Agile Methodology is a type of project management process. The agile method anticipates change and allows for much more flexibility than traditional methods. Clients can make small objective changes without huge amendments to the budget or schedule. The process involves breaking down each project into prioritized requirements, and delivering each individually within an iterative cycle. An iteration is the routine of developing small sections of a project at a time. Each iteration is reviewed and assessed by the development team and client. The insights gained from the assessment are used to determine the next step in development. Clients come to prescheduled regular meetings to review the work completed the previous iteration, and to plan work for the upcoming iteration. Detailed goals are set in each iteration meeting such as; expected changes, time estimates, priorities and budgets.
The agile method is based on giving high priority to customer participation, from the very beginning of the development cycle. The objective is to keep the client involved at every step so that they have a product that they are happy with at the end. This method saves the client money and time because the client tests and approves the product at each step of development. If there are defects or challenges, then changes can be made during production cycles to fix the issue. Traditional models of project management would not find defects as early because they do not test as often. Typically (in traditional methods of production) defects that are not discovered at the different stages can find their way into the final product. This can result in increased overhead prices and client dissatisfaction.
Businesses have proven this model of project management with their increased client satisfaction rate. The value for businesses that use this model include:
- Lower Cost
- Enables clients to be happier with the end product by making improvements and involving clients with development decisions throughout the process.
- Encourages open communication among team members, and clients.
- Providing teams with a competitive advantage by catching defects and making changes throughout the development process, instead of at the end.
- Speeds up time spent on evaluations since each evaluation is only on a small part of the whole project.
- Ensures changes can be made quicker and throughout the development process by having consistent evaluations to assess the product with the expected outcomes requested.
- It keeps each project transparent by having regular consistent meetings with the clients and systems that allow everyone involved to access the project data and progress.
Businesses use this model of project management to ensure that throughout the process customers save time, money, and have the flexibility to make changes anytime during the development process.