With the increase in competition from other emerging nations, the high growth Indian software companies are striving hard to keep up the pace.  They are always in search of new methods of efficiency improvement. The current CMM model that acts as a benchmark for quality has been a great contributor to the success of the companies.  But winning a contract with a mere CMM certification is just a start of a big stage ahead, the complex software development.

In today’s unpredictable world, businesses always try to adapt to competition, hence requirements tend to change with time. Considering the situation, costs of change can be unreasonable and there has to be a way to tackle it. It’s not just difficult for the developers, but even unnatural for the customers to envisage the fully implemented product without seeing it evolve. It’s almost like drawing with a blind-fold without being able to see how the drawing evolves. Agile practices are a way to diminishing those costs and displaying quicker results with lesser ceremonies. Here, the paper introduces agile methods for product development in the IT world as an alternative to the traditional waterfall model. It first compares the traditional model with agile practices, and then awakens into the agile world with its concepts and principles. It then also analyses how agile helps redefine success to teams, especially in a software environment, where dynamism is prevalent and adaptability is key.