The Agile methodology relies on short, targeted tasks and frequent status check-ins with decision-makers to accelerate software projects. Agile aligns stakeholders – whether they’re developers, project managers, or end users – every step of the way to avoid large iteration loops and enable development teams to adapt to feedback more easily.
Integrating the Agile methodology into the software development lifecycle (SDLC) splits development into iterative phases with continuous user feedback. Most organizations end up deploying an Agile SLDC so they can adapt to market changes with faster, more flexible development.
Communication between team members and quick decision-making are core principles of the Agile approach. Because there are many more engineers and operations personnel than there are security practitioners, leveraging the skills of developers can help to expedite security fixes within an Agile SDLC.
The security team member acts as a project champion to scale application security across development teams. Organizing the team in this way, along with implementing security tooling, integrates AppSec into the Agile SDLC, achieving a DevSecOps approach to software delivery.
An Agile SDLC combined with AppSec helps developers deliver more secure code because security measures are part of development instead of being considered later. Before exploring the benefits of Agile, it’s worth reviewing why software development is shifting from the Waterfall methodology to Agile development.
Before Agile concepts gained popularity in the 2010’s, Waterfall was the traditional model development teams used. The Waterfall approach organizes development so that each phase uses the output of one process as the input to the next in predefined stages without overlap. The developers test the product after the requirements definition, analysis, design, and coding phases, providing a clear roadmap for what comes next throughout the entire process. The testing phase consists of debugging and discovering defects during the evaluation process.
The Waterfall methodology can be effective as long as the projects are short term and the requirements are clearly defined. More often than not, however, rapidly changing market dynamics or product requirements force organizations to move away from Waterfall to a method that can keep up with fast-shifting market changes.
The Waterfall approach efficiently moves the software development through design and coding, arriving rapidly at the testing phase. However, if product testing uncovers an error, the software version must loop all the way back to design to make corrections. These macro-iterations are time-consuming and can delay projects. In addition, when using the Waterfall approach the development team implements security features that were designed much earlier in the process by the security team, which can hinder the effectiveness of a secure SDLC.
An Agile SDLC fosters shift left testing, a core principle that integrates software testing practices (including security) as early in the development cycle as possible so that security vulnerabilities can be detected during coding.
In addition to testing sooner in development, there are numerous other benefits for development teams that switch to Agile.
The primary benefit of implementing an Agile SDLC is to integrate development, operations, and security (DevSecOps) together, forming a secure SDLC (SSDLC) as well. Development and operation teams are often integrated into a DevOps approach, but it’s become essential to add in a security element during code creation.
An effective way to make security easy and efficient and achieve a holistic integration is to apply Agile DevSecOps practice at scale throughout multiple Agile SDLC phases. During each sprint, the team should incorporate security before reviewing with stakeholders, ensuring customers approve of the software segment with security already included.
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