STUDENT ID: 816020005

Development
A mission critical system is a computer, electronic or electromechanical system that is
fundamentally necessary to the success of a specific operation. A mission critical system is a
system that is essential to a company or organization's survival. Business operations are
significantly impacted when a mission critical system fails or is interrupted. A mission critical
system is also known as mission essential equipment and mission critical application. Examples
of mission critical systems include internet banking, rail/aircraft operating and control systems,
electrical power systems, and many other computer systems that can negatively impact business
and society should they malfunction. Overtime these types of systems need to develop and
evolve, there are many techniques that can be used to develop these types of systems, two of
those techniques being agile techniques and the systems development life cycle.
The Agile model supports the constant improvements in technology development that allow
teams to break down long specifications, create and test phases into smaller parts, eventually
producing working applications faster and more regularly. Agile is designed to embrace
transition and the need for quicker production of applications. The project leader normally
encourages the work of the development team, removes bottlenecks, and lets the team remain
motivated to deliver software iterations on a regular basis. It is less about achievements than it is
about hours, feature selection, prioritization, and meetings.
The Agile Process Flow can be broken down into six parts, Requirements, Plan, Design,
Develop, Release and lastly Track and Monitor.

Diagram showing Agile

Process Flow
There are benefits and drawbacks of The Agile approach here as in everything, here are some of
the top advantages of the Agile approach, the end-goal may be uncertain, agile is very useful for
projects where the end-goal is not well established. As the project advances, the priorities can
come to light and development will quickly conform to these changing requirements. Faster,
high-quality execution, the breakdown of the project into manageable units enables the team to
concentrate on high-quality development, testing, and collaboration. During each unit, running
tests ensures that bugs are found and fixed more easily. With stable, successive revisions, this
high-quality program can be delivered quicker. Agile stresses the importance of daily
collaboration and face-to-face encounters, and the agile approach encourages strong team
engagement. Teams work together and members are capable of taking responsibility for and
owning pieces of projects. By working so closely with the project team, they will develop a sense
of control. Throughout the whole process, performance development and agile projects promote
input from customers and team members, so lessons learnt are used to strengthen subsequent
implementations.

Diagram showing some advantages of the Agile approach

While the level of flexibility in Agile is usually a positive, it also comes with some
disadvantages. Here are some of the disadvantages of Agile, planning may be less concrete, a
solid completion timeline may often be difficult to nail down, since Agile is based on time-boxed
execution and project managers are sometimes reprioritizing projects, since certain products
previously planned for delivery will not be complete on time. At any point in the process, extra
sprints may also be added, adding to the total schedule. The team must be knowledgeable, Agile
teams are usually small, so team members must be highly skilled in a variety of areas which can
be costly. They also must understand and feel comfortable with the chosen Agile methodology.
Time investment on the part of the developers, Agile is the most successful when the
development team is fully committed to the project. Throughout the Agile process, which is
more time intensive than a conventional approach, active participation and teamwork are
expected. It also suggests that the creators must dedicate themselves to the full length of the
project. Documentation can be neglected, The Agile Manifesto favors working software over
detailed documentation, because some team members can find it's less necessary to rely on
documentation. Although detailed documentation of its own would not contribute to the
completion of the project, Agile teams should find the best balance between documentation and
dialogue. The final product may be somewhat different, the initial Agile proposal may not have a
definite strategy, so the final product may look somewhat different from what was originally
planned. Agile is so flexible that additional variations can be introduced on the basis of changing
consumer input, which can lead to a somewhat different final deliverable.