Why choose agile web development methodology?

When you develop your application using an advanced and user-friendly technology such as Ruby on Rails, it has been observed that agile methodology has several advantages over waterfall. As the trend goes, so far many organisations have showed reluctance in making the switch to agile despite knowing it is going to take their efficiency to the next level. This is the reason why we decided to walk you through some of the most important advantages of going agile as you decide to take this major step forward. Key Principles of Agile

• Business and technology teams are located in the same, open environment.
• Programming is directed by the test cases written in advance.
• The teams first write test cases that direct the programming.
• Every day’s schedule begins with a ‘stand up’ meeting.
• The process has sprints of one-to-four weeks for the iterations.

Benefits of agile

1. Any technological issues are easily identifiable in agile

The incorrect approaches are quickly identified using the agile methodology. It is a well-known fact that in Rails Development or while using other technologies too, the sooner a technological issue is identified in the development process, the easier it is to fix it. Agile emphasises on the philosophy of ‘Fail early, fail better’ or ‘fail fast, succeed faster’.

2. Agile enables quicker decision-making

In the times when there is a need for answering certain important questions and make certain crucial decisions, with its feature of colocation of the business stakeholders, agile development and project management allows instant meetings to achieve faster decision-making. This eliminates the need to formally organise meetings which would otherwise take days to schedule.

3. Change is embraced ‘with open arms’

During agile Rails development, it is known that change is inevitable and it is the only constant during the entire process. At the beginning of the process of development it is difficult to clearly define or ascertain how a certain system shall work once built. It is only through a series of iterations and constant changes in scope and requirements of the project that its final and functional picture emerges. This is the reason why ‘analysis paralysis’ is quite common for waterfall projects which is not the case with agile development.

4. The final product is rich with more useful features

As a product goes through its journey of evolution, agile development is proven to be more efficient at allowing the identification of features that add more value and those that are going to prove more useful to the target audience. This is made possible by the very nature of agile process – that of keeping on questioning ‘the status quo’ and critiquing its progress at every stage by constantly testing in a collaborative environment. On the other hand, while following waterfall, one typically chalks out the requirement details at the very outset, when it can be quite difficult to completely visualise which all features will prove to be the most useful.

5. The environment vibes well with the youth

What’s more! Agile provides your teams with a fast-paced – lively and collaborative environment to work in and this is specifically more fun for the youth that likes to constantly learn while engaging in every part of the process while keeping abreast of what difference their contribution is making in real-time. More than anything else, learning is what motivates the young employees the most for going to work each day.

6. Technical Documentation is accurate and less tedious

In case of agile, the technical documentation that is truly required, comprises of user stories, test cases etc. It is basically a representation of the current stage in development of the product, essentially depicting what has been developed so far and what could be the road ahead. With the sign-offs specific to the exact features, it is more hassle-free to audit the development process. This is contrary to the traditional development approaches that take a great deal of time for documenting elaborate details that might be tedious to work with. While using waterfall, the milestones are typically defined in terms of the creating the technical documents rather than an actual working code, because of its time-consuming nature.

7. Maintaining an application is easier in Agile

For codes with a single-point failure, we have all been traditionally having mostly one person knowing well enough to make changes and keep it relevant for the existing conditions. This is just not a possibility in case of agile development since at any point of time multiple developers are engaged in building each part of the application and each one is well aware of any issues arising in any part of the system on a real-time basis.

Having discussed about all the advantages of agile development process, we would like to suggest that the best way to adopt agile development method is to have a team that is ready and willing to adapt to this change and allow it the freedom to adopt the method and its techniques.

RailsCarma utilises agile rails development method to impart high level of efficiency and productive results in developing the most cutting edge applications for its customers. With more than a decade of experience in imparting top-notch expertise in Ruby on Rails Development with early adoption of agile process, we are happy to help your business with lean and mean development solutions that utilise the tech-stack best-suited for your business to stay ahead in its target market and enjoy significant competitive advantage. Contact us to learn how you can achieve this for your business.