Back in the days, the waterfall model of software development was the de facto standard, however, the times have changed. Now there are numerous methods and approaches to software development and in some cases, minor dialects of the same development process. At TimbaObjects, we use an Agile development process that’s somewhat custom and so not as specific as methods like Scrum, XP or AUP. We use tools like Pivotal Tracker that helps us track and respond to issues as quickly as possible.
Here’s our typical process:
- We sit with the client to collect requirements. This might be a new feature, a bug or modification on a certain feature.
- We create tickets on our tracking system to reflect these features or needed bug fixes
- We work on these features and fix bugs and
- We meet with the client again for feedback
We continue this cycle until the project is completed. Pretty simple right? Well not exactly; if you’ve been accustomed to using the waterfall process, this is really going to move you out of your comfort zone. In our experience, no software project is particularly complete until the software itself or project expires. What more? Very few clients know what they really want from the start of the project. As the software project becomes a reality, there will be modifications in the requirements – some big, some small. Without an iterative process, this becomes a nightmare for both client and developer.
In our most recently concluded project, we used the Agile development process to really speed up turn around time for software delivery. In hindsight, we probably couldn’t have successfully executed this project without going Agile.