Agile Methods are based on the Agile manifesto and are adaptive in nature. Agile methods ensure −

• Team collaboration.
• Customer collaboration.
• Constant and continuous communication.
• Response to changes.
• Readiness of a working product.

Several Agile methods came into existence, promoting iterative and incremental development with time-boxed iterations. Though the Agile methods are adaptive, rules of the specific method cannot be by-passed and hence requires disciplined implementation.

Agile Methods – Strengths

The advantages or strengths of Agile method are −

• Early and frequent releases.
• Accommodation of changing requirements.
• Daily communication among the customer and developers.
• Projects built around motivated individuals.
• Self-organizing teams.
• Simplicity, focusing on what is immediately required.
• No building for future or overburdening the code.
• Regular reflection to adjust behavior to improve effectiveness.

Agile Methods – Weaknesses

The disadvantages or weaknesses of Spiral method are −

• Customer availability may not be possible.

• Teams should be experienced to follow the rules of the method.

• Appropriate planning is required to quickly decide on the functionality that needs to be delivered in an iteration.

• Team is expected to have estimation skills and negotiation skills.

• Team should have effective communication skills.

• New teams may not be able to organize themselves.

• Requires discipline to develop and deliver in time-boxed iterations.

• Design needs to be kept simple and maintainable, thus requiring effective design skills.

When to Use Agile methods?

The Agile methods can be used when −

• Application is time-critical.

• The scope is limited and less formal (scaling agile methods to larger projects is underway, with certain extensions to some of the agile methods).

• Organization employs disciplined methods.