The Agile methodology of software development has had a lot of press in recent years, and your staff may even have had Agility training, but truly becoming an Agile company requires a shift in mind-set across the board and may require the objectivity of an outside consultant if it is to fully deliver on the promises of making your business more nimble, responsive and efficient.
Sunil Mundra, principal consultant at leading software and Agile solutions provider ThoughtWorks, says successfully implementing Agile methodology in a company now can save it time and money down the line and empower staff to better respond to market opportunities while simultaneously mitigating risk. But that doing so may require employing an outside expert who can identify the parts of a business to which the methodology is best suited and help staff adjust their mind-sets accordingly.
Mundra made the comments during a keynote address he gave during the Agile in Business conference that took place in Johannesburg recently.
“The Agile framework emerged from the history of software development,” he explains. “In the early days of software design there was no separation between the programmer and the person who needed a particular solution, but then IT vendors emerged and became separate from their partners or clients.”
People with traditional manufacturing backgrounds who were process driven were brought in to bridge the divide, Mundra says. “But these skills don’t apply to software.”
Mundra says this approach saw companies develop whole solutions over long periods of time, making it difficult to make changes along the way and encouraging the inclusion of unnecessary functionality in order to pre-empt possible oversights later.
“Using this model it can take a year or 18 months for a solution to go from the conception to completion,” he says. “But businesses today are dynamic and that’s simply far too slow.”
All companies are becoming software companies, according to Mundra, because IT is becoming a “critical business enabler, regardless of industry”, making it even more important that businesses work closely with their IT solutions
provider and communicate throughout the development process.”
Mundra says with an Agile approach a business can test ideas and see whether or not the market is responsive to them before investing heavily or committing to a particular project.
“Now it’s possible to develop a thin slice of the idea, test it with customers and then decide whether to refine it further or abandon it. An Agile approach allows you to rapidly identify ideas that aren’t working and redirect those efforts and funds to things with more value. Similarly, it makes it possible to prioritise and focus on the highest value items first.”
Not only does this lower risk, but Mundra says it makes it possible for companies to “profit from a turbulent environment” by being faster to market and more responsive to changing market demands. It also means companies can start accruing cash flows from new products or services more quickly while reduces the likelihood of introducing superfluous features and incurring the costs that entails.
“An Agile approach also embraces quality right from the beginning of the development cycle,” he explains. “Discovering a defect later is always more costly than preventing it. The extent of revision and reworking that gets avoided with an Agile workflow is phenomenal. It avoids breeding waste into a system and adds to return on investment.”
Despite the obvious benefits of adopting an Agile methodology, Mundra says it sometimes meets with resistance because of the difficulty of measuring its benefits. “People want definite numbers explaining how much time or money has been saved, but that’s difficult when revisions haven’t happened. You can’t measure what hasn’t been done.”
Mundra says Agility is part of ThoughtWorks’ DNA and that because of this the company “doesn’t behave as a vendor, but instead works as a partner”.
“We ask our clients tough questions and cater to their ambitious missions where IT will play a critical role,” he explains. “With Agility there are no surprises, if you work with a client at every step then you are optimising your decisions and theirs, regardless of constraints along the way.”
Mundra says creating Agility in a company can be difficult because it’s a “framework, not a prescriptive methodology” that requires a “mind-set change.”
“It’s not about doing Agile, it’s about being Agile,” he says. “Agile is not a noun, it’s an objective. Which is why it can be extremely helpful to get a coach to kick it off and create internal champions who can then take it forward.”
However, Mundra warns that Agile is not a “silver bullet” that will solve all development problems. “What it will do is raise those problems early so you get the opportunity to solve them. It makes companies adaptive, responsive and proactive, and in today’s rapidly changing business environment that’s incredibly valuable.”