Which Systems Development Method emphasizes intense team-based effort and iterative cycles?

Agile methods prioritize collaboration and flexibility within a team setting, focusing on delivering small, incremental improvements through iterative cycles. This approach allows teams to adapt to changes quickly, enhancing the development process by promoting continuous feedback and rapid adjustments based on stakeholder input. The emphasis on teamwork in Agile methodologies encourages communication, ensures alignment on project goals, and fosters a shared understanding of requirements among team members. Utilizing short iterations or sprints, Agile methods enable teams to deliver functional parts of the system progressively, making the entire development process more responsive and effective in addressing evolving needs.

While other development methods may incorporate elements of team collaboration, they typically do not center around the same level of iterative cycles and fast-paced adjustments as Agile does. The Waterfall method is more linear and sequential, focusing on extensive planning and documentation upfront rather than ongoing iterations. The Spiral model does incorporate iterative elements but emphasizes risk analysis as a central focus, which may not prioritize team interaction to the same degree as Agile. RAD aims for rapid application development but may not emphasize team collaboration and iterative processes to the extent that Agile methods do.