Applying Agile Methodologies in Industry Projects: Benefits and Challenges

Agile software development has been prevalent in IT industry since more than two decades now. Conceptually, Agile was introduced as an iterative, incremental and adaptive methodology for software development. There are quite a few studies that discuss the success of agile development projects on account of multiple factors like cost, time, quality and productivity. Owing to its popular virtues like enhanced flexibility to incorporate evolving requirements, incremental delivery, quick time to market and ability to keep pace with market trends [1], clients tend to leverage agile methods for a variety of project types in addition to typical small scale development projects. Through this paper, we discuss some of the practical aspects, pros and cons of applying agile principles to different types of IT projects including testing projects, maintenance projects and large-scale development projects.