What is meant by Agile?
Iterative, Incremental Development (IID) refers to a type of software development that allows the system to grow incrementally through a series or complete development cycles. Agile software development methods combine several iterative iterations with evolutionary refinement and refocusing the requirements, plans, and goals for each subsequent iteration. Our experience shows that iterative and agile methods are more reliable than the more traditional ‘waterfall-style method of software development. We also discovered that six sigma vs agile methods like extreme Programming, Scrum and Unified Process (UP) provide important and useful paradigms to ensure the delivery of software development projects.
These methods have a weakness in that they rely on continuous ongoing testing between iterations to assure software quality. However, we don’t provide specific processes or tools to help facilitate or define such testing. To increase the reliability of the software development process, we successfully applied the Six Sigma problem-solving methodology DMAIC (Define. Measure. Analyze. Improve and Control). This methodology has been a success because it uses data-driven tools that identify what needs to be changed and then monitor the effect of these changes in a feedback loop.
Six sigma – a Brief Introduction
Software project failures often occur because of a lack of understanding or an overly optimistic approach to software development. These errors can cause long delays and high-cost overruns. To ensure that requirements are understood, and estimates are accurate, the traditional method is to engage in extensive upfront analysis, design, and planning. This approach is rigid and not appropriate for the vast majority of real-world projects. Agile methods are iterative and ensure flexibility. This can, however, lead to confusion as to whether the deliverable is meeting its goal. Six Sigma is a method of measuring, quantifying and defining key delivery factors. It allows us to monitor the quality and delivery of the software in its entirety without resorting too much to “analysis paralysis” at the beginning.
The project-dependent parameters that will need to analyze and be measured will determine the end-user functionality of any software being developed. Additionally, we found that the key indicators for software quality are the number of defects found in a testing cycle, the percentage of rework per iteration (the number of requirements that need to be re-implemented in one cycle) as well as the number of new features recorded after one cycle.
Implementing Change Successfully
The plus side is that small businesses are often more tightly and have management groups with stronger personal ties, which are used to working together daily to find solutions. This type of environment makes it easier to get buy-in from the six sigma vs agile management team. Everything moves faster. The smaller, more agile employees of smaller companies can often make changes to procedures and methods that take months for large companies in days or even weeks.
A small business can also benefit from Six Sigma certification and training. Greater results mean bigger paychecks. As a result of process improvements and immediate promotions, smaller companies have fewer obstacles to pay employees more. Six Sigma improvements in the bottom line are more apparent in smaller operations than in their larger brothers. Six Sigma certification and training in smaller companies may prove more challenging due to certain obstacles. Most cases will have higher training costs per employee. Large companies can purchase training at bulk rates and are more likely to negotiate prices. The smaller companies will also have less overlap of employees.
