Agile in mobile application

 
The exponential rise in the demand for mobile application has triggered a huge rise in the
number of mobile application development projects. However, adaptive software development
method is required to fulfill the highly volatile requirements of mobile applications. Many
analysts and researchers have identified the Agile approach as a natural fit for the development
of mobile applications. Thus, it’s very important to explore the numerous Agile methodologies
that can be employed in the development of mobile applications. This paper extensively analyze
how the adoption of Agile approaches, can help to improve the development of software in
general, and mobile applications in particular. The findings show that many Agile methods, have
the capacity to deliver enhanced speed and quality for mobile application development
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INTRODUCTION
Software development is a generic term, used in reference to all the computer
programming, testing, documenting and bug fixing involved in the creation and maintenance of
computer applications. Generally, software development does not only involve the writing of
codes, but include; the conception of the desired software through to the final manifestation of
the software. This is usually executed in a planned and structured process. Thus, software
development may include prototyping, research, new development, reuse, re-engineering,
maintenance etc.
On today’s digital world, software development and application, is progressively on the
increase. The use of software has been successfully merged with many numerous fields of
human endeavors, a situation that has help to boost its complexity. The process of developing
software is also being made more difficult by the dynamic nature of customers’ demand. The old
methodology employed in software development cannot be used to satisfy the latest requirements
of the market in the most suitable way.
The aforementioned challenges have lead to the generation and subsequent adoption of
new methods of software development, which are capable of solving this problem. One such
example is the agile methodology. Like every other new methodologies, the agile methodology
include specific modifications, specially designed to make the whole process of software
development, to become more flexible and productive. In this paper, we comprehensively
discuss the numerous ways, through which agile has effectively changed the process of software
application development. 
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HISTORY OF SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT APPROACHES
Computer programming is the building block of software development. It was in 1954
that computer programming first started, with the emergence of such structured languages like
Fortran (Maurer and Martel, 2002). By the 1960s, the programming process has evolved to
object oriented languages in the (Maurer and Martel, 2002). During the same period, the
methodologies employed in software development also changed progressively.
Normally, it’s the chosen methodology to be adopted in software development that
guides the developer throughout the process. Thus, the software developer must first of all
identify the exact methodology to use for the process. Generally, the methodology to be used in
software development consists of several phases, which must be followed sequentially in course
of the development process. Each phase has specific guidelines, which must be applied in the
process.
The first high quality methodology for software development, came into existence after
the software crisis in the 1970s (Klimeš and Procházka, 2006). The structured methodologies for
software development were employed by software engineers to minimize the destructive effects
of the software crisis. Normally, structured methodologies split the process of software
development into phases. When using such methodologies, the software developer has to
concentrate on one phase at a time. The practice of following the phase sequentially helps in
minimizing the number of failed or uncompleted software projects. This also helps to cut down
the overall cost as well as the developmental time of software projects. The net result will be an
overall reduction of the effects of software crisis is limited (Klimeš and Procházka, 2006).
The structured methodologies for software development were succeeded by ObjectOriented methodologies. Common examples of these methodologies include: Unified Process
and Rational Unified Process (RUP). They include not only the objects and object oriented
principles, but also the best practices from structured methodologies (Klimeš and Procházka,
2006).
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AGILE METHODS
Overview
The Agile methodologies are software development tools, which are specifically based on
opportunistic development processes and iterative enhancement (Salo and Abrahamsson, 2008).
This unique methods are functionally and structurally iterative and evolutionary (Cho, 2008).
Generally, there