| Agile software development refers to a group of software development methodologies that
promotes development iterations, open collaboration, and process adaptability throughout the
life-cycle of the project. It chooses to do things in small increments, with minimal
planning, rather than plan at length. This helps to minimize the overall risk, and allows
the project to adapt to changes more quickly. There is also an emphasis on stakeholder
involvement. Meaning at the end of each iteration, the stakeholder is consulted about the
product and comments are noted.
Agile Software Development Process:
Initiation of the Project: Initiation involves setting up the plan, specifying the business needs, freezing the requirements, building the team, and preparing initial architecture modeling.
Development Iterations: This repetitive stage involves active client participation, rigorous and collaborative development by professionals, adding new features upon requirement, confirmatory and investigative testing, and internal deployment of software.
Release of the product: This stage involves final system testing, final user acceptance testing, and deployment of system into production and regular and updated delivery of software which meets the changing needs of the client. Release phase allows the end user to review the software and send the feedback as well as request for more features if required.
Production: This phase involves the regular maintenance of the system and identification of defects to enhance the system performance as well as stability.
Approach and philosophy towards Agile Development Process:
- Deployment of Adaptive method rather than predictive to allow constant change in software.
- People-oriented rather than process-oriented to allow incessant learning and usability to the development team.
- Simplest description and planning.
- Focus on high-value features
- Tool independence that makes development process more flexible and easy to execute.
Benefits with Agile Software Development:
- Minimized project risk
- Maximized project visibility
- Enhanced predictability, and adaptability
- Generation of relatively high quality software
- Availability of options to track and review the project regularly
- Cost Control
Agile Work Flow Chart: 
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