The IdeaPort Iterative Agile Process
As technology grows to become a core asset of every company, there is a need to
ensure that it evolves with the business to match the ever-changing markets. Gone
are the days when a piece of software could be developed once and then forgotten.
Modern software constantly evolves to respond to changing user needs and market
conditions.
The IdeaPort Iterative Agile Process was concieved to meet this very requirement:-
Iterative to ensure constant evolution and refinement, and Agile to produce solutions
in the least amount of time to ensure high responsiveness.
Brainstorm
Every project begins with a Brainstorming session. The key requirements of the business
are analyzed in context of the business vertical, prevelant market conditions, and
competitors. This helps identify key strategic points that should be kept in mind
while trying to differentiate the client from competition.
Ideas are thrown back and forth in an attempt to consider all possible avenues and
refine them through the collective thought-process. Resource constrints and Strategic
key-points identified earlier, are used a loose guidelines at this stage rather
than tight constraints, to ensure that no ideas are thrown out this early in the
process. A lot of times, we have had quite a few ideas that initially seemed very
resource-intensive, but with a little innovation, proved to be excellent differentiators.
The outcome of this process is a list of ideas and concepts that are relevant to
the business, the market, and/or the end-user, either as key-points or as diffentiators.
Blueprint
The strategic key-points and resource constrints are now carefully studied in light
of the new ideas generated to see if any of them warrant an extension of resources
and/or relaxation of any other constraints. The final list of contraints is frozen
and a plan-of-action is drawn up.
The results of the Brainstorming are categorized depending their utility in the
overall business plan. Similar ideas are refined further to include the best features
that still fall within the limits of the project contraints. The final list of features
are then ordered according to their desirability and function in a manner so as
to ensure maximum efficiency of cost and time to the business.
Finally time-lines are drawn up and key deliverables are identified. The final blueprint
is analyzed one last time to check for any anomalies or incosistencies.
Build
With a well laidout blueprint, the IdeaPort team begins the process of development.
Team members work on their specific sections, continuously checking their work at
every stage of development for any flaws or deviations from the original plan. This
ensures that any errors are caught pretty early in the development phase. Individual
project units are then integrated and tested again to check for any bugs introduced
by the integration process.
Solutions are deployed as per the blueprint time-line. Multi-phase development usually
ensures that the business team is able to start using the system as and when its
components are built. This allows the business to test the system in a live environment
and begin gathering user feedback for the next phase.
Feedback
Once the development of the system is complete, it is time to gather feedback from
the actual users of the solution. This is the key-phase that evaluates the efforts
put into development and the correctness of the design decision taken at the start.
Based on the feedback received, the next phase of the evolution of the system is
planned and the entire process is repeated again. This continuous evolutionary process
of refinement results in a business that successfully fulfils client needs in an
efficient, cost-effective manner.