How to select a software development approach
Understanding software development methodologies can help your organization make informed decisions that reduce costs and risks. It is important to consider how these methods align with your goals and the long-term lifecycle of your software. The approach you choose for development can significantly impact your product's success and shape its outcome.
This guide compares the top software development methodologies to help you select the approach that best suits your needs.
What is software development methodology?
A software development methodology is a structured process for creating software. It provides a framework with a series of steps for planning and managing the development process to bring the product or application to market.
Modern software development is characterized by agility, collaboration, and technology and includes a range of practices, tools, and methodologies to create high-quality and scalable software products.
Six standard software development methodologies
There are many software development methodologies. To improve the development process and software quality, each methodology has specific roles, responsibilities, and procedures. Here are the seven most common methods:
Agile: Agile is a mindset based on the Agile Manifesto that prioritizes flexibility, collaboration, and continuous improvement over rigid processes and strict adherence to plans.
Scrum: Scrum is an agile framework for product development based on iterative and incremental development, where teams work in Sprints to generate customer value.
DevOps: DevOps is a mindset centered on collaboration, automation, and feedback, built around uniting development and deployment.
Kanban: A visual approach to optimizing workflows and managing ongoing tasks.
Lean: General approach that maximizes value and reduces waste.
Lean Startup: Creating businesses and products that prioritize quick iteration based on verified learning and customer input to reduce waste and boost chances of success.
Waterfall: A linear approach where each development phase is completed in sequence, requiring well-defined requirements and a fixed scope.
Analyzing software development methodologies
Now that you have an outline of the six most popular methods, here are each method’s fundamentals to help you determine which approach best aligns with your development goals.
Agile, a mindset that helps flexible development
The Agile software development methodology emphasizes adaptability and rapid iteration with a customer focus. It allows teams to quickly deliver smaller, functional software pieces for continuous improvement and customer satisfaction. This approach is favored for effectively meeting user needs through frequent updates.
Why Agile?
Development teams choose Agile for its flexibility and responsiveness. It allows teams to adapt to shifting product requirements or tight deadlines.
Agile advantages:
Adaptable: Teams can respond quickly to change with an iterative and incremental approach.
Early (and continuous) delivery: You can deliver working software more frequently, allowing your customers to provide feedback early and often.
Agile disadvantages:
Resource-intensive: Agile can be resource-intensive because it requires active customer involvement, dedicated team collaboration, and regular feedback.
Complexity management: Managing multiple iterations without solid project management practices can be demanding.
It's worth noting that Agile's "disadvantages" are its advantages: frequent delivery of working software, meeting customer needs, better collaboration, and problem-solving result in higher-quality products.
Scrum, an iterative, incremental approach
Scrum’s iterative, incremental approach increases predictability and controls risk, making the best use of the team’s combined skills and expertise.
Scrum structures work into short stages called Sprints, creating a cyclical approach:
The Product Owner organizes and prioritizes work into a Product Backlog.
The Scrum Team selects work to complete during a Sprint and the Developer works collaboratively to create an Increment, or a product ready to be shipped or deployed.
After each Sprint, the Scrum Team and stakeholders review the results and adjust for the next Sprint.
The process is repeated.
When to use Scrum
Scrum offers a practical way to implement Agile principles, make decisions quickly and encourage communication and collaboration. With Scrum, teams have regular events and transparent processes, working together on product goals and deliverables.
Scrum advantages:
Deliver value: Prioritize and deliver the most valuable features first.
Higher-quality products: Regular inspections and adaptations, continuous feedback loops with stakeholders, and a focus on delivering "done" increments that meet quality standards all improve quality.
Scrum disadvantages:
Learning curve: Scrum requires training and mindset shifts, which can be difficult for teams unfamiliar with the framework.
Scalability concerns: Scaling Scrum to more extensive products or organizations may introduce complexities to your product.
We have improved the Scrum framework with the Axon model, which combines Agile and Scrum best practices with a dedicated team. The Axon model provides a more efficient, collaborative, and scalable approach to custom software development.
Automate processes with DevOps
DevOps improves software delivery through automation and collaboration, creating a shared sense of ownership between development and operations teams. This method brings together tools, practices and a "DevOps mindset" or principles, as explained by Gene Kim in The Three Ways: The Principles Underpinning DevOps:
Systems thinking: Emphasizing the entire system's performance rather than individual components.
Amplify feedback loops: Creating feedback loops to identify and fix any issues during development quickly.
Continual experimentation and learning: Building a culture based on continuous experimentation and learning from experiences.
Why DevOps?
If you have products requiring rapid deployment, the DevOps mindset can lead to more frequent and reliable product releases through:
Collaboration
Automation
Continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD)
All of these factors speed up the development life cycle.
DevOps advantages:
Time-to-market: You can release software more quickly by implementing practices to integrate code changes frequently and streamlining the delivery process.
Improve product quality: DevOps can identify and fix defects earlier in the development cycle through continuous integration and testing.
DevOps disadvantages:
Toolchain complexity: Integrating multiple DevOps tools can introduce complexities, which is why the DevOps mindset is so important.
Costs: DevOps tools, infrastructure, and training can be expensive in time and resources.
Visualize workflow management with Kanban
Invented by Toyota's manufacturing process, Kanban is a visual board system for software development. It represents development stages, providing an overview of the work in progress to maintain a steady, predictable workflow.
When to use Kanban
Kanban works well for projects and products with ongoing, incremental, and iterative work, and it can be used with other Agile methods.
Kanban advantages:
Visual project management: Kanban boards provide real-time visibility into progress, reduce cycle times, and refine resource allocation.
Workflow optimization: Limiting work in progress and a continuous flow helps identify bottlenecks and improve efficiency.
Dependency management: Managing dependencies between tasks and teams can be overwhelming with complex products, and projects with interconnected workstreams.
Kanban disadvantages:
Scalability limitations: Kanban may need more support in scaling products that require more structured development processes and planning. The best visibility is with offline boards.
Deliver value faster with Lean
Lean software development relies on the principles and practices of Lean manufacturing, which were initially created by the Toyota Production System. Mary and Tom Poppendieck adapted seven fundamental principles for software development in 2003.
Lean Software Development
Lean is an organizational process applied to software development to improve efficiency and quality. The primary focus is eliminating waste and adding value, including reducing unnecessary work, improving flow, and adding value to the customer at each step.
Lean advantages:
Highly efficient: Identify and remove activities that do not add value to your customers.
Optimize the whole: This software development approach considers the entire value stream, not just individual processes.
Lean disadvantages:
Learning curve: Understanding and applying lean principles and practices requires an investment in training, tools, and process redesign.
Risk of quality issues: Under pressure to meet deadlines, developers may release code that does not meet quality requirements.
Lean startup
Eric Ries popularized the Lean Startup methodology in his book, The Lean Startup. Drawing inspiration from Lean manufacturing, the methodology focuses on validated learning through experimentation, rapid prototyping, and iterative product releases.
Lean Startup is tailored for startups and ventures wanting to discover and scale new business models. It emphasizes learning and adapting to market feedback. The method's core principles include the "Build-Measure-Learn" loop, which encourages startups to build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), measure customer reactions, and learn whether to pivot or persevere with the product idea.
Lean startup advantages:
Rapid iteration: Quick development and frequent iteration validate ideas and reduce time to market.
Flexibility: Pivoting quickly based on your validated learning helps to avoid building a product that does not meet market needs.
Lean startup disadvantages:
Resource intensive: Constant iteration and gathering customer feedback can strain resources and team bandwidth.
Risk of premature scaling: Scaling too quickly before the product is fully validated can lead to failure.
Waterfall, a traditional approach
The Waterfall method is a more rigid approach that involves completing each development phase before starting the next phase.
The Waterfall method is best for products with well-defined requirements and a clear scope. It is only effective in environments with no changes, and all requirements must be known upfront.
Waterfall advantages:
Simple and easy to understand: Waterfall's structured approach to the software development process can make it easy to understand and manage products with well-defined requirements.
Detailed documentation: Documenting every stage creates clear communication and easy tracking throughout the product's life cycle.
Waterfall disadvantages:
Difficulty accommodating changes: There is a substantial risk of failure if requirements are not clear upfront—and having a full understanding at the beginning is not possible in complex IT work.
Scope creep: Customers are only involved in the later stages of development, which could cause scope creep.
Other software development methodologies
These six methodologies are the most popular, but four additional methodologies may suit specific products.
Feature-Driven Development (FDD): A client-centric methodology for developing smaller, client-valued features in short cycles. It is ideal for large-scale products that manage individual features, combining engineering best practices with agility.
Crystal: A family of Agile methodologies with an approach that can be customized to your project size, urgency, and team size.
Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM): A detailed, scalable approach to Agile development, DSDM delivers products on time and within budget and is suitable for environments with strict deadlines and clear business goals.
Rapid Application Development is ideal for quick development and prototype iteration based on user feedback. It works for products with tight deadlines or evolving requirements.
Scrum@Scale: Created to "help organizations focus multiple networks of Scrum Teams on prioritized goals," Scrum@Scale is a lightweight, adaptable framework that can be customized to different industries.
LeSS (Large-Scale Scrum): LeSS is a framework for scaling scrum to multiple teams working together on one product. Applying the principles of scrum using defined LeSS rules, it provides two large-scale frameworks: LeSS, which accommodates up to eight teams of eight people each, and LeSS Huge, which can accommodate up to a few thousand.
Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®): A collection of "principles, practices, and competencies," SAFe® provides a framework for enterprise-scale agile practices. SAFe®'s body of knowledge is based on ten fundamental lean-agile principles that provide structured guidance.
Common hybrid models
No single methodology fits all development needs, which has led to hybrid approaches, in which teams combine the best elements from multiple methods to create a customized process.
Scrum-Kanban: Teams start with Scrum’s structure, using sprints to deliver incremental updates. Over time, they add Kanban’s continuous flow and visual task management for increased flexibility, particularly in products with shifting priorities.
Lean-Agile: This software development approach is effective in environments that prioritize reducing time to market and responding to customer feedback. Blending these methodologies allows teams to streamline processes and deliver high-quality products.
The Axon model
The Axon model combines Agile's flexibility with a skilled development team for scalable, efficient product delivery.
Maintain full visibility and control: Regular updates and clear communication give you complete visibility into the process. We provide transparency at every stage with regular updates, sprint reviews, and open communication channels.
Cost-effective solutions: We offer highly skilled talent at competitive rates, helping organizations reduce costs without compromising quality.
Scalability: You can scale your team up or down as requirements change, providing the flexibility to handle each development phase.
Reduce risk: The Axon model combines Agile practices with structured oversight to identify risks early and address them proactively.
Long-term partnership: Our Agile offshore software development company builds lasting relationships based on reliability, transparency, honesty, and passion. "We do what we say, we say what we do."
Interactive, face-to-face communication: Avoid communication bottlenecks with bridge people.
A stable, dedicated team you can meet in person and understand your business.
Choosing your software development methodology
There is no one-size-fits-all methodology in software development. Consider each approach's strengths and weaknesses, and how they can be combined to support ongoing product development, growth, and customer satisfaction.
Choosing a software development methodology is just the beginning. The most successful products continuously iterate, refine processes, incorporate feedback, and respond to change. Regularly evaluate your methods to ensure they meet product needs, market conditions, and customer feedback, and be ready to adjust as needed.
For the last 15 years, we have been helping our clients create customized development approaches. Read our Vaadin Platform Case Study to learn how Team Rapier at Axon Active Ho Chi Minh Branch developed a web application using only Java developers without front-end specialists.