Switchfast Blog: The Future of IT
Agile Software Development divides big projects into manageable, budget-friendly chunks
Tuesday, May 26, 2009 by Michael Holley
In the midst of the global business cost-cutting frenzy that is
the marketplace today, management is very busy dreaming up creative
ways to reduce operational costs without crippling production. A
recent trend has been to leverage information technology for this
very purpose: developing software to automate manual processes,
thus increasing the efficiency and productivity of one's employees
and thereby decreasing labor requirements for essential tasks and
functions.
The barrier to entry for this trend, however, is the monetary
investment required to develop or customize these systems to work
within an existing environment. While the cost to produce a robust,
polished product can be prohibitive, the solution to making this
cost manageable is simple: baby steps.
"Agile Software Development," which has been a buzz
phrase in the development community for eight years or so,
holds the key to these baby steps. In brief, agile software
development can be defined as a philosophy of software development
in which functional pieces of a "final product" are produced (and
often launched) in iterative cycles, and the development team works
closely and collaboratively with the client to quickly adapt to
changes in scope and direction. There are many advantages to this
approach, but two of them are especially pertinent amidst today's
economic obstacles:
- Control development costs by digesting them in pieces.
Commission your developer to create the most basic, important
features first and implement them immediately. Later, as you find
yourself with more budget space, add something else. The idea is to
view the application as an ongoing process. Rome wasn't built in a
day, you know.
- Drastically reduce implementation time and mitigate risk
through constant feedback. You can implement your application
quickly because you can expect a functional version at each
iterative development cycle. Further, you can provide feedback as
to what works and what doesn't as the software is being developed,
ensuring that your end product will be exactly what you intended it
to be.
We've had a lot of success implementing projects in stages
following this model, so if you have any questions, let us know (TheFutureOfIT@switchfast.com).
Best,
Michael Holley
Switchfast Technologies
Chicago IT Support
& Consulting
Rochester
IT Support & Consulting
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