Tohir Solomons

Agile Software Development Process

Posted on the October 9th, 2005 under Uncategorized by Tohir

The Contact Trust project has finally been completed. In the last few weeks, there was rapid progress owing subconsciously to the Agile Software Development Process.

I’ve had to reflect on why this latter stage was so productive, the project seemingly dragging and embarrassing. The Agile Software Development Process, as I’ve hopefully read correctly, proposes being in continuous (read weekly) touch with the client, even showing them incomplete work.

This way the client is constantly aware of what is going on, gets a glimpse of the development challenges, earlier review and prototype opportunities, recommends changes in the initial stages, etc. – in essence, grow with the project.

The opposite of this is the system of doing work for a few weeks, and then showing some of the completed work to the client. This pitfalls of this approach is that development is done first and the client reviews. When expectations are not met, it often means a re-development, back stepping, side stepping, no stepping, etc.

I’m yet to go thoroughly through the Agile Development Process, but it seems worth, if not necessary. When adopted in the latter stages with practically daily communication, productivity and progress was imminent. But sadly, its only in a mess that process and project management is appreciated.