The rapid development of social media tools has shrunk the world and paved the way for organizations to employ human resource from across the globe to work as one team. In an era where communication, collaboration, idea exchange and teamwork are of prime importance to ensure rapid and efficient software development, the use of social media tools helps in facilitating smooth communication among stakeholders during the entire lifecycle of a product.
This is true especially in the case of agile methodology, a type of software development that primarily addresses the need to allow intervention during the initial development stage. Today's assumptions and requirements constantly keep changing, and software development teams need to respond to those changes quickly. To meet this challenge, the agile approach advocates focus on simplicity.
Agile methodology stresses on collaboration rather than documentation, hence the development teams interact regularly and documentation is done on a need basis. Dynamic and dispersed teams require a tool like social media, which facilitates communication in real time, one that is fool proof and ensures quick turnaround. Social media tools play a vital role in keeping agile team members, project managers, stake holders and customers to stay connected, share ideas, receive feedback and most importantly achieving faster and best results. The ability to be instant and cover ground makes social media one of the most used and in-demand tools among developers.
Within agile, some of the social media tools that facilitate this smooth communication include:
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WebEx: Agile methodology ensures the delivery of 'fully tested and almost releasable' products by incorporating feedback at an early stage. WebEx is used to facilitate demos of the product’s process, conducted at the end of every iteration at different stages of the development cycle, during which there is scope for live feedback.