When Agile first started making an appearance, it was viewed as yet another development fad. But with Agile showing dramatic improvements in delivery time, quality of software and a reduced number of strategic mistakes compared to the waterfall model, it has taken a broader role in software development today. A number of companies practice Agile as a product development methodology from project inception to delivery, support and end-of-life phases.

However, Agile is not about using Scrum, Extreme Programming or TDD. It’s about using the best agile practices to respond to today’s frequently changing business needs. Using the waterfall model, frequent changes to software is difficult - the development cycle is long, systems are over engineered and end up costing a fortune.

Agile as an alternate development methodology evolved from the need for dynamic systems that can rapidly adapt to change. One basic tenet of Agile – simplicity – comes out of this need. Build the simplest possible system that satisfies today’s requirements and when tomorrow comes, be ready to adapt.

A real-life success story using an Agile approach

Agile Development of a Digital Vending Machine from concept-to-market

A start-up company was looking to provide easy digital content access to millions of consumers in India through a network of Digital Vending Machines (DVMs) or kiosks. They wanted to outsource the entire kiosk software development – server and client – while they focused on content acquisition and preparation. Aspire took full ownership and developed the product from scratch, adopting an iterative approach with several small releases, continuous integration and very close interaction with the customer.

Related “Agile Development” Links

Extreme Product Management: How to deliver products people want to buy in an agile development environment

Tyner Blain: Various posts on Agile

How I stopped worrying and learned to love prioritization

It’s not iteration if you only do it once

Agile Posts

Which Agile model should I choose?

Making the most of new Agile tools

Implementing Agile with distributed teams