ITEOLOGUE

What is it about the Agile projects and Agile software development that is being preached and practiced so enthusiastically ? For those who did not know, Agile Software Development is a software development approach. In traditional waterfall approach, The final usable product is available at the end of the life cycle. In Agile model, we will have usable product available at all times, and its only that more features are added as the project progresses. Here is what Wikipedia says about this- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development
 
Case study – Kris Travels is a travelling agency which books tours, Air tickets, Train Tickets, Tour Cabs, Hotel Reservations and everything else. Their booking system is old and rotten. They are dependent on phones and black& green screens to make the bookings. They paid an exuberant sum to a Harvard Consultant to know why their year-on-year sales have become stagnant. Alas , I could have offered my services at half the fee ! Anyways, it was found that customers could reach Kris Travels only by phone or in person to book the tickets. They need a new web application to be able to compete with Orbitz and Kayaks.

Problem – Develop a new web booking application from scratch. It should be done fast to keep the customer base in tact and to be accessible on the web also.

Analysis– Kris travels cannot afford to lose time as the competitors already are playing big on web. They need to have a live web application in place very soon even if it means that this application has less features to start with. Most important features will be available at first and other features will be added in due course.

Proposal – This situation is a perfect fit for Agile Development model based essentially on the iterative approach. Remember that Agile development model lets you implement a basic working
application at first and then you can add more features later.  The key is to list down all the requirements and identify those which are needed first. Kris Travels would say that Air ticket     booking is their top priority. Hotel, Train, Cabs can come in later in the same sequence

Execution– In agile model, all the stake holders will have close interaction all the time. The team formed for this new web application will include the Software Programmers, Sales Personnel, User Interface specialists. Agile model requires all these specialists work in close proximity at all times. In fact, all these personnel may sit in the same room to resolve any questions then And there rather than waiting for a formal meeting. Informal and quick communication overtakes  the formal and delayed responses as in traditional models.

• Sales team tells the Programmers that Air Ticketing is the first features they would like see live, first up. While the programmers are working furiously at it, User Interaction team are working with Sales people to have a neat and friendly user interface. And the sales people are working to prepare a sequenced list of other features required.
• At the end of First iteration, A new web application is developed and is available to customers who want to book Air tickets.  And by the time this is available, Sales people would tell the  Programmers that they want Hotel reservations next.
• So, the second iteration will focus on adding Hotel reservations feature to the web application and also link Air tickets and Hotel Booking. While the programmers work on the second iteration,  The testers will test the first iteration work and the sales personnel would start gathering requirements for the third iteration.
• The third iteration will include Trains & Cab reservations and link them to the previously developed features.
• Fourth iteration , Fifth  iteration and so on …. will add more and more features until it’s done.

Conclusion  – Agile model is both a work-in-progress and available-for-use at the same time. While this is not a web-application-only model, It suits the web application & product development works very well. The praimary purpose of the Agile development model is reduce the Time-to-Market or Time-to-use as much as possible.

Big or Small, Recession has hit us all. All the organizations across the world are looking cut the IT costs and make their systems efficient. Here is how we show you to decrease IT spend and increase the efficiency at the same time.  Some the ways we are going to discuss may require ‘Change’ which is not liked by most of us. But recession is the right time to implement the ‘change’ and most are not going to complain !

 10. Last but not the least, Keep reading this Blog to know more, save more !

 9. Laying off resources is first thing most companies are resorting to. But it is the last thing on our list. While cutting strength may show you savings right from the very next day, those savings are very insignificant compared to the savings we can achieve thru other means. And remember, It is easy to lay off talent but quite hard to acquire.  All the training and on-the-job experience will be lost in full when an employee is sent home.

 8.Encourage your employees to use less paper, switch off power before leaving, turn off taps in the wash room and use less resources in general. Do make these look like green initiatives and not cost-cutting initiatives. Going green is not only good for mother earth, but also saves money and is fashionable

 7.Forget what the Obama says. Tax rebates of No Tax rebates, Outsource-Offshore is the Mantra. If you are a big company, start your own offshore-branch in a less-cost country. If you are small, then go find an outsourcing provider who can save you $$$. You can negotiate for far better recession-discounts than the regular discounts.

 6.Allow trusted employees to work from home. It not only saves the spend on office space, but also increases the productivity of the sincere folks out there. It will reduce the travel time and expenditure for the employees. It’s a Win-Win for both the organization and the employees

 5.Use the internet to your advantage. See how latest trends of user collaboration, social networking, communication feeds fit in your scheme. Implement in-house wikis to amass all the knowledge within the organization. Develop your own organizations social network to link your employees and departments better than ever. Allow instant messengers for speedy communication. Encourage your staff to Blog on organizational knowledge. The trick is to build a internet-like-intranet for your employees where your employees keep coming back and enhance their knowledge.

 4.Dont always stick to the old ideas of IT management. Embrace new IT practices and technologies to make your systems more efficient. While you may not rewrite all your legacy applications, Do consider developing all new applications based on Web technologies.

 3.Do not spend $$$ on external training and consulting. Find if you already have a knowledgeable person among yourselves. And then, These days you get anything and everything on and from the internet. Put your bench-strength to research and learn the required stuff. This way you do not have to lose staff and you do not need to pay for external services .

 2.Do not seek to upgrade your hardware periodically. Rather have your old hardware run lean applications. Most of the hardware we may have often exceeds what we necessarily need to have. Fix the only hardware that is not working. Do not be tempted to upgrade the hardware every now and then because the hardware configurations change all the time and you have to define what is the minimum wait-period before a major upgrade.

 1.Do not renew the expensive software licenses even if they are regularly used. Instead, go get the open source software available for FREE. Not only most of these software are available Free of Cost, but also  these are available with free source code. Get it, Customize it, Run it. There sure will be some expenditure on training the staff on new applications. But this cost will be far less than the cost of software licenses for that year. And you will save lot during next few years.