All say R O aye
One of the key phrases being used in software delivery is return on investment (ROI) and this is particularly true in the current cost sensitive environment. Lean methods of delivery (i.e. ‘agile’ methodologies) are therefore an attractive proposition for both providers and customers as both strive for business value as early as possible within the project delivery cycle. Suppliers tend to focus on early delivery to engender confidence and to show tangible progress, while customers tend to want to see their investment realised as early as possible.
Often business value is only measured in economic terms, for instance how much a software investment adds to an organisation’s value, or for its Net Present Value or rate of investment return. However, benefit often expands beyond this into less quantifiable areas such as getting a competitive edge, being innovative, aligning IT to processes or gaining confidence among sector peers. It is the ambition of software suppliers to satisfy the criteria of business value, to satisfy stakeholders, and to cement confidence between supplier and customer as it is often central to providing a successful software delivery.
The agile manifesto aims to ‘satisfy the customers through early and continuous delivery of valuable software’. To satisfy this aim, agile techniques focus on autonomous software features in the form of user stories. These features have been discussed with the customer to establish business value and are then prioritised for delivery. The stories are organised into short increments (iterations) which are themselves grouped together to form releases of the software. Releases are the units of delivery described by the agile manifesto, and are planned to align with the customer’s business case. The process of delivering high value is maintained throughout the delivery cycle via a process of constant review and reprioritisation, ensuring that any changes to the business case are realised as early as possible.
The software release strategy is therefore the key to ROI as, with careful planning, an organisation should begin to see a financial return for their initial investment long before the final release.
However, there are the additional gains of:
• having something tangible earlier in the project, as deployed software helps to instil confidence among a community of users;
• end users having time to adapt to change;
• evaluating process change earlier;
• end users have the opportunity to contribute to future releases in advance of project completion.
Agile processes focus the stakeholders on delivering high value from the outset. It does however, require small changes to the way we think about software, away from the monolithic approach of deliver once, toward a more progressive incremental delivery model that provides value early. By ensuring that business value and priority is discussed often, organisations and software suppliers can achieve greater unity by focusing on common goals and an early ROI.
Andy Rumfitt
Agility - an introduction
Building software is not like building a house. Houses have been constructed for thousands of years in relatively the same way. We know that they have foundations, walls, doors and windows and are constructed from these component parts. Software is different as it is not tangible and therefore progress is not always apparent. Software development is often about realising ideas, and providing solutions to unique business problems. The building of software can uncover new challenges but also new opportunities for improvement along the way. To embrace and nurture a project in order to realise its full potential requires us to evolve our processes, and the way we co-operate. Therefore customer interaction and the forming of strong, adaptive teams are now central to project success.
Agile processes deliver software in a number of short bursts called iterations. These iterations are planned in close collaboration with the customer, and regularly reviewed and prioritised as the software evolves. Each iteration aims to end with a deployable software release which not only allows the customer to visualise and validate the product as it develops, but it also encourages new ideas about the direction the product is taking. The process ensures that high value software is delivered first, with a focus on providing the earliest Return on Investment (ROI) to the customer.
Project success is not only measured by delivering on time and to budget, but also by how successful the end product is in addressing the customer needs. An agile approach accepts that we should, if possible, uncover better ways of doing things, and encourages the unearthing of additional value to the product. To ensure that teams can learn, adapt and improve, the process has taken lessons learned from the cycle of continuous improvement so successfully implemented within the manufacturing sector. This approach shows that by working in smaller increments, keeping the processes lean, and reviewing regularly we can gain even greater control over the project schedule and budget.
Openness is also an important aspect of agile projects as the rate of delivery, ongoing cost and planned software releases are available to customers at all times. As the aim is to release software throughout the delivery process, we believe that this encourages closer customer collaboration, shared goals and allows us to provide high value software solutions. Whilst software isn’t like construction, agility allows earlier insight into how the software is progressing, and allows greater customer involvement in shaping the finished product.
Perfect Image has adopted this system and we are strong advocates of theagile, iterative project approach.We have our own project methodology, BlueWave, which is based on proven, agile standards and which covers the entire project lifecycle. Experience tells us that our methodology has a very positive impact on the success of our projects and many of our customers have adopted similar, agile processes as a result.
Andy Rumfitt
