When small changes are applied to the software development process in continuous manner, we call it Agile methodology that results in persistent releases in the software and frequent meetings among the team members to discuss about the progress in work. Consider the project team working on new development who are not sure about the outcome of the project and wish to experiment on moving the project in a faster pace. Here agile method is suited more because team meetings will be frequent and small changes will be applied for releases which results in testing the same faster.

The issues startups experience being not agile

In a startup, number of employees will be less and they will be building customer trust from ground level. If startup is following traditional approach, it is difficult to make changes as per customer timeline which results in customer dissatisfaction. Uncertainties and confusions will be more in any new project and hence more interactions are important among team members and stakeholders for success of the project.

Agile helps companies to manage this skepticism by calling frequent scrum meetings and making individual interactions. If a new idea comes up in team meetings, it is easy to get customer validation as several managerial approvals are not required in agile as compared to traditional methodology.

Benefits of Agile

Flexibility

When someone comes up with a new idea, it is easy to adopt the same in agile method as it is built in a manner to manage the changes in requirements while making the outcome more efficient. Flexibility is also visible in the working manner and methods adopted for work completion.

Clarity

When any team member has confusion regarding requirements, team meetings help in making the requirements clear. Stakeholders are involved in requirement gathering to make sure that the team members are clear about the requirements.

Transparency

Also, agile helps in tracking the progress and hence make amendments for lost time in the work. This visibility helps customers that whenever they need to know the progress, agile team will have everything in hand to show the work done so far. If any hindrance happens in the working of project, it is easy to contact customer and get the clarifications right away.

No room for repeated mistakes

A meeting is held after every release to check what went well, what can be improved and what went bad. This retrospection makes team to improve the work and not to repeat past mistakes. This is much important in startups as it helps in making the team members work towards perfection for the upcoming projects.

Efficiency

Since there are sprint meetings once in a week or once in two weeks, it is important for team members to show real outcome of the work. This helps in making team efficient and to check if there are any work left behind as per the sprint plan. If any team member is not sure about the plan, he/she can point out the same and changes can be made in the plan.

Agile is the best way for organisations of all levels to engage with customers and to get full potential from employees. Everyone will know the project well and can work as a team that results in success of the project and thus the company.