Agile methodology is a transformative approach to project management that involves breaking a project down into several phases. The iterative, or repeatable, process that the agile methodology brings to the table has quickly made it a buzzword. The adoption of agile has skyrocketed to such an extent that only 3% of companies said they hadn’t adopted agile practices. What’s more, in 2024, agile adoption within software development teams increased from 47% to 86%. But why are businesses and software teams adopting this strategy, and why should you learn it as a full-stack developer?
What is Agile Methodology?
In simple terms, agile is an iterative approach adopted for software development or project management. It involves multiple sprints for continuous improvement that are divided into five stages:
- Plan
- Build
- Test
- Review
- Deploy
The key advantage here is that each task is done incrementally rather than all at once. This ensures that teams can work on parts of the product, improve them, and scale until they build the final product. The continuous review and testing process in each stage also ensures that the final output is error-free. It also means teams can respond to changes quickly.
There are various types of agile methodologies that can be implemented:
- Scrum
- Kanban
- Extreme programming
- Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM)
- Crystal
Among these, scrum is the most popular, with 66% of businesses using it. But, no matter what type of agile methodology you choose, they’re all typically implemented for large-scale projects like full-stack development. It’s also used for ongoing projects and projects in which certain details have yet to be determined in the beginning stages.
Advantages of Agile for Full-Stack Development
Full-stack development is a complex project that involves numerous deliverables within a given time frame. This makes an agile approach an effective way to take it on, as you can break the project down into each deliverable and work on it. But that’s not the only advantage of adopting agile.
Increased Speed
The agile software development life cycle (SDLC) is much shorter than traditional SDLC. Unlike agile, where research is done with each sprint, the traditional SDLC involves front-loading all the research work for the software development teams. The other processes only start once the previous ones are done. The agile SDLC model also breaks the project down into bits and prioritizes the development speed, something that the traditional model doesn’t do.
As the research, planning, and testing phases are always ongoing in agile, unlike a traditional model — where they happen at different points — the agile model helps a team quickly complete full-stack development.
Improved Agility
The agile methodology focuses on improving a team’s adaptability to situations. Given that full-stack development is a massive project, there may be times when teams might have to face disruptions.
As the iterative process of the agile methodology involves breaking the project down into pieces, teams will find it easier to adapt to these changes.
But that wouldn’t be the case in the traditional method, where a lot of time would have gone into planning the entire project. When the plans change, one would have to put in a lot of energy to make modifications to the project.
Better Product Quality
As mentioned earlier, agile sprints involve continuous development, testing, and review. This means every product unit would be tested, reviewed, and improved multiple times.
The process also ensures that each time an error pops up, it would be rectified. As testing is done in each sprint in agile, the errors would be rectified at any stage of the development process. This isn’t the case in the traditional method, where testing is completed at the end. As a result, the final product would have superior quality when developed with agile, making it a great way to deliver working software.
Agile development has paved the way for subscription-based software solutions, which are routinely updated with new features and security patches.
Reduced Risk
Traditional full-stack development carries an immense risk—both in financial and PR terms. The process is too bulky and slow, which consumes a lot of time and also leads to time and resource wastage whenever things have to be changed. These changes may also result in a poor-quality product, which could turn into a PR nightmare for the company.
But agile methodology carries a lower risk. That’s because little time is spent on planning and estimation initially. Additionally, the modifications only have to be implemented for certain parts of the project, resulting in the reduction of time and resource wastage.
Improved Visibility
Transparency and visibility are key ingredients in the success of any project. The leadership would be better equipped with insights, and accountability would increase as every step would be visible to the team. It also ensures that everyone is on the same page, which enables better collaboration. This is especially helpful for large projects where it can be difficult to keep track of things.
With an agile methodology for full-stack development, you can increase transparency and visibility across the organization. For instance, with Kanban boards, you can visualize the entire process and track task status.
Increased Alignment
With agile, you’d have great autonomy for full-stack software development. The same would also be true for your team. Along with this autonomy, there’s also improved collaboration due to better transparency offered by agile.
This would enable you to be on the same page with the rest of the team. As a result, you’ll be able to work in tight tandem with them to deliver your project quickly.
Regular feedback taken from customers in each sprint ensures great alignment with their expectations. This enables you to create a product that’s close to what they want, resulting in better customer satisfaction.
In this manner, agile methodology improves both internal and external alignment.
Conclusion
When you enroll in agile course, you’ll be introduced to the world of agile. You’ll learn how to work as a part of a collaborative, agile team and be brought up to speed with industry best practices. Unlike theoretical knowledge, you’ll be provided hands-on training on projects that have real-world relevance. This could prove to be a differentiating factor and directly improve your chances of employment.
