Agile methodology started as part of the software development industry. It was created in the spring of 2000 when 17 software developers met to find a way to speed up development times so that the process of bringing new software to the market becomes a lot faster and easier.
It is one of the most popular project management ways to manage a project by breaking it up into various phases. The collaboration process is crucial since it collaborates between team members and stakeholders, and the goal is to improve at every stage. Teams must first go through a planning process, which will lead them to the execution, and of course, an evaluation of what has been achieved at the end.
To have the advantage of a successful Agile methodology, you have the Agile Manifesto, a document that outlines the main values of Agile software development. The point of this guide is to provide a model that will be effective so that the teams will be able to adopt the philosophy of Agile project management and practically use it to get better.
But before we get into all the benefits that Agile methodology provides, let’s see what the statistics show of how popular it is.
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Stats of Popularity
There are many reasons why Agile methodology is so popular. Still, to not speculate, here we will see the actual statistics showing how immensely popular this methodology is worldwide. Most of the reports show that Agile is a methodology that creates the best ways to manage a project and becomes more popular every year.
So let’s see some of the fundamental reasons why Agile is one of the most desired methodologies today :
- Productivity – Around 55% of the respondents listed that the reason they use this methodology is that they achieved increased productivity in their work.
- Manage changes – The advantage of managing the change of priorities was listed by 64%, and it is one of the most popular ones.
- Software delivery – An impressive 75% of the respondents listed accelerated software distribution as their most significant reason to use Agile.
- Distributed teams – Last but not least, 17% of the respondents listed that the reason they chose Agile is to get better at managing the distributed teams.
It is a good idea to check the current Agile methodology statistics that prove why Agile is one of the most popular project management ways to manage a project used by numerous companies all over the globe. Since we have proof that Agile methodology is definitely the desired process, let’s see what makes it selected by companies and the benefits of using it.
Benefits of Agile Methodology
There are many different benefits one will get by choosing Agile methodology as their project management method. And also, there is a wide range of benefits for various types of organizations and different project types, from companies that want to create a prototype before having the final outcome of building a project to projects where there are many independent tasks, and teams need to communicate constantly to be successful. In addition, this method is highly beneficial for technology organizations that have to work in an environment that is changing fast all the time.
Since different companies and various types of projects can get many advantages from this method, let’s get into the top five benefits of using Agile methodology for managing a project.
Ability to Adapt
The problem with old traditional project management methods is that they do not have options that can give you the ability to adapt fast or not at all. And even if you want to adjust to a new situation, you will suffer many schedule problems, and more importantly, the project costs will be much higher.
Let’s say that in the middle of the project, your customer all of a sudden says they want a scope change. You will have to adapt fast and be professional. That is why Agile is the preferred method since it will give you the opportunity to make changes with minimal effort. Even more valuable is that you can do this no matter how far along you are with the development of the needed project.
Customer Contact
You can take any job as an example and realize that when developing something in a team or producing something for a customer, the biggest problem that occurs is that you have contact with the customer at the beginning and at the end.
This used to be an often problem in project management because the project team could not achieve the customer’s requirements if they changed their mind or if everything wasn’t arranged as desired at the beginning.
Agile brings significant benefits to the table for constant customer contact and producing the desired end product. It allows connection all the time through the entire process and ensures that the project developing team is on the right path.
Fast Delivery Process
Another thing that customers love to have is the ability to take a look at the working version process. It can be a problem if a customer needs to wait even up to a whole year to see the end product and nothing else before that.
Agile provides customers with a consistent approach to delivering working products and seeing the development process. It gives the customers an opportunity to get the product as a working version even every two weeks and be sure that the project team is constantly delivering practical products.
Continuous Improvement
One of the most valuable things is that Agile creates things in iterations, which makes every new step better than before, giving the team the advantage to fix previous mistakes constantly. So the most significant benefit is that older mistakes will never be repeated. Making the same mistakes over and over again can become a massive problem because you will be stuck in the same issues and never improve.
That is why project team members also improve with the Agile methodology since it gives the members a way to exchange ideas, collaborate, and improve together constantly by sharing different experiences.
Team Chemistry
By using the Agile method, the members of the team are self-managing and are self-organized. This gives them the perspective of being more autonomous and having more apparent authority over the ideas they create.
Another benefit is that the members become better at performing their roles and continuously learn new skills by doing this. When the atmosphere is good, it creates great team chemistry that is maybe even most important because when the team is working well together, the results come more easily and faster.
The project team has to be together often, and by having a good team vibe, the end results will be better, and the members will also become better as project developers. In essence, you can not provide a great end result if team members don’t get along and have constant lousy communication.
Conclusion
You can see why Agile methodology is immensely popular nowadays and will continue to be one of the best ways to achieve a fantastic project management process. But, unfortunately, the traditional ways, slowly but surely, literally become a tradition from the past.
The desire to satisfy your clients is essential, and mixing their satisfaction with your team members’ happiness while working is the best possible outcome. So every company should know that adopting the Agile methodology is a smart move and a necessary one to become better and keep up with the newest trends. Don’t think twice or have second thoughts, use this methodology that Agile provides to achieve the best possible results.
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