Agile software development in theory and practice

Short Description
In turn of the millennium, new software development ideas were presented in the form of Agile Manifesto as a counteraction to the traditional, rigorous development methods and process models. Agile Manifesto consists of four values and twelve principles of which the authors of this thesis formed a conceptual framework. It assists in analysing different aspects of agile software development one by one but also as a whole. Agile software development aims at fast, light and efficient development that supports customer’s business without being chaotic or following any rigorous method.

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Content
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Software plays a significant role in lives of individuals and in fierce competition between companies. It can be used as an application in a personal computer or as an embedded part of an industrial robot and it enables services and automates procedures. Software has been developed since the 1950’s, and different methods, paradigms and process models have been invented to handle the complex efforts of development. Some of the development methods have become heavily documentation oriented or expect the developers to rigorously follow certain processes. Those can be called heavy or traditional methods, for example structured analysis and design. Additionally we include Capability Maturity Model (CMM) and Rational Unified Process (RUP) to heavy methods, although CMM and RUP can also be classified as process models. In the turn of the millennium, new development method ideas were presented in the form of Agile Manifesto as a counteraction to rigorous, plan-driven software development (Boehm 2002, 64). Agile Manifesto gives an ideological background for agile software development. The word agile can be defined as “1) marked by ready ability to move with quick easy grace or 2) having a quick resourceful and adaptable character” (Merriam-Webster 2002). According to Cockburn (2001), “Core to agile software development is the use of light-but-sufficient rules of project behaviour and the use of human and communication-oriented rules.” (Cockburn 2001, xxii) Fowler (2001) claims that the most significant differences between agile and traditional, heavy methods can be found in the emphasis on methods. Agile methods are less document-oriented than traditional methods. Instead, agile methods are more code-oriented and they emphasise working code over documentation. He also claims that traditional methods would resist change but agile methods would be more open to meet changes. Besides, agile methods are more people-oriented that process-oriented (Fowler 2001). According to Coldewey, Eckstein, McBreen and Schwanninger (2000), “most lightweight [i.e. agile] processes substitute interpersonal communication and teamwork for the extensive documentation and formal signoffs that are required by heavyweight processes.” (Coldewey et al. 2000, 131) It is important to note, however, that agile does not refer to chaos.
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