Biz-TECH

The five factors of agile suitability

Madu RATNAYAKE

Agile is here to stay. With its emphasis on lightweight processes, high quality deliverables, flexibility in dealing with changing business priorities, short delivery cycles, higher team morale and a whole host of other benefits, agile development offers a fresh approach to businesses seeking greater agility in their software engineering processes.

Madu Ratnayake

Agile over traditional practices brings in significant value; however our experience indicates that it is no silver bullet for the ills of enterprise application development.

Agile practices are developed based on several fundamental assumptions about the environment within which the project is executed.

In the right context, all promises of agile come alive; in the wrong context agile can add significant risks to the successful delivery of an engagement.

Especially in a global delivery environment, careful consideration of risk factors helps you avoid potential significant failures.

The following guidelines can help in deciding whether a project using the global delivery model is suitable for agile development:

Environment

Applying agile practices to an environment steeped in traditional development methodologies requires a significant mindset shift. Proper understanding of what agile development means, willingness to change and executive sponsorship are important for the transformation to happen.

If the organization is open to undertaking risks, is innovation-driven and has a mindset for continuous improvement, then the required change can be easily accomplished.

A strong agile champion at the top is critical for the success of an agile development project.

A tightly time-driven project creates the right environment for all stakeholders to come together quickly, build working relationships and create momentum.

Other dimensions - such as the number of stakeholders, the existing level of trust between users and IT and the overall collaboration culture - can significantly affect the outcome.

Partnerships

In a multi-site, multi-partner project, the quality of relationships among partners plays a significant role.

The openness of partners to sharing feedback for the benefit of the project, the availability of the partners to participate in multiple sessions and the overall level of trust play key roles.

Partners must share realistic expectations and be willing to listen and empower each other towards project success.

Nature of requirements and solution

The essence of the agile approach is to develop software iteratively and deliver it in usable increments that provide value to the business. The nature of the requirements, as well as the solution to meet them, plays a key role in executing the project using agile methods. The refactoring effort involved for incremental development may not be justifiable when the requirements are frozen upfront.

The feasibility of segmenting the requirements and developing them in smaller chunks, the frequency of requirement changes, the business's ability to quickly prioritise requirements and the criticality of the application are all important factors in analysing the suitability for an agile approach.

Scope and time

When the project has a fixed timeframe, the agile approach is particularly useful for getting maximum business benefit within the given time.

On the other hand, projects with both fixed timeframe and scope may not provide enough flexibility for the business to reprioritize or change requirements once the project commences.

Agile development is best suited for projects with fixed time and cost, and variable scope.

Team

Agile development favours individuals and interactions over processes and tools. The approach is more people-centric; hence, team composition plays an especially important role in assessing agile suitability.

The availability of the right skills and the team's ability to collaborate play significant roles in the success of the project. With high dependence on tacit knowledge, it is vital to maintain a stable team. Dynamically changing teams should opt for a more traditional development approach instead of a people-oriented approach.

By carefully assessing the five factors described above to understand the 'ground' conditions of a project, you can assess the project's suitability for agile development in a structured way.

Our experience in global agile delivery suggests that agile and traditional approaches are not the two ends of a continuum. Our Agile Suitability Assessment approach is based on a risk-benefit analysis framework that considers the complex nature of the environments in which the projects are executed.

We evaluate numerous environmental parameters, including client readiness, team readiness, the commercial relationship, the nature of the target solution, and a host of other aspects before recommending agile development for an engagement.

DMS installs datacard solution at Arpico Supercentres

Data Management Systems (DMS) a leading IT system integrator in Sri Lanka installed Datacard on-demand loyalty card issuance solutions at Arpico Supercentres.

The first on demand loyalty card issuance system handed over to Richard Pieris Distributors Customer Relationship Manager M.R. Saban by Data Management Systems Sales Engineer, K.G. Shaanthicumar.

DMS together with Datacard USA are market leaders in the financial card personalization and secure ID personalization sectors in Sri Lanka with 80 percent market share.

Datacard USA, is the world leader in secure ID and Card personalization systems and 90 percent of all financial cards and 80 percent of all mobile phone SIM cards issued worldwide are produced on Datacard systems. Datacard solutions are used worldwide everyday to produce, personalize and deliver more than 10 million cards, personalize more than 4.7 million smart cards and personalize more than 25,000 passports in 14 countries.

This DMS/Datacard solution supplied to Arpico Supercentres is a desktop loyalty card issuance solution that personalizes the loyalty card as and when issued.

The customer's details (Name, Customer No, Validity period) are entered into the system at the counter and then Arpico Privilege cards are produced immediately, allowing customers to get their personalized loyalty card instantly. It takes less than five seconds to produce a card after entering the customer data to the system.

"We are proud to be the first retail outlet to introduce an on-demand loyalty card issuance solution in Sri Lanka and this innovative service will help our Supercentre customers to receive personalized Privilege card instantly adding more value and convenience", Richard Pieris Customer Relationship Manager M.R. Saban said.

Saudi holds off on BlackBerry messenger ban

Saudi Arabia on Tuesday postponed indefinitely a BlackBerry messenger ban after a deadline passed for finding a solution allowing authorities to monitor the service on the popular smartphone.

The telecoms watchdog in the ultra-conservative Muslim country announced the BlackBerry service would remain online as it reported progress in efforts to find a solution, in a statement carried by the state news agency SPA. The Communications and Information Technology Commission had ordered mobile operators to block key BlackBerry services from Friday last week or face a 1.3-million-dollar fine, after similar moves by other Arab nations. AFP

India plans BlackBerry warning to telcos

India plans to set a deadline later this week for mobile operators to allow security agencies access to encrypted BlackBerry messages, a report said Tuesday.

Indian law stipulates phone companies have the responsibility to put monitoring services in place for lawful interception of voice and data handled by them.

Unless the telecom companies heed the warning, the government will disconnect encrypted BlackBerry services because of security concerns over possible misuse, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported. The government's intention is "to drive home the point the country's security concerns cannot be compromised," a Home Ministry official was quoted as saying.

A Home Ministry official told AFP on Tuesday a meeting with India's telecommunication companies may be scheduled for Thursday.

The Canadian makers of Blackberry, Research in Motion, did not immediately respond to emails or phone calls. AFP