Updated February 10, 2023
Introduction to Agile Model Advantages and Disadvantages
Agile Model Advantages and Disadvantages will list the Advantages of Agile Model and Lifecycle, similarly to the disadvantages of Agile Model and Lifecycle. Before getting into the Advantages and Disadvantages, we need to know about Agile Methodology or Agile Model. So, the Agile Model is a type of Incremental Model, i.e., software gets developed in incremental cycles, which results in more minor incremental releases built on the previous release. Agile means “ability to move easily” and respond to changes rapidly, which is the essential aspect of the Agile Model. Here, let us see the Agile Model, the advantages and Disadvantages of the Agile Lifecycle, and the methodology model.
What is the Agile Model?
In Agile, various cross-functional teams work together in different iterations of build with more of face to face interaction and less documentation. The agile Model is aligned in delivering changing business requirements and distributes software with few and faster changes or modifications.
Each iteration takes a short interval of 1 to 4 weeks in the Agile Model. Generally, a single phase of software development takes somewhere around 6 to 18 months. In a single phase of development, the requirements gathering and the factors related to risk management are predicted, and the product is delivered within the iteration span.
Roles in the Agile Model
We have two roles in Agile Model, i.e., Product Owner and Scrum Master.
- Product Owner: He/ She runs the product from a business perspective, defines requirements, and is prioritized accordingly. The product owner represents the customer’s voice, ensures the team works on the valuable requirements and sets the release date. He/ She accepts user stories that meet the Definition of Done requirement and the acceptance criteria.
- Scrum Master: He/ She is a Team leader who helps teammates to follow Agile practices to meet the customer requirements and commitments by removing all the blockers and safeguarding the team from disturbances. Scrum Master ensures the Agile Inspect & Adapt Processes are followed as per the schedule, including Daily Stand Up meetings, Review and Demo, Planned Meetings, and Retrospective meetings, and facilitates decision-making.
Agile Lifecycle Model Advantages and Disadvantages
Different advantages and disadvantages are mentioned below:
Advantages
- Opportunity for Change: When the user is working on the Agile Lifecycle, the team must focus on producing the required sub-product in each iteration.
- Increase in Quality of the Software: In Agile, the product breaks down into multiple manageable units. It enables the team to focus on collaboration, high-quality development, and testing. Build and test reviews are conducted frequently that help in improving quality by solving defects and if any mismatches are found at an early stage.
- Progress Transparency: Clients have unique options for a high level of involvement. They are a part of the process, like prioritizing, planning the iterations, reviewing sessions, and frequent software building, including additional features.
- Engagement with Stakeholders: In the Agile lifecycle, several opportunities are offered for the team and stakeholders after, during, and before each sprint. Clients get involved in aspects of development, with high collaboration between the client and the project team.
- Early Delivery through Sprint: As sprints last 1 to 4 weeks, the schedule allows teams to deliver new features frequently with high predictability.
- Predictable Schedule and Cost: Every sprint in the Agile Lifecycle has a fixed duration, which means the cost of product development is predictable within a fixed scheduled time. With estimates provided in every sprint, customers can understand the average cost of features. This improves decision-making regarding the features and the need for much more iterations.
- User-Focused Process: Agile Lifecycle focuses on giving the real need of users. And hence, each sprint provides an increased value of the feature instead of a mere component. It also presents a beta testing feature after each sprint, enabling teams to gain feedback at an early stage of development.
Disadvantages
- Extensive Time Commitment from each one Involved: Increase in collaboration leads to giving more time from each once involved, like stakeholders and clients. To provide quantifiable feedback, they need to invest time in learning the software in and out.
- Quantifying the Real Scope can be a Challenge: Developers struggle in quantifying the extent of development efforts when the product is huge. It can lead to team frustration, poor practices, and poor decision-making.
- Endless or the Boundless Work: Sprints in Agile Lifecycle depend upon pivoting based on feedback, which means pivoting in a wrong direction with unclear customer feedback and developer misinterpreting.
- Potential Gap in the Documentation: Iterative sprints in Agile pave the way to the development of software requirements clarified just before the development starts, making it easier to get through the documentation. New developers or testers might miss a few key details or requirements without documentation.
- Resource Allocation can be a Challenge: Developers or testers who complete their part of sprint work cannot move on to other projects, as they may be required for the next sprint.
Agile Methodology Model Advantages and Disadvantages
Some of the advantages and disadvantages are mentioned below:
Advantages
- Constant adaptation to changing requirements or circumstances.
- Product with working software is delivered at frequent intervals.
- Daily and close co-operation among business people and the developers.
- Late changes or modifications are also welcomed.
- Satisfaction of the customer with continuous delivery and valuable software product.
- Customers can look at the working software feature that fulfills their expectations.
Disadvantages
- Less documentation work makes it difficult for developers to predict the expected output when the requirements are not precise in Agile methodology.
- Due to evolving features, there is a risk of being in an everlasting project.
- For some complex projects, effort and resource allocation are difficult to estimate.
- And for some complex projects, it isn’t easy to provide an estimate of the actual efforts required.
- Highly paid and senior developers are required as these are the people who can handle and take required decisions with some documentation.
Key Agile Model Advantages and Disadvantages
Given below are the key agile advantages and disadvantages:
- In Agile, there is a faster turnaround time, and users can adapt to changes and respond faster.
- Developers or testers can detect defects and fix them faster.
- Can share knowledge with a big community of Agile practitioners.
- Can experiment with the ideas or requirements as it is cost-effective.
- Teams can move into a different track in delivering the functionalities at the expense of technical debt, increasing the amount of unplanned work.
- The developer needs to have a long-term vision of the product and work on communicating it actively.
- Shorter sprint cycles have a disadvantage for the design thinking process; hence, the developers have to redevelop over and over with negative feedback.
- Requirements or features that are too big to fit into a sprint are avoided.
Conclusion
With this, we have concluded the topic “Agile Model Advantages and Disadvantages.” We have seen what is Agile Model, its methodology, and its lifecycle advantages and disadvantages are listed above. I have also gone through some of the advantages and disadvantages of the Agile Methodology Model and listed a few key Advantages and Disadvantages of the Agile Model.
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