What Are the Advantages of the Agile Methodology? 5 Benefits

Developing software is a complex process, which can sometimes be very time-consuming. IT companies are competing in providing business solutions of the highest quality in the shortest possible time. The Agile methodology is one of the ways to achieve it. It is a very popular approach to digital product development.

Agile is a method of project management. The goal of leveraging it is to make a company capable of rapid software development and providing clients with the expected business value in the shortest possible time. Those who are interested in Agile, probably have heard terms like Scrum, Kanban etc. Those are methodologies used in Agile project management.

Compared to the Agile method, the traditional Waterfall Model is not iterative. It is more linear and the requirements are being fully defined before the project starts. The workflows in cascades, like a waterfall — from one phase to another and each of them must be completed before the next starts.

The bottom line of the Agile approach lies in iterative planning and flexibility, which allows the software development team to adapt to the new situation and requirements as they change. The IT market is rather dynamic, hence Agile methodology serves its purpose perfectly — by enabling developers to improve their productivity.

The first benefit is improved team collaboration. Software development requires designing UX, creating graphical designs, content, developing backend and frontend. Implementing Agile gives development teams much more lines of communication than a traditional approach to project management.

The second benefit is more transparency between the client and your team. As the client's in-house employees are working closely with your development team, the communication is significantly improved. Customer's representatives participate in regular meetings and know what features are currently ready.

The third benefit is achieving high product quality. The iterative character of projects in Agile methodology ensures that the team can find most errors and come up with the right solutions quite quickly. Tests are performed along the entire development cycle.

The fourth benefit is lower risk. The chance of experiencing total project failure is much less likely when the project development team follows the Agile approach. Delivering business value to the customers at an early stage means you have a working product as early as in one of the first sprints.

The fifth benefit is better project control. The entire work can be divided into stages and specific parts — increments. Tasks can be taken care of more efficiently. Each potential issue can be addressed during regular meetings, and problems are spotted shortly after they occur.