Agile methodology is one of the approaches to project management, usually used in software development. This methodology helps teams respond to the irregularity or unpredictability of building software through incremental and iterative work rhythms. Unlike traditional software development methodology (example: Waterfall) Agile methods attempt to reduce risk and maximize productivity by developing software in short iterations and de-emphasizing work on secondary or interim work objects. Scrum and Extreme Programming (XP) are the most popular agile methods, nevertheless, there are many more Agile methods and agility, as a conceptual framework, may also be applied to the execution of more traditional methods. We will be providing younecessary information regarding other methods.

IEEE’s recently published report said that 80% of all software projects fail and last year, the IEEE conventionallyestimated that over $60 billion dollars was spent on failed software projects. While asked why their projects failed, managers and employees mentioned a broad range of issues. But out of those reasons, here are top six reasons faced over and over again, as the main reasons why their projects failed :

Lesser amount of involvement of end-users
Poor requirements
Unrealistic and impracticable schedules
Lack of change management
Lack of testing
Inflexible and overstuffed processes
 

Unlike traditional waterfall development method, agile methodology is simple and offers a lightweight framework for helping teams, provides a persistently evolving functional and technical landscape; maintain a focus on the speedy delivery of business value. As a result of this focus and its associated benefits, organizations are competent of drastically reducing the overall risk associated with software development. Besides this benefit, organizations will be able to:

Ensure that value is continuing to be maximized during the development process Able to align the delivered software with preferred business needs, easily adapting to change requirements throughout the process
Measure and evaluate status based on the unquestionable truth of working, testing software, much more accurate visibility into the actual progress of projects is available Scale without sacrificing quality Ensure expected productivity increases Gain feedback through incremental value delivery Accept change without slowing down Reduce project risk through greater visibility

The diagram below displays the differences between agile and waterfall development processes. By delivering working, tested, deployable software on an incremental basis, agile development delivers increased business value, visibility, and adaptability much earlier in the lifecycle, significantly reducing project risk.