What is Agile in Layman terms ? (2024)

Hi guys,

I have been part of Agile methodology since 6 months, so I would like to share my experience and the terms associated with Agile:

So first question is:

What is Agile ?

Agile is a time-boxed iterative approach where making changes in requirement is easy and can be made in the mid of the Software Development Lifecycle. Here the functionalities are broken down into small user stories. On the basis of their priorities, they are taken into a particular sprint. So next term in agile is Sprint.

What is Sprint ?

Release of a product is broken into sprints. For eg: If a release is of 2 months, then it has 3-4 sprints. 1 Sprint usually last for 15 days.

First sprint is usually of small time, so small stories are taken up in it. Then more stories can be taken up depending on the priorities and the sprint time. There will be levels of testing in Sprints also, as in there are 'n' sprints, so first 'n-1' sprints will be part of Integration phase and 'nth' sprint will be part of System Integration Testing phase.

Next part of Agile is who all are the members of an Agile team:

1. Scrum Master(SM): Facilitates the Agile process and lead all the meetings. Makes sure there is no communication gap amongst the team members. And resolve impediments, if any.
2. Product Owner(PO): One who has knowledge and experience of the overall product is designated as PO. He/She clarifies any doubt related to the requirement with the business and convey that to the team.
3. Developers : All other members in the team whether they are testers, BA or developers are designated as developers. They work collectively and deliver the requirement.

Another important part of Agile is Meetings and discussions.

There are many meetings so that there is no doubt of the requirement and transparency is maintained between the client and the team. Meetings like :

1. Backlog refinement : Discussion about the stories to be taken in next sprint and if any inputs are needed from the client.
2. Stand up meeting : Daily status meeting of 15 mins where every team member give their statuses including what is currently going on, what happened yesterday, what we are planning to do and also if any impediments or issues faced.
3. Sprint review: In this , demos of all the requirements is given and if the PO approves the demo, it is marked as done.
4. Sprint retrospective: Here , we discuss what went good, what went wrong, improvement areas .
5. Sprint planning : Here Sprint name, availability of the team members in %, stories to be taken and their story points are all discussed with the whole team.

The most important part of Agile is communication. There should be transparency throughout the sprint and if there is any bug( called as observation during integration phase), then that is logged.