Software development managers could reduce the risk of
project failure by using anagile methodologyto build
applications, such as the one being used by Standard
Life.
The insurer is using an agile approach to build new
applications, which will replace software it inherited from company
buy-outs involving Prime Health and First Assist.
Keith Young, IT director at Standard Life, oversees
approximately 500 programmers, and said the agile approach
minimises the risk of an application not meeting business
requirements.
"We use agile in an increasing number of development projects
and have found it to be useful for developing new applications,"
said Young.
Young said the agile approach focused on iterative design and
feedback, which differed from the
waterfall
method, where software requirements are captured once early on
and where changes in requirements were difficult to adapt.
Standard Life had used the waterfall method but Young said
business users felt they had only one opportunity to tell
developers what their requirements were, giving developers more
requirements than they needed, which increased development
time.
Standard Life conducted an audit of its own applications and
found that 60% of features were not used by staff.
"Agile allows you to develop applications in phases the first
phase focusing on building applications with minimum market
features. You then review if it is worth building the extra
features or moving resources to the next project."
The length of time left between research and prototyping also
caused problems when using the waterfall method.
"We would go away and design a system and after nine months
unwrap something that was not what the business wanted or that was
out of date because of changes in the market," said Young.
Young said the agile approach solved these problems by breaking
a large project into smaller stages of development. These stages
last approximately four weeks and at the end of each iteration both
business users and programmers re-evaluate the software.
Standard Life uses agile project management techniques called
"Scrum" and "Show and Tell" to review progress.
Under Scrum, developers discuss what they accomplished
yesterday, what they intend to accomplish today, and whether there
is anything stopping them.
With show and tell, business sponsors meet with the development
team once a fortnight and will be shown what has been developed so
far.
"On an ongoing basis, business users can see the system in
development and adjust and change it as it goes. They do not get
just chance at getting the system they want."
The agile approach advocates business users and programmers are
located in the same office to share knowledge better, something
that Standard Life does.
"We collocate our systems developers and business people working
side by side to develop interfaces and systems. Using this approach
we can deliver functionality to the business much quicker."
According to Gartner, software development managers with a good
understanding of agile methods will increase their likelihood of
success, but organisations that are siloed or have strong
functional boundaries may find agile techniques difficult to
implement because of political infighting or poor consensus.