2007) The Truth About Agile Processes Frank Answers To Frequently Asked Questions.
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