Agile Model in Software Engineering

The agile model was proposed in the mid-1990s to overcome the existing faults in the waterfall development methodology. The agile model was established to support a project with rapidly responds to changing needs. It places a higher emphasis on face-to-face contact than on written documentation. The development team should be intentionally kept small (5–9 persons) to allow team members to effectively engage in face-to-face contact and work in a cooperative way. As a result, it should come as no surprise that the agile methodology is well suited to the development of small projects. However, if a big project must be developed applying the agile model, the collaborating teams are likely to be located in different places. In this instance, the various teams must keep as much daily touch as possible by videoconferencing, telephone, e-mail, and other means.

Principles of Agile Model Manifesto :

• Working software prioritizes official documentation.
• Frequent distribution to the customer of incremental versions of the software at intervals of a few weeks.
• Customer requests for requirement changes are welcomed and immediately executed.
• Effective contract negotiation is regarded as far less important than continuous interaction with the client.
• Face-to-face communication, rather than the exchange of formal documentation, is suggested as a means of improving communication among development team members.

Advantage of Model:

• The agility of agile methodologies is derived in part from the team members’ tacit understanding of the development project.
• Rather to spending considerable amounts of time preparing formal documents and analyzing them, informal communications are utilized to assess situations.

Disadvantage of Model:

• Because there are no formal papers, there is a chance of crucial decisions made during different phases will be misread by various team members at a later time.
• It’s difficult to get important project decisions, such as design decisions, reviewed controlled by external professionals when there are no formal papers.
• Maintenance might become a challenge once the project is completed and the developers have moved.