The guest speaker Mr. Sudhir Kumar Panda, Software Engineer-Salesforce Development, Red Hat Pune, drew a contrast between Traditional Software Development Methods and Agile methods stating that the former requires large set of documentations as against only small pieces of reusable codes under Agile Methods. No documentation is required to develop the software. Then he explained the process of Agile Method – Core software is developed initially & it is submitted to the client. The client tests it and submits feedback. Based on this feedback, new requirements are prepared.

There are multiple product releases till the client’s requirements are fulfilled. Under traditional software development, time to deliver the software is large, so customer’s requirements may change before product delivery and the client may cancel the order. But under Agile methodology even though requirements change, the changes are implemented in next release. On the day of software product delivery, it is possible to implement the new requirement or change the existing requirement. In this way Agile provides value to its client.

Agile umbrellas comprise methods such as Scrum, Crystal, Extreme Programming and more. Mr. Panda explained that Scrum can be applied to any project that can benefit with an iterative and incremental product development cycle. Scrum applies more to programming projects and XP can be applied to any project. However, which methodology to choose depends on the nature of the project and manpower available. The entire session was interactive, and the speaker answered all queries raised.