Agile methodology is the most popular software development method in the modern software industry. Its flexibility and evolutionary nature have helped the methodology to stay on top of the 21st-century business world while making 98% of companies using agile more successful.
There are countless direct and indirect benefits of agile methodology. Today, we’re discussing 15 key benefits of the agile software development process.
1. Increased Visibility
Complete visibility over any project can help project managers make smarter decisions regarding the project.
Visibility increases individual accountability throughout the developer team through transparent communication.
Core Principles of agile practices lay the foundation for increased visibility and sustain it over time, making it one of the best advantages of agile.
Through visibility, everyone is directly involved with the agile project via daily reports and other communications, validating the core agile principle of interactions over processes.
2. Increased Agility
Though every method follows a plan, the plan of the entire project can change at any time depending on the market demands.
The agile method is highly flexible, which allows the team members to adapt to a change with necessary technical excellence.
Any plan can change even at the last minute. An agile environment can help the project team realign their goals according to the changes made in the development plan while ensuring continuous delivery.
3. Higher Customer Satisfaction Rate
Part of the agile manifesto revolves around customer satisfaction. Agile processes constantly keep customers in the loop by involving them in development processes.
This involvement comes in the form of customer feedback.
Customers and other stakeholders like to be involved in the process so that the final product can suit their needs.
Agile practices validate all the stakeholders by developing products along the lines of user feedback through utilization of user stories received from feedback, which achieves a higher customer satisfaction rate through direct customer collaboration.
4. Improved Product Quality
Testing is one of the integral parts of the agile method. In agile iterative approach, every iteration of the product is tested over and over until all the features have been fixed and improved.
When the product goes through multiple testing phases during the development cycle, the product performs and functions without showing any errors, which increases the overall product quality.
5. Increased Team Alignment
Agile teams are highly self-organized and autonomous. All the self-organizing teams are always aligned throughout the plan changes.
The agile method may allow flexibility, but it doesn’t work properly unless the team is collaborating in the right way to stay ahead of the curve.
Agile team members understand the importance of the cooperation of people at different levels to succeed.
Their internal communication and collaboration practices ensure that team alignment is always focused on the betterment of the project.
6. Higher Business Value
The goal of any agile team is to increase the value provided to the customers. But when constantly trying to please the customers, a business can lose focus on the right business decisions.
True agile teams prioritize customer satisfaction and the best business practices when developing a product.
Through different iterations, the team drives the value of the business higher by offering top-of-the-line customer services.
When a business constantly prioritizes customers while making the right decisions, the business value is sure to improve over time.
7. Decreased Business Risk
The agile framework focuses on risk deduction. It doesn’t just mean financial risk; it also means the risk of losing talented individuals.
In a development scenario, some employees may not get the chance to shine by showing their true expertise. It’s something that can happen very often and unintentionally.
When agile methodology practices are in place, it creates an environment of equal opportunities.
During agile, the teams are frequently in sprints, which helps them quickly identify different obstacles in the project.
That way, they can plan for upcoming hindrances and make the development process more efficient.
Since agile teams can respond and react faster to change, it’s easier for them to adapt and overcome different issues during product development.
8. Better Project Predictability
Agile teams frequently work in a shorter time constraint, known as a “sprint.” Frequent sprints ensure work efficiency and increase proper resource assignment.
As a result, it’s easier to predict the project’s future with all the required resources and manpower onboard.
Also, direct oversight ensures that product owners and higher-ups can keep track of the progress and make predictions based on the needs of the team and the customers.
9. Faster Time To Market
This is a benefit that is not always applicable. But there are times when a product designed with agile methodology ships faster. But how?
The agile method always shifts the priorities of a project based on what the customer wants and needs.
With proper prioritization methods, the team members know exactly what to do and the best way to do it.
They also know how to remove additional unnecessary steps from the procedures they must go through.
This decreases the overall development time, and the project deliverables have a lower time to market.
10. Flexible Priorities
Though the team is smaller in an agile development scenario, the priorities are always flexible. Even if there is a change in the backlog, it’s not always expensive since the team can coordinate their work with proper communication.
The high adaptability ensures that the team works on the right project goals while adapting to the frequently changing requirements.
11. Team Empowerment
The self-management quality of agile teams induces creativity and innovation within the team members.
With the additional creative boost, they can come up with alternate, more efficient solutions for their work, along with better outcomes.
When any team member is allowed to put their creativity to work, it encourages and empowers the team as a whole.
Even in complex projects, an empowered team can easily avoid common project pitfalls and ensure maximum productivity.
12. Better Focus on End-Users
The agile method puts all the development focus on the product’s users. Agile teams communicate and collect feedback from end users to deliver the best results through their developed product.
Though other methods rely on customer satisfaction as well, the agile method benefits from the additional involvement of customers in their day-to-day development.
13. Continuous Improvement
Agile teams constantly partake in team retrospectives. It’s a regular meeting where the team reflects on what they have been doing so far and what needs to be done afterward. A retrospective team meeting is held right after a sprint.
The goal of a retrospective is to ensure that each sprint is better than the last, and the team doesn’t repeat any previous mistakes.
The improvement is continuous, and the progress toward making a functional product is more fluent.
14. Better Team Morale
Agile team members always collaborate by arranging daily meetings and going through constant improvement.
When the work environment is friendly, and everyone has a chance to shine, the team has better morale and motivation to see the project to its completion.
15. More Relevant Metrics
The agile method keeps track of different metrics that can help the team members measure the success and efficiency of the project.
These metrics are far more accurate compared to the traditional development scenario metrics. They can improve the overall decision-making process.
Since agile focuses on optimizing performances and producing better results, the metrics also revolve around them, helping the management keep track of the teams accordingly.
To Wrap It Up
Before we end our discussion, here’s a quick look at the 15 benefits of agile methodology
- Increased Visibility
- Increased Agility
- Higher Customer Satisfaction Rate
- Improved Product Quality
- Increased Team Alignment
- Higher Business Value
- Decreased Business Risk
- Better Project Predictability
- Faster Time To Market
- Flexible Priorities
- Team Empowerment
- Better Focus On End-Users
- Continuous Improvement
- Better Team Morale
- More Relevant Metrics
An agile framework is not just a powerful tool for developers. Pros of the agile method can also help the managers and product owners to make the most of the in-house development team.
Agile methodology improves team collaboration and communication by promoting a better work environment and holding team retrospective meetings after every sprint.
Agile methodology can increase project efficiency and reduce costs by removing unnecessary steps and resources from the development cycle.
Agile teams deploy an improved iteration of the product based on customer feedback, which is the most important resource for any agile team.
Agile methodology is better at making predictions. With it, the team members can assess upcoming obstacles and work on solving them. They can also reduce risks by making predictions about the product and improving on different aspects.
Yes, agile methodology can also help with managing remote or distributed teams.
