RDC Agile Approach Methodology

Our Agile Approach

In short, our approach is to work extremely closely with the customer in a very iterative and adaptive fashion to ensure that the features and content with the greatest value are delivered as soon as possible. This approach provides our customers with a faster time to market, greater return on investment and increased competitive advantage. Please contact us today to find out how we can empower your organization or if you would like to learn more about our approach please continue below.

Problem Statement
Today's dynamic economy is increasingly forcing businesses to leverage software technology as a key competitive advantage. Whether it is your website, point of sale system, company intranet, etc. software permeates virtually every facet of today's business.

The simple reality is that the earlier business critical features are available the greater the return on investment.

Status Quo
There are numerous ways to manage a software development project. Historically many companies employ what is called a “Waterfall” methodology and the following process is generally followed:

  1. A project plan is created
  2. All requirements are gathered
  3. All requirements are analyzed
  4. Solution is designed
  5. Software framework is architected
  6. Solution is developed
  7. Quality assurance testing performed
  8. Solution released
  9. Solution maintained

Each step must occur in order which can make this a very monolithic, rigid methodology and can significantly impair an organization’s ability to adapt to change. In addition, it is difficult to determine the true state of completeness at any given point in the project and any changes in requirements can have a significant impact to the timeline and thus cost.

Furthermore, as a result of the expense incurred by changing requirements late in the game, many businesses have begun to take the "everything and the kitchen sink" approach. In other words, they ensure that every conceivable requirement is identified up front and included in the end product. While at first glance this may seem cost effective, after further scrutiny studies have shown that a mere 20% of features in a software product deliver 80% of the business value and that a full 50% of features are rarely or never used. Ultimately this approach translates into a tremendous amount of wasted money and extended timelines.

Unfortunately many businesses choose to continue to utilize these practices despite a significant amount of research indicating that this and similar methodologies frequently fail to deliver quantifiable business value on time and on budget, thus crippling a business's ability to trump competitors and adapt to market conditions.

Scrum process image Our Agile Approach
In the last decade, in an attempt to remediate these challenges, there have been several new methodologies developed under the umbrella term of “Agile Development” with the goal of allowing organizations to provide higher value software with increased quality more quickly. One of these methodologies is Scrum and has been proven successful in literally thousands of projects in companies like Microsoft, Yahoo and smaller companies like us.

The term Scrum is derived from a 1986 study[1] published in the Harvard Business Review in which researchers found that projects utilizing small, cross-functional teams produce the best results. They found these teams a kin to the Scrum rugby formation in which a group of players come together to put the ball into play.

At its very essence, Scrum is an adaptive, iterative and incremental process for developing potentially shippable software at the end of each iteration. Scrum is successful because it streamlines the development process by eliminating unnecessary overhead, allows for the inevitable changing requirements and focuses on delivering the maximum amount of business value in the shortest amount of time. All while still meeting or exceeding acceptable quality levels.

In Scrum the “product owner” (the customer) works extremely closely with the development team in a very iterative process. The timeframes vary but the duration of most iterations, or “sprints”, ranges from one week to one month. At the beginning of each sprint the product owner sits down with the development team to decide what features, or product backlog items, to accomplish in that iteration. Requirements gathering, development and quality assurance testing happen concurrently, or nearly so, with the result being a releasable product at the end of each sprint. When the sprint is complete the product owner decides if the new features are compelling enough to justify a release or if they would like to continue with additional sprints prior to releasing the completed product backlog items.

At all times project progress is measured not by project plans or documents but by functional software. The paramount goal is always to provide the customer with early and continuous delivery of software with discernable business value. Scrum welcomes changing requirements and because of the short iterations can adapt the work queue to meet these changing needs.

Benefits
Projects utilizing the Scrum methodology have realized numerous and significant benefits - not the least of which are provided below.

Please contact us today to find out how you can realize these benefits for your organization!