Agile is a software development methodology where the process involves a collective and continuous method of product increment by ensuring high quality of the product and process. Agile is a combination of "Iterative" and "Incremental" approaches.

Agile introduces Adaptive planning, development, improvements, and delivery. It considers a rapid and flexible response to changes. Basically, it focuses on continuous delivery and works on a dynamic approach to accept changes. The focus of Agile is "Client satisfaction through continuous Delivery" and limiting the scope of the project.

Agile generally denotes a group of methods under the umbrella of Agile Alliance including – extreme programming, scrum, Dynamic Systems Development Method, Crystal Methods, Feature driven development, Lean development, Adaptive software development. All of these differ in specific techniques but much of them have these methods in common such as short iterative life cycles, quick and frequent techniques, feedback from customers and constant learning.

Agile development processes are highly and widely used to increase productivity and quality which can be achieved by high degree of communication and interaction, shorter iterative development cycles, and great team responsibility.

History of Agile

In late 1990's, a wide range of different software development, methodologies have evolved each having its own idea. However, there were common overlaps between them emphasizing:

• Collaboration between the development team and the business stake holders.
• Frequent delivery of the product.
• Small and self-organizing teams
• Different ways to create, test and deploy.

There are few concerns in Agile such as the upfront planning, loss of management control, management opposition and communication gap between the business and the development teams. The choice of agile methods largely depends on the five factors -

1. Size of the team and systems development.
2. The result of failures.
3. Environment volatility.
4. The competence of personnel.
5. Compatibility with the prevailing culture.

Advantages -

1. Marketing would be so fast.
2. Flexibility of accommodation would be possible.
3. Risk Management - Adaptability to changes would help to alter the scope in the midway through the project.
4. Cost control – Cost constraint should not be a problem in Agile as the product backlog can be rearranged so that new features would be implemented at the same cost.
5. Quality – Delivering the product consistently means that the overall quality of the product is high, and time spent is less to ensure the product quality.

Agile Life Cycle -

Agile Method focuses on shorter development cycles and deliver chunks of the product frequently. The framework that's chosen, the entire agile methodology would follow the same process.

These are the steps followed in Agile Life Cycle -

• Project Planning
• Product Roadmap creation
• Release Planning
• Sprint Planning
• Daily Meeting
• Sprint Review

Features -

1. Project Scope -
   • Changes in Agile would be made very advance without exceeding the budget provided.
   • Agile Methodology would work well even when the project scope is not defined in advance.
2. Project Team -
   • Agile methodology would involve small and mid-sized teams which work in teams with high coordination.
3. Customers -
   • Customers would allow customers to be available through the entire project.
4. Feature Prioritization -
   • In Agile, features would be prioritized, and issues would be dealt based on the priorities. This would increase the funding efficiency while preventing the project failures.
   • Features would never be prioritized so; this might result in success or failure.
5. Funding -
   • Agile would work well by increasing the working efficiency.
6. Project Changes -
   • Intermittent changes during an ongoing process are allowed.