Agile Manifesto was created in 2001. Agile has come a long way since then from the adoption of agile methods to improve its efficacy, flexibility, speed, collaboration, communication, and cross-functional setups. Agile is an improved process to implement any technology but it has taken software development by storm [1]. The approach is simple: It’s an iterative continuous delivery approach where we are going to get something valuable at end of each iteration usually called sprints that are designed, developed, and tested individually as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Agile Methodology [4]

In agile, the focus is more on individuals and interactions, customer collaborations, and immediate response rather than process, documentation, planning. For that a cross-functional group of courteous people, have differences in opinions, perspectives, or viewpoints is required.  They need to deliver a working, tested increment of product. Though keeping this Agile team Intact is one of the challenges for start-ups.

Scrum, Kanban, Extreme Programming, and DSDM are some of the frameworks available for Agile projects.

Agile Benefits

Focus on quality parameters like Agility, Predictability, Visibility, Adaptability, Flexibility, and Changeability are major benefits of agile [2] as explained below. Agility means addressing various kinds of changes during the development process. Agile methodologies facilitate the development process with rapid response by effective communication between all stakeholders. Though agility does not come through mandates teams can achieve it by adopting agile methodologies and using agile tools.

• Predictability in Agile means hitting sprint goals. It makes it possible for the team to know in advance what to expect at end of each sprint. It is a must for short-term planning. One can’t go for a systematic process for planning, documenting, designing, coding, reviewing, and testing for short-term targets.

• Visibility means Transparency. It is the basis for agile. It is possible through information sharing and trust. This team needs a tool like Trello, LeanKit so that modules can be prioritized, assigned, and tracked.

• Adaptability is the key point for the transition from waterfall to agile methodology as it provides the ability to change according to changing needs. Agile works on the model of iterations and releases change more frequently. Timely interactions and feedback from customers help the team to evolve and be adaptable.

• Flexibility depends on visibility and adaptability. Agile is an adaptive methodology in which change in requirement can be absorbed without impacting on another module. This is called flexibility in agile.

• Changeability means effective change management. It is possible in agile as suggested change is discussed with the team of developers and tester and scheduled in iterations. Timely review by stakeholders helps developers and testers better understanding which eventually leads to more test cases coverage.

Though the above benefits are difficult to measure with formal metrics other metrics help the startups like AgBe to analyze their performance on using agile. Some of them are [5]:

1. Net Promoter Score: It is of scale 0 to 10.  It is a common method to measure customer satisfaction used by eCommerce after selling their product.
2. Velocity: How many stories completed in a fixed time (or in a sprint)
3. Story Cycle Time: It is to track the progress of the story. Each story in sprint has its cycle time.
4. Cumulative flow diagram: It is to measure the progress in each stage like in backlog, in progress, in review, and completed. The idea is to have a smooth graph. If in case there is a rough patch, it can easily be tracked and catch on time.
5. Sprint Progress (Burndown chart): Exact progress at any given point is tracked with the help of the burndown chart. It represents work left to complete in the sprint.

There are other measurements like Escaped defects, Control chart, Throughput, and Lead Time that can also be used to evaluate the progress made in agile projects.

AgBe Experience with Agile

For us, Agile is an effective methodology as it supports in quick delivery of minimal viable to customers and adapts to market changes as fast as possible. Employing large teams for the success of the project is not a necessity in agile. A dedicated cross-functional team with 3-5 developers for a project can deliver its best. AgBe grows step by step by working on regular feedback from users and observing the demands of the market closely. The 15th State of Agile Report [3] highlights several important milestones in Agile’s journey. AgBe Experience with Agile based on various key points (listed in the report) is evaluated (based on the report) are shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Agile Report

Key points	Where AgBe Stand	15th State of Agile Report [3]
Company Experience	Has significant experience with Agile	94% report their company is practicing Agile.
Methodology followed	Scrum	66% follows Scrum
Techniques	Daily stand-ups	87% follows Daily Standups
Planning and Delivery Tool	Kanban, Taskboard	77% followed Kanban, 67% Taskboard
Agile Tooling	Trello	59% using Trello
DevOps Initiative	DevOps initiative currently underway	56% currently underway
Value Stream Management	Interested, but no near-term plans to implement	23% planning to implement

1. https://www.netsolutions.com/insights/the-road-to-agile-transformation-steps/
2. https://www.dragonspears.com/blog/11-benefits-of-agile-development
3. https://stateofagile.com/#ufh-i-661275008-15th-state-of-agile-report/7027494
4. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Agile-methodology-diagram_fig4_286562348
5. https://hubstaff.com/tasks/agile-metrics