Today’s Businesses Operate In A Highly Competitive And Rapidly Changing Environment. 

They must respond appropriately to new opportunities and markets, economic developments, and the emergence of new competitive products and services.

The software penetrates every industry and is less successful, and the software under design uses new technologies and has the potential to defeat its competitors in the competitive market.

One of the most critical concerns of organizations is the fast delivery and release of the software, which is engaged in significant software development. But the exciting and thought-provoking point comes back to the unique interaction and index of agile methodologies with the concepts of startups, incredibly lean startups.

This article is one of the articles of the particular file “Methodologies, patterns and software architecture,” number 207 of the monthly network. Those interested can download this entire specific file from the network site.

An essential principle in the world of software states that you can never produce a complete software product that meets all users’ needs. Software companies know that today’s customers are looking to get the product they need quickly and with the highest possible quality. Those are the needs that are constantly changing.

The customers of software companies these days have come to the general conclusion that it is impossible to evaluate a product’s effect on the activity of employees and the whole complex before its practical use.

More precisely, customers who order a product do not know exactly how the new software they have collected will communicate with other systems and which of their employees’ activities will be entirely affected by the deployment of the latest software.

A software product will only reveal its shortcomings when it is fully deployed, and staff is working with it.

Designing and establishing a website is a clear example in this field.
An important point that software companies should consider is using a suitable model for software development. In the first encounter with the customer and the request he presents, you should quickly understand the model ideal for making the product.

You should always pay attention to this vital principle that your customers may change their request or submit a new request after signing the contract and during the design or implementation of the software; in such a situation, the system needs work and testing again.

In such cases, using an average cascade model or a process that works based on fundamental and fixed characteristics, in practice, prolongs the product design time and may delay the product delivery time.

Choosing the correct methodology is the key to the success of your business.

Companies, especially startups, start their work in an environment where speed is the first word. This issue could be studied from two different perspectives. The case mentioned in the previous paragraph is one of the common problems of software companies.

Unfortunately, if a company does not respond appropriately or ignores these changing customer requests, it will lose its customer in the shortest time. Because the word-of-mouth marketing technique (an effective startup marketing model) will backfire and ruin the company’s reputation.
But another essential thing to keep in mind, especially if you are a startup business owner, is related to on-time product delivery.

The most important factor that causes the failure of startups and fledgling software companies is a delay. Your business has designed a product, but when the software is available and ready to use, the main reason and idea that the software was built on have changed, and the software has become a useless product.

We use rapid software development and delivery processes for some specific businesses. Although there are many methods for rapid software development, they all share some essential characteristics.

These features are as follows:

• Documentation that is mainly written in the programming environment. Design and implementation are done simultaneously. In these models, there are no details related to the system’s features, and the docucreationion design is minimal.
•  The system is designed in the state of incremental development. End users and other system stakeholders determine and evaluate each step. They may introduce changes to the system or provide new requirements that should be implemented in later development phases.
• System user interfaces are, in most cases, done using an evolutionary development system that allows interface design to be created quickly using icons and images. The method may generate a web-based interface for a browser or an interface for a specific platform such as Microsoft Windows.

Incremental and rapid development methodologies, which we mentioned in the magazine’s past issues (193 and 189), include the production and delivery of software in an incremental mode instead of a single product.

Each iterative process produces a new incremental product.

The incremental model brings one significant advantage in software development time: quick product delivery to the customer.

Early incremental versions of a product can show customers the features that have a higher priority so that customers will realize the system’s real value through early versions. By viewing the product, customers can see if their needs have been implemented in the development and if changes are needed, that should be applied in the following versions of the product or not.

Customer interaction with system developers should be considered in the incremental development process because they need to provide feedback to the development team so that feedback can be applied to subsequent total instances.

But the participation of these people does not mean that the system is likely to be designed according to their needs. Instead, it guarantees that the system will work according to its intended markets. figure 1),

It shows a model of an incremental development process. Note that the focus of this process model is on architectural design in the early stages. Suppose the architecture is not considered at the beginning of these processes. In that case, the system’s overall structure will likely be unstable, and the built incremental development models will also be shaky.

 

Agile methodologies

In the 1980s and early 1990s, a view emerged that the best way to build software of the highest quality was to use methods that supported CASE tools. Tools that allow development teams to have fine-grained control over software development processes. This view was presented mainly by the community of engineers designing and constructing large projects.

People whose task was to build long-lasting systems that were created by combining many individual designs. In 2001, a community of software developers and proponents of lightweight methodologies emerged that attempted to identify features and indicators based on light methods.

This association came together to reach a coherent and unified point of view and finally published a joint statement called the Manifesto. This statement introduced a series of principles, values, ​​and rules for software’s rapid development, which became known as the principles of agile methodology.

Among the most important principles that this joint statement emphasizes the following can be mentioned:

• We are providing customer satisfaction through fast and continuous delivery of software.
•  I am bBe flexible to changes even if the projects are in the final design stages.
•  They are releasing trial versions of the software at regular intervals.
•  We are establishing consistent communication between users and the software development team.
•  Citable documentation.
•  Support a uniform and stable production process
• Employing specialized and qualified people
•  Simplify tasks by eliminating unnecessary items
•  Examining the performance and efficiency of the team in specific periods

In general, the agile software development model is formed by a set of software development methodologies based on gradual and iterative evolution—a group in which solutions are obtained through self-organization and collaboration between teams.

More precisely, agile methodology is a conceptual framework that tries to maintain interaction between customers and the development team throughout the development cycle. Among the essential models based on agile methodology, we can mention incremental, cooperative, straightforward, adaptive, etc. models. Figure (2) shows the elegant development model.

Today, various lightweight development models are used in connection with specific projects. You will get to know some of the most famous models in the following.

ASD Sarnam (Adaptive Software Development)

Adaptive software development is one of the software development processes that Jim Highsmith and Sam Baier designed. (Figure 3)

ASD was proposed as an alternative to the traditional cascaded heavyweight development model. This model is used to build complex systems and software. This model is based on two main ideas the nature of component-based adaptation and group cooperation. Speculation, collaboration, and learning from the three main phases of this model. In this model, a repetition pattern is used in the primary phase.

 Agile Modeling) AM)

It is a methodology used to document and model software systems and always emphasizes choosing the best methods. This model is formed by principles and values ​​used on an agile software development project. This methodology is more flexible than traditional methods. As a result, it fits better with systems where changes are made quickly. AM is known as part of the agile software development suite. (Figure 4)

Crystal family

Crystal methodology is one of the most lightweight and versatile methodologies for software development. Crystal Clear is a member of the Crystal family of methods designed by Alistair Cockburn. The Crystal is formed by a set of agile solutions, such as Clear Crystal, Crystal Yellow, Crystal Orange, etc., each of which has its characteristic, which depends on several factors such as team size, project priority, and project sensitivity.

There are differences. This model is generally suitable for teams comprising 6 or 8 people and systems that are not too sensitive. Crystal’s family focuses on people rather than processes or products. Among the positive features of this method, we can mention the basics of design and the ability to choose the most suitable method based on the size and sensitivity of the project. Figure (5) shows the family of this model.

Disciplined agile delivery

The life cycle in the framework of DAD is made up of three main phases: Inception, Construction, and Transition; each of these three phases has its own goals, and activities are going on in each of them that these activities have. Several milestones. Each step of DAD has three parts: coordination, collaboration, and conclusion. (Figure 6)

How do agile methods work?

The working basis of agile methods focuses on dividing the project into small parts and planning for each piece, usually within one to four weeks, completing and adding the finished pieces to other factors.

As a result, in agile methods, there is no need for general planning and considering all the details at the beginning of the work. In this method, each time frame is a complete software development cycle that includes planning, requirements analysis, design, coding, unit testing, and final testing. One of the most significant advantages of this method is reducing the overall risk of the project and the ability to adapt to changes quickly.

As we mentioned at the beginning of the article, this method aims to produce a presentable part of the software with minimal problems in each period.

In each period, the works are done based on the right of priority.

The adaptation process includes two important factors: changes in the production process and changes in the software. Priorities are determined in meetings held between customers and developers. Because agile methods have a particular emphasis on flexibility. As a result, agile methods are related to iterative development in which compatibility is essential, and this is precisely the same thing that is not compatible with long-term planning.

Software development life cycle

Agile methods focus on different aspects of the software development life cycle. (Figure 7)

Some of them are based on methods (overflow programming, functional programming, and agile modeling), some on software project management (such as Scrum), some on the entire software development life cycle (dynamic development methods of a system and integrated development process), and some on requirements determination.

They emphasize. Therefore, there is an apparent difference between various agile software development methods. Although the methods of dynamic development of a system and integrated development process do not require complementary approaches to support software development, the rest need these supplements to varying degrees. Do not forget that any developer can use even complex models such as dynamic development methods of a system.