Fast-to-Market Product Development
In the March issue of Kuadriga News, we discussed why we
are so fond of SCRUM for offshore development: it fosters high
productivity and keeps geographically distributed teams focused. We
are no fanatics and SCRUM is not a fix-it-all for all
situations.
"First things first" - and any team needs to know its shared
objectives and constraints before setting off. And SCRUM is just
not very good at defining those. Thus, we have based the initial
phases of our Product Development Methodology on a modification of
Waterfall rather than SCURM.
Our approach is to:
• Share the client business and product vision
• Create a well-defined and thought-out top-level architecture -
before development starts
• Work in iterations ("sprints") of 3-4 weeks with clear and
well-defined objectives and priorities
• Flexibility is allowed at the beginning of each sprint
• Testing is integral to each sprint ensuring the quality of the
end-product
In this manner, development process remains should open to
activities on the business side (financing, marketing, sales). At
the same time, the process aims straight towards product launch
without unnecessary uncertainties due. Especially frequent releases
of working versions of the product are good at validating the
shared goals.