Every great idea must be realized efficiently. Once you have decided to develop your own app or program, you need to learn how to bring your ideas to life.
An outsourcing software development company can help you achieve your goals and bring your concept to the market.
In this article, you’ll learn:
In order to meet client requirements and release a product with high-quality software, companies use special methodologies. These help to organize the work of their employees and the process of making their product better.
A software development methodology is a set of methods for managing the development process, including rules, techniques, and principles that make development as efficient as possible.
Every business has its own structure, management style, aims, and goals. All these factors affect the success of the business.
In order to manage the product and produce a satisfactory result, it’s important to understand the workflow and communication channels with an outsourcing software company during the development process. Otherwise, the final product will leave much to be desired.
Every methodology differs; each has distinct formats, approaches, and techniques. Each methodology has diverse goals as well as strengths and weaknesses. While choosing a methodology, it’s important to take the project type, budget, deadlines, and so on into account.
Different methodologies shine in different situations ©.
Let’s examine the most popular approaches used by software companies in 2022.
Agile is the culture of a workstyle formed by several methodologies. Apart from its main goal—to enhance productivity throughout the software development process—the ideas underlying Agile are flexibility, openness to change, and adaptability to client needs.
The antonym to Agile is a fixed, inflexible development process.
The software development process is divided into smaller parts known as iterations. Each iteration lasts 2–4 weeks and is presented to the client. The owner of the project is free either to accept the iteration or to import new ideas. The next iteration of the development process depends on the previous one.
With Agile, software development involves close contact between the client and the developing group.
Thanks to Agile, it’s possible to control several projects simultaneously and to create high-quality software products in a short period of time.
Yes: Agile has become widespread these days. Many big businesses use it, including IBM, Apple, Procter & Gamble, and even Microsoft.
Agile is suitable for various fields including aerospace, pharmaceuticals, engineering, construction, and content management.
Agile can be implanted in businesses of any size.
No: Agile is not suitable for small-scale projects.
It is always up to the client to decide whether or not Agile aligns with their business model. Here are some benefits and drawbacks of this methodology.
DevOps is a mindset; it’s a specific software development culture, the main principles of which are communication and collaboration.
Traditionally, the working teams of the Development, QA, and Operations departments are isolated, making it difficult for them to maintain contact during the development process. Therefore, significant time and effort are required to achieve a satisfactory result.
DevOps is an evolutionary approach that unites all departments involved. It simplifies and speeds up the release of the software product by removing barriers among working departments.
The developers, QA, and operations teams collaborate directly in tandem throughout the lifecycle of the product, from design to testing and support. The groups have overlapping responsibilities and are aware of those of the other groups.
DevOps is advantageous in that it can be used to innovate quickly and to generate highly reliable software products. Big businesses have increasingly implemented this methodology in a wide range of domains.
Yes: The methodology is suitable for big enterprises and businesses that prefer to pay to quickly receive a top-quality product.
No: DevOps is rarely used by small companies. If the project in question is short, there’s no need to hire highly paid DevOps specialists and tools.
Other benefits and drawbacks are displayed in the table below.
Waterfall is a systematic and straightforward approach in which a product is created in a staged manner. This methodology is one of the basic, classic models in software development. Each stage of the product development process is organized sequentially.
The software development lifecycle covers phases from idea generation and planning to development, integration, and maintenance.
In the Waterfall methodology, all stages are managed one after another. The next phase of the development process is started only after the previous phase has been completed. The process follows a cascading pattern and only moves forward. This means that there is no way to change a previous phase of the development process. The lack of flexibility is the main disadvantage of this methodology. Waterfall is used by plan-driven teams in companies with traditional workstyles.
Yes: Waterfall is suitable for owners of projects with clear requirements who want to receive the final result without interfering in the development process.
This methodology is best for small businesses with a classic approach to work. Waterfall is also appropriate for short and simple software development projects.
No: The Waterfall methodology is not appropriate for project owners who expect rapid results or for businesses with a flexible mindset. The approach is also not suitable for large projects.
The advantages and disadvantages of the Waterfall methodology are displayed below:
Kanban and Scrum are two popular software development methods based on the Agile philosophy. Both can be included in any methodology or used separately.
This method is based on the Agile philosophy, which emphasizes flexibility, high levels of communication, and concentration on client results.
This methodology involves visualizing the product’s development lifecycle on either a physical or digital board. Kanban can be used as an approach or as an additional tool in conjunction with a different methodology.
For every project, developers create a plan for the project development lifecycle.
All planned tasks are divided among the members of the development team.
A real or digital board is divided into columns titled “To do,” “In progress,” “Done,” and so on.
The quantity of the columns depends on the particular project and the size and structure of the team. Each member of the team places cards with their tasks in the appropriate column, meaning that team members are aware of one another’s workloads.
Every task should pass through all the columns (i.e., all the stages) of the lifecycle of the product, and a team member does not begin a new task until the previous task is complete.
The Kanban approach shows where project bottlenecks are and helps team members observe the process in its entirety.
Yes: Kanban can be used for projects without strict time limits.
No: This methodology isn’t suitable for businesses that are dynamic by nature.
As for any other methodology, Kanban has benefits and drawbacks.
Scrum is an evolutionary framework based on Agile. It emphasizes flexibility, close cooperation, and high-level teamwork. Scrum includes a set of tools, roles, and meetings that work together to smooth and facilitate the software development process.
The Scrum work process is organized as follows:
The whole development process is divided into smaller blocks known as sprints (equivalent to iterations in Agile). They range from 2–4 weeks and involve developing, testing, and analysis.
During each sprint, the Scrum team holds short 15-min meetings every day to identify any issues. At the end of each sprint, the product owner provides feedback or additional ideas. After that, the next sprint begins.
Yes: Scrum is suitable for dynamic projects. The approach can be used not only in software development but also in all other business fields.
No: Scrum does not work for teams of more than 10 people; using Scrum with a large team would lead to a lack of engagement with the development process. Additionally, Scrum is not suitable for projects with strict deadlines or inflexible business management.
Which methodology is appropriate for you directly depends on the result of the product. While choosing an outsourcing software development company, you must consider:
All of these factors affect the quality of the final product. Thus, the development of a software product is not only the responsibility of the software development company but also that of the client.
In VironIT, we are an Agile-oriented team, and we primarily use Scrum and Kanban.
When we receive a request to develop a software product, we analyze the project type as well as the client’s goals, requirements, and expectations.
If you feel like balancing on the rope of what to do with your idea, feel free to contact us for detailed guidance on which methodology would best suit your project.