Why Consider Agile Development?

When first exposed to Agile methodologies, developers often see it as an ideal approach to developing software.  The reality is that there are some scenarios that it is particularly well suited to and others where it might not be the optimum approach.

Agile development methodologies aim to deliver the maximum amount of business value for the software development investment.  They do this by ensuring that the most valuable pieces of functionality are delivered first, and that the business has all the information available to make appropriate decisions when changes are necessary, whether due to changing business or legislative requirements or because of any unexpected complexity.

Agile methodologies are generally accepted as being best suited to projects where:

  • The team is of a small to medium size (<20 developers)
  • Developers are technically competent and experienced
  • The organisation is able to cope with change
  • The people on the project want to adopt an agile approach
  • The organisation is able to commit and empower a customer representative for the project
  • Requirements are fuzzy or incomplete, or are only understood in broad terms
  • Developers are physically co-located and close to the business
  • Project and Programme managers are able to deal with the fluid nature of the project
  • Accounting and financial infrastructure is able to handle the fluid scope of the engagement

Agile Services from IBSA

Internet Business Systems Australia has an enormous amount of hard-won expertise in Agile development projects.  We’ve experienced the initial euphoria when first deploying these techniques almost a decade ago and suffered through the inevitable traps and pitfalls that accompany the learning process.

As a pioneer in Agile software development in Australia, Internet Business Systems Australia is in a unique position to help you by:

  • helping you evaluate whether an Agile methodology is appropriate for your project and environment
  • assisting you to select and tailor a methodology that is best for your project and environment
  • providing development resources with Agile expertise, ranging from individual managers, developers, testers and business analysts through to entire teams that will engage with your business users to deliver a project or entire programme of work
  • seeding key developers into newly-agile teams to assist in the transition
  • providing training to technical and business users
  • setting up infrastructure that supports the Agile practices
  • advising on tool-sets and environments to support Agile practices
  • providing an Agile Coach / Mentor to assist in adapting and fine-tuning the methodology to suit the project and the environment (including the individuals)
  • facilitating end-of-project or end-of-release retrospectives to capture key learnings and empower ongoing process development