Introduction
The combination of accelerating technology change and the impact of economic uncertainty have altered how businesses utilise third-party IT service providers. But the demands remain the same – speed-to-value, business and technical insight, optimal cost, and managed risk with predictable, high-quality results. This is no easy challenge!
Our Agile Delivery Model is designed to bridge the potential gap between the demanding needs of our clients and the results we deliver. Through the effective and consistent use of our Agile Delivery Model we lower risk and increase collaboration and confidence.
Our model is based on 10 years of remote collaboration with our clients and offshore engineering teams in both Microsoft and AWS environments. Our model encapsulates the experience from hundreds of traditional and agile projects. And it fits neatly into the DevOps Software Development Lifecycle Model (SDLC).
And it is one reason why we enjoy long-term relationships as technology partners with clients such as Oxford University, Wellcome, and the NHS.
Whether public or private sector, the right delivery approach matters
In today’s business environment, our clients are looking for new levels of innovation and ownership. There is a greater focus on cost and delivery commitments, as well as the need for consistent quality and delivery beyond what they can achieve alone.
Our clients also want to take advantage of technology developments and our expertise to improve how they work, including Azure and AWS cloud and Salesforce.
They want a long-term relationship with a trusted supplier that can truly deliver on its promises; a partner that can help keep pace with the ever-accelerating rate of change and work with them, rather than for them.
The only way we can meet these heightened expectations is to consolidate and optimise our expertise and embed it into the way we work. This is what our delivery approach does. It is integral to our way of working and forms the foundations of our DNA, our culture, our thinking, and our operations and communication. In addition, it spans the SDLC from project Inception and Planning through to Deployment and Operations (DevOps) in an increasingly Cloud or Hybrid world.
And besides SDLC compliance, our approach is also fully consistent with the Gov.UK Agile delivery Service Manual and its core principles:
- focus on user needs,
- deliver iteratively,
- keep improving how the team works,
- fail fast and learn quickly,
- keep planning.
An agile approach: a flexible implementation
Embracing a consistent agile delivery model regardless of project scope or domain, while offering flexible technology and deployment options – on-premises, cloud-based, or hybrid – allows us to meet our customers’ business needs, whatever the sector or functional domain.
We leverage our Microsoft, AWS and Open-Source experience, skill base, proven methods, and tools to deliver cost-effective innovative solutions with value and speed.
Agile development is a highly iterative, incremental process whereby dedicated customer and project teams work collaboratively to generate and absorb feedback, evolve their designs and software.
Unlike traditional development, where the ultimate end point is clearly defined and documented at the beginning of the project, with agile the end point is to be jointly defined by the user and IT team, and test-driven development deployed to ensure that testing is integrated from the beginning and not an afterthought.
A key advantage of agile is the ability to deliver business benefits through working software much earlier than with traditional approaches, albeit typically in smaller, more focused ‘sprints’ that can also include integrations.
Collaborative and integrated delivery tools
Best practices and methods are only part of the answer. Any IT or software project faces challenging issues that cannot be resolved through process alone, and these have been exacerbated in the era of remote working:
- Lack of a ‘single view of the truth’ into project status. This is primarily a project management issue that may also involve the inability to enforce responsibility, stakeholder involvement, and transition points,
- Ineffective team communication. Coordinating efforts across functional, geographic, and organisational boundaries is no easy task, and especially remotely,
- Balancing business demands with project risk. Poorly defined and changing requirements or unclear business objectives increase risk,
- Unpredictable delivery times and poor quality. Balancing quality, business requirements, budget, and schedule are always difficult.
Our core delivery and development tools are based on GitHub, .Net, React, C#, Microsoft Visual Studio Online, Azure Data Factory and Dev Ops. Together they help us manage distributed software development and share code by automating much of the development and deployment process.
Shared and centralised project artifacts include work items, messaging, workflow and status, requirements and design documents, source code with versioning, defect management, and test and build metrics.
This makes our development process secure, open, transparent, and collaborative. And it accelerates code delivery against the requirements backlog. And with on and off-shore teams this can easily span a 12-hour day, further reducing delivery timeframes.
We also integrate ServiceNow or other client-mandated Service Desk software for live system issue reporting, tracking, escalation, and resolution and provide out-of-hours support as contracted.
The result is full traceability across the lifecycle from Discovery to Production and Support.
Robust Methods and shared collaborative Tools = Compelling results
By integrating our robust methods with tools in our Delivery Model we can achieve compelling results:
- Tighter collaboration between client and IT teams – better alignment of the solution with the clients’ users and shared common focus and goals,
- Traceability across the lifecycle, which promotes visibility,
- Improved project management, through a unified view of project reporting and tracking,
- High quality so the final solution meets the business requirements and service standards and is built on solid foundations of prior experience,
- Quicker time-to-market due to enhanced efficiency and productivity,
- More flexibility to build and adapt the solution to support potential changing business requirements,
- Predictability and reduced risk, bringing you certainty of outcome,
- A flexible, adaptive approach for either traditional, agile, or a hybrid of the two approaches,
- Staged results with early benefits across the entire project lifecycle.
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For more on C-BIA Consulting see www.c-bia.co.uk or contact us at info@c-bia.co.uk.