Software Development Managers could reduce the risk of Project failure by using an Agile Methodology to build Applications

The insurer Standard Life 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.

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Source: Computer Weekly

Author: John-Paul Kamath

 

ION IT uses the Agile methodolgy for software development which is based on iterative development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organising cross-functional teams.