Agile development is basically an umbrella term for various sets of methods and frameworks based on the values and principles given in the agile manifesto.
Software development has also evolved throughout the course of time. Thus, the inception of agile software development. This helped developers augment their development processes as they improve the quality of their products.
Software development refers to all the procedures involved in creating, designing, and maintaining applications, frameworks or other software components. It mainly involves programming, specifying, prototyping, documenting, testing, and bug fixing. These are all from the beginning phase of a particular software to its final product.
There are different types of software development, three of which are system software, application software and programming software. Furthermore, there are also different methodologies used in each software development. One particular methodology is famously known as agile software development.
Agile software development definition
Unlike the traditional waterfall method of software development, agile methodology is more people-centric than process-centric. The term “agile” was generated in 2001 through the Agile Manifesto. This manifesto is composed of twelve essential principles that serve as a guide in the software development process. The agile manifesto also consists of four important values defined as:
- Individual and interactions over process and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiations
- Responding to change over following a plan
Agile development is basically an umbrella term for various sets of methods and frameworks based on the values and principles given in the agile manifesto.
Different roles in agile methodology
The agile methodology is all about teams of professionals working together to achieve a common goal. Part of the teams of professionals that may be involved in an agile software development project are the following:
Product manager
The product manager is usually the representative of the company that is purchasing the software that is being developed. The product manager, also known as the product owner, is usually the one that communicates with the agile development team.
Team leader
The team leader is someone that facilitates and guides the team in the planning and testing stages. This person helps plan out conditions that allow other members of the team to complete their tasks successfully. The team leader is viewed as more of a coach or mentor rather than the traditional project manager.
Team members
These are the people responsible for designing, and creating the software products required by the clients. Development team members are composed of programmers, developers, designers, business analysts, quality assurance, and database engineers.
As explained in the agile manifesto, the people are the primary sources of creativity, innovation and knowledge in the whole software development process.
