Advantages and disadvantages of agile methodologies from perspective of project management

Agile methodologies. Advantages and disadvantages of agile methodologies from perspective of project management. 1

Agile methodologies. Advantages and disadvantages of agile methodologies from perspective of project management.

Tursunoy Usmonova

Grand Valley State University

CIS 330-01 (System Analysis and Design)

Abstract

Agile delivery environments advocate an iterative approach where autonomous, self-organizing teams share project management (PM) activities. The research paper implies the deep consensus of Agile methodologies and its usage in the enterprise information systems and organizations’ management system, team work, project building from analyze, design and deployment phase. Furthermore, there is a deep research in benefits and limitations of Agile methodologies. Subsequently, four core elements of solution development criterions of Agile development also provided. Requirements Engineering (RE) practices such as observations, interviews, workshops and strong team collaboration are embedded in iteration-based agile methods. The agile project management used in the case study was found to be beneficial to all involved (students, mentors, and clients). Agile not only poses but also faces challenges within organizations that must question the role of existing structures and hierarchies, people factors together with their culture and processes that ultimately address the core nature and existence of the enterprise.

Keywords: PM, RE, core elements, phases, waterfall, enterprise information systems.

Agile methodologies. Analysis and Design from an Agile Perspective

Introduction

Recently we did an exercise in the class to better understand the differences between waterfall and Agile methods. The group was divided into four teams where we had to design paper planes and the purpose was to build planes so that they could fly as far as possible. Firstly we tried waterfall methodology. Our team had three roles and all roles were not allowed to talk during the development. No communication was a great issue for everybody, because as a developer no one had a chance to build the plane by instructions of project manager where as a result our planes failed to fly to distance. Then, we tried Agile methodologies. Overall there were four cycles and after each cycle we could modify our prototypes to improve the design of planes so that they could reach the required distance. The most importantly, we could discuss our problems with team members which made our work a lot easier. As a result the number of planes that reached the distance increased by the number of iterations. This small survey taught us that building more prototypes aids to understand the system more deeply. Hence, agile methodology dictates that prototyping would help to better understand the behavior of the system, because complexity of the system can be fully simplified if the team communicates a lot.

Nowadays, Agile methodology has been used in most of the organizations and unlike waterfall methods Agile methodology is less costly and number of iterations reduce possible risks in development. However, the postponement of design decisions until sufficient information was strongly argued by Agilists. On the other hand, customers can get more value and achieve better business outcomes from Agile methods where every step is done to optimize customer success.

This research paper states about advantages and disadvantages of Agile methodologies taking deep look into team management in organizations where principles and technique can be interpreted to enterprise systems. Five core elements of solution development criterions prove that Agile methodologies is adaptive, empowered, value driven and collaborative. Respectively, surveys conducted among people with no experience in software development provide that the nature of the product is the key characteristic to describe the feasibility of the Agile development Cycle.

Literature review

Agile process is a method, practice and technique which pursues to engage the Agile values and principles and put them in practice. Furthermore, Agile practices can be employed in miscellaneous parts of Agile galaxy in an pursuit to assure Agile is occurring at all levels of an enterprise. This enlarges the fundamentals done by a number of Agile creators that established many of the current Agile processes and practices. The best choice for company is that what suits your working environment and company’s type of work is the best for this company. Becoming Agile should not be an end goal but it should be a means to an end which the end goal is the desired result of obtaining superior business outcome. Therefore, the Agile mindset and operations, should be an promoter for better business results which is an end goal is often lost in the enthusiasm of becoming Agile. An outcome is defined as the result of a particular action or, in Agile’s case, in a nutshell, company’s Agile transformation. Since moving to Agile requires adjust in skills, process, and culture, it involves exertion. The whole point of the effort is to attain more desirable benefits for the company.

In order to achieve superior business outcomes, company should convey products that customers would prefer which can result delivery of number of releases. Because people usually focus on outputs and think more of a traditional mindset.

In the article The Agile Enterprise: Building and Running Agile Organizations (Mario E. Moreira, 2017), it is claimed that Agile’s goal is to have a culture and practices in place that truly gain the benefits of engaging with customers and employees. By applying a dash of employee engagement and a pinch of customer feedback, a company draws its power from an Agile culture and becomes a thriving company.

Furthermore, the article Managing agile (Alan Moran, 2015) it is stated that Agile cannot be just characterized by reference to the Agile manifesto and its principles. Because, some of the principles can appear to be problematic, especially if they are used as the basis of definition. For instance, if it is stressed on face-to-face communication as proposed by one of the principles then teams that are not co-located could not be said to be strictly Agile.

Subsequently, as cited above in the article Managing agile (Alan Moran, 2015), Agile can be understood as a roughly organized solution development criterion that demonstrates the following core elements:

Adaptive. Recognizing that change is unavoidable and that the pursuit of reward results in risk. Agile urges for adaptive planning, like high-level plans that are update later into detailed plans once the necessary data becomes accessible. It also stands for effective feedback loops like reviews and retrospectives that instruct and direct the solution development and the process behind it which requires a decentralized and iterative approach to solution development that is reactive to the growing necessities of business.

Value Driven. By focusing on business necessities, Agile methodologies advocate more direct evaluation of improvement like working solutions rather than status reports and exploits the direct experience and contribution of those who need the solution.

Collaborative. Agile methodology prevents specialists working to specifications, favoring instead to employ multi-disciplinary and highly communicative teams that share their experiences and allusive knowledge in order to obtain consensus regarding the solution which may lead to engagement of stakeholders outside of the team. There are found profound nuances concerning how teams exchange information that set more advantage on direct rather than externalized interactions.

Empowered. Traditional role of management is replaced by one of servant-leadership where trust, respect, courage is supported by an environment of empowerment and self-organization is required in establishing integrated teams.

These four core elements are found in practice to work in team.

Agile is not new anymore and occupies an outstanding position in the IT sector with dominant industry analysts predicting that expanded productivity is associated with team flexibility and the nature of coping mechanisms that deal with adjusting requirements. Perspectives on Agile methodology diversify from organization’s product and scaled architectural approaches to entire project and program management frameworks. Agile’s identification is a vehicle for strategic and organizational change, because it is a purely operational affair with its own technocratic practices. Despite Agile’s manufacturing origins, in knowledge based industries it must break association with itself from building and production metaphors and pursue to identify itself more in terms of innovation, products and services. Methodologically adoption of Agile remains a challenge for most organizations in spite of its deep consensus that enables greater levels of productivity and faster time to market. Lack of middle management support and organizational and cultural barriers continue to impede Agile within organizations. However, these issues come from managers who reveal concerns about loss of control have the immense struggle getting accustomed to new practices like servant-leadership, people management and empowerment. Interestingly many surveys of practitioner and managerial staff reveal that support is required in order to ensure a successful transition for having substantial experience of Agile.

In particular, when evaluated by management with organizational integration issues and dearth of support Agile projects deliver miscellaneous results where experience and training emerges often at the top of the complaints list.

Discussion

As all methodologies Agile methodologies also have its disadvantages. Several surveys conducted below will explain why nature of the product plays an important role in Agile Development Cycle’s feasibility. In most of the cases of usage of Agile development cycle advanced simulation technologies are used instead of costly prototypes. For instance, they developed in an iterative way although they officially use rigid processes and they used internal feedback if the customer was not available.

Limitations of Agile methods

The survey conducted about limitations of Agile methods in the article Contextualizing Agile Systems engineering (Ernst S, 2011), included total number of 21 interviewees who had experience with software development had an idea about agile methods agreed with the Agile Development Cycle as the main agile principle. Some had already been involved in agile software development projects, but none had ever developed hardware with the help of an agile method while other interviewees without software development experience had absolutely no idea about agile methods. At the end of the survey both groups of interviewees gave the same answers when asked about the reasons for not using the Agile Development Cycle for hardware development:

1. Systems (hardware components) cannot be manufactured in short periods of time.

2. Prototyping takes a long time and is expensive.

3. Testing takes a long time and is expensive.

4. Implementing changes to the system takes a long time and is expensive.

5. Complexity is too high to develop in short periods of time.

6. Requirements must be traced in a well-defined process (when safety-critical).

7. Customers do not want to be involved during development (Ernst S, 2011).

These answers reveal that feasibility of the Agile Development Cycle strongly depends on the nature of the product which is the major difference between software and hardware development where the product needs to be produced physically.

Furthermore, customers are not absolutely sure about requirements as long as products are very innovative. Hence, usually lack of knowledge about system results in requirements’ adjustment during development. Business environments can also be modified frequently which requires further adjustment (Ernst S, 2011).

These are usual development practices and nothing exceptional, but they already support agility to some extent. So the interviews showed that there is one additional factor for the context in which the Agile Development Cycle can be applied successfully (Ernst S, 2011). This factor is the nature of the system. It has a strong impact on prototyping, testing, and changeability of the system. Therefore it significantly affects feasibility of the Agile Development Cycle.

Conclusion

Nowadays, Agile methodologies involve an outstanding position in the IT sector with leading industry analysts. Agile methodology states about team flexibility and the nature of coping mechanisms that deal with modifying requirements. However, perspectives on Agile are varied by the methodology that an organization selects to implement and alter from product.

This case study provided insights into the desired behaviors of an agile project manager by exploring the different needs of the management and implementation teams. It would
appear that project managers are stuck between a rock and hard place when it comes to fulfilling management and implementation teams’ expectations. The research paper is addressed the benefits and limitations of adopting agile methodologies as well as their solution practices, which can help motivate practitioners concerning the use of agile methods for handling requirements.

Furthermore, survey conducted among 21 interviewees demonstrate that the nature of the system has a great significance on prototyping, testing, and changeability of the system. Therefore it significantly affects feasibility of the Agile Development Cycle.

Ultimately, what arises is agile as a discipline that confronts adaptively with rapid shift through feedback learning loops that iteratively create and incrementally deliver value.


References

Alan Moran. (2015). Managing Agile. Switzerland Zurich

: Springer International Publishing;

Mario E. Moreira. (2017).The Agile Enterprise: Building and Running Agile Organizations Winchester, Massachusetts, USA: Apress;

Danh Nguyen-Cong, De Tran-Cao. (2013). A Review of Effort Estimation Studies in Agile, Iterative and Incremental Software Development. 2013 IEEE RIVF International Conference on Computing & Communication Technologies -
Research, Innovation, and Vision for the Future (RIVF)

Songezo Nkukwana1Nicky H.D. Terblanche. (2017). Between a rock and a hard place: Management and implementation teams’ expectations of project managers in an agile information systems delivery environment. South African Journal of Information Management. 19(1), a806.

Diane R., Ryan S., Curtis U., Julie W., Cameron W. (2014)Advantages of Agile Methodologies for Software and
Product Development in a Capstone Design Project. 978-1-4799 IEEE

Ernst S. (2011). Contextualizing Agile Systems Engineering. Graz, University of Technology, Graz, Austria.

Based OIl a presentation at the 2011 International Systems Conference. Review was bandied by N.K. Mallat 088518985 IEEE

Torgeir D.Sridhar N. VenuGopal B., Nils B. (2012) . A decade of agile methodologies: Towards explaining agile software development. The Journal of Systems and Software 85 Elsevier Inc.