scrum

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Top 6 Benefits Of Cloud Computing For Your Business

The cloud has become an indispensable part of our daily lives. We come into contact with it every time we open our emails, watch Netflix or follow an online course. Thanks to the increase in applications, the popularity of cloud services are all the more true for businesses. The shift to fully digital solutions is well underway and there are very good reasons for this.

In some cases, cloud computing means completely shifting your office to a digital environment that can be accessed from just about anywhere with an internet connection. But even with a less drastic move to ‘the cloud’, cloud computing gives you a huge increase in functionalities via the browser and an increase in the number of devices that can connect to the internet to get started with your company data.

Here are the most important benefits for you and discuss how they can make a difference for your company.

Savings on IT and Infrastructure

Switching to cloud computing can save you a lot in IT costs. For starters, you no longer have to worry about purchasing and maintaining all kinds of server installations to store data. You no longer have to configure this, you no longer have to make room for it and the associated electricity costs disappear.

Many cloud services also offer ready-made software packages, so you no longer have to invest in this. In addition, you also need fewer experts within your company who have to maintain your IT infrastructure and provide everything with updates, or you can use them for more important tasks. In case of problems, you can immediately contact the administrator of your cloud to assist you. All of this makes it extremely easy for starting companies.

Flexibility

Working in the cloud gives you enormous flexibility. By placing the entire digital work environment of your organization in the cloud, you can actually work with your data from anywhere and at any time, whether you are visiting a customer or want to quickly check something during the weekend. This also allows those employees who do not need direct access to the company to work from home. For example, it also gives you the opportunity to have experts from all over the world participate in your projects without any problem. Where in the past you always had to work with a fixed computer, that has become completely unnecessary. After all, many cloud applications are also accessible via a smartphone or tablet.

Scalability

By moving your data and activities to the cloud, you have the advantage that you can easily determine the scale of your activities yourself. Would you like to expand everything quickly and do you want to be sure that your systems can handle the influx? This usually does not have to take long and in some cases, it can even be solved with a limited number of mouse clicks. Has the attention for your organization decreased somewhat and would you rather slow down? That’s no problem either. Everything can be perfectly adjusted to your needs, which gives you enormous flexibility. So you don’t have to worry about purchasing additional equipment

Security of your data

Putting your data and productivity applications all in the cloud can seem quite scary. After all, your data is no longer with you, so what if something happens to it? However, cloud providers are increasingly aware of the appeal of all the data residing on their servers, which is why they invest heavily in all possible means to keep the information safe, both in the event of disasters and external actors. This quickly ensures that your data is in safer hands with them than on your own IT infrastructure. Your data is often copied across different servers, so in case of an emergency, there is still a copy available.

Working with the cloud also gives you the option to work with multiple backups of your data and software. If something does go wrong, you can easily reset all data from your own cloud very quickly. Everything can be easily copied and re-applied, immediately limiting your potential downtime. So you don’t have to worry too much that your business will ever come to a standstill, regardless of your size.

Better Collaboration

The increase in home working has made it all the more clear how important it is to have an environment in which your employees can communicate easily with each other. However, cloud computing makes collaboration a breeze. The information your employees have to work with is available to everyone and can therefore be shared easily and securely. Some cloud services even offer standard collaboration software, which makes creating, adapting, and distributing information together child’s play. So you lose as little time as possible on communication errors and give employees the opportunity to interact as productively as possible.

Automatic Updates

Software needs to be updated regularly and that can quickly prove to be a time-consuming activity for your IT department. Thanks to the cloud, however, these updates take place behind the scenes and your provider always provides you with the latest software. In addition to software updates, automatic upgrades to the servers can also take place, so that you can always get started with the fastest and most powerful infrastructure.

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Why You Should Adopt An Agile Working Methodology?

Agile Working Methodology is a way of thinking, working, and organizing. It allows organizations to respond quickly and effectively to changes in the outside world. Customer satisfaction is paramount, especially in light of company well-being and healthy results.

Nowadays Agile working is often applied in organizations; efficiency and effectiveness are central to this working method. Why should you also consider Agile working? Here are the reasons you should consider using this technique in your organization.

Increased Product/Service Quality

Logically, a customer does not want to buy bad products, but developers within a Scrum team do not want to deliver a bad product anymore. By working in Agile, developers have plenty of time to focus on developing the product, while other team members worry about peripheral issues. As a result, the product will be delivered on time and of high quality.

Predictability Is Made Possible By Agile Working

Where organizations were previously able to provide few details about the delivery time, making the switch to Agile makes the development process more transparent: customers know exactly how long it takes to develop a product and what to expect from it. With sprints as a guideline, the delivery rhythm of a Scrum team is extremely predictable. That’s what makes it so pleasant for customers.

Creating The Right Products/Services

Although this reason is very similar to the previous one, there is certainly an important difference. It is possible that a Scrum team builds exactly what the customer asks for, but that this product is put into use in a completely different way than was intended beforehand. So no value is created for the customer, even though that is precisely the goal. By delivering a partial product after each sprint and then improving it, the Scrum team has a better idea of the customer’s actual wishes and what the product is ultimately used for.

Customer Satisfaction

Although Agile is not a panacea, customers do have the opportunity to follow the development process of the product. The Scrum team remains in constant communication with the customer to deliver the best possible product together. In addition, you make a customer extra happy when a team can add new functions to an existing product or service.

Agile Working Reduces The Risks

When an organization starts working with Agile, this has a direct effect on reducing the risks related to the delivery of wrong products and/or services. Agile itself is risk management. Because partial products are presented to the customer every 2 – 4 weeks and immediate feedback is given, the chance that an incorrect end product will ultimately be delivered is greatly reduced.

Faster Time To Market

A common problem that organizations encounter is the lengthy delivery period. This regularly results in the delivery of wrong products or services that the customer is no longer interested in. By working Agile you avoid this issue completely because a delivery period of 2 – 4 weeks is used.

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Agile Methodology

What is Agile Methodology?

Agile Methodology is a process that promotes continues iteration of development and testing throughout the software development life cycle of the project. Unlike the waterfall model, both development and testing activities are concurrent. It’s also a hyped word in the IT industry where they use it to describe the alternative method of project management. A process that provides quick and capricious responses to the feedback they receive on their project. During the development cycle itself, it creates opportunities to assess a project’s direction. Assessment of the project in regular meetings is called sprints or iterations.

It’s very empowering in nature that helps companies to design and build the right product. It is beneficial for software companies because of the management process and it helps them to analyze and improve their product throughout its development which enables companies to make a highly valuable product so they stay competitive in the market.

Origin of Agile

A small group of people in 2011, tired of all the traditional approach for management of software development projects, so after brainstorming for while they came up with the agile manifesto. It is a more practical and improved method for managing the progress of software projects.

Four Important agile manifesto values:

Instead of processes and tools focus should be more on individuals and interactions.
Rather than comprehensive documentation, working software is a priority.
Contract negotiation is a bad practice in agile, customer collaboration is more vital.
Instead of the process working like a robot and following a plan, it must respond to changes.

Business advantages of Agile

Whatever the common risks that are associated with the delivery, scope, and budget of the project, it gets reduced with the help of agile management. It focuses on the encouragement of collaboration between the customer and the team, offering mutual benefits in the migration of high risks during the development of the software.

In 2009, Dr. David F Rico did a comparison between agile and traditional methods of software project management. He analyzed 23 agile processes during his research and synthesis, comparing them with 7500 traditional projects. There he found 20 projects where agile was beneficial, in terms of business value 41% were better, 83% showed quicker time-to-market speeds, Quality-wise 50% were high, 50% were inexpensive, and 83% were more productive. Since then, agile consulting services are offered to boost the performance of their software development life cycle.

Agile Methodologies

There are many agile methodologies that share similar philosophies, characteristics, and practices. Subsequently, each agile has its own practices, terminology, and tactics at the point of implementation.

A management framework with far-reaching abilities to manage the iterations and increment in all project types. Scrum is lightweight and can be used with other agile methodologies for various engineering practices. Because of their simplicity and having a higher productivity rate scrums have grown in popularity within the agile software development.

Lean and Kanban

Lean Software development

Originally developed by Mary and Tom poppendieck, lean software development is an iteration methodology where many of its principles and practices in lean software development came from the lean enterprise movement, and Toyota was the first company to utilize it. This value-based method focuses on delivering an efficient “value stream” mechanism that gives the value to the project. This methodology works on some of the principles those are, eliminate waste, amplify learning, make decisions as late as possible, deliver results as quickly as possible, empower the team, build integrity, and envision the whole project.

It works as a first choice only the features that have real value to the system, delivering and prioritizing them in small batches leads to the elimination of waste. It emphasizes on speed and efficiency relying on rapid and reliable feedback between the customers and programmers. Ensuring Everyone’s productivity this methodology concentrates on efficiencies of team resources.

The Kanban Method

Kanban Method is used to manage the project’s creation while concentrating on the continued delivery and not over pressurizing the development team. Just like Scrum, Kanban processes help teams work together and efficiently.

Three principles of Kanban Method

Visualize what you do; see all the items within the context of each other.
Limit the amount of work in progress (WIP): balance the flow-based approach so teams are not committed to doing too much work at once.
Enhance the flow: as soon as one task is finished start on the next highest job from the backlog

The promotion of continued collaboration is encouraged and ongoing learning and improvements to provide the best possible workflow for the team.

Extreme Programming (XP)

Originally described by Kent Beck, Extreme Programming is one of the most well-known and controversial agile methodologies. It’s a highly disciplinary method of continuously delivering high-quality software faster. To perform continued planning, the customer is actively involved with the closed knit team. The extreme programming method is based on four simple values, Simplicity, Communication, Feedback, and Courage.

Crystal

In developing software, crystal methodology is one of the most lightweight and adaptable approaches. Including Clear, Crystal Yellow, Crystal Orange, and other uniquely characterized methods, it’s made up of several processes. The factors which drive processes are the size of the team, the criticality of the system, and the priority of the project. There are several essential values of crystal method, they are, Team Work, Simplicity, Communication, Reflection, Frequent Adjustments, Improve Processes. Like other methodologies, this agile process promotes early and frequent working software delivery. Encouragement of high user involvement, adaptability, and eliminations of distractions and bureaucracy.

Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM)

Firstly known as Rapid Application Development (RAD), which originated in 1994, the Dynamic Systems Development Method provides an industry standard framework for project delivery. Although the RAD approach developed in an unstructured fashion it was very popular in the 1990s. Now DSDM has evolved and matured, it provides management, execution, foundation in planning, and scaling of the agile process and iteration projects. It has six key principles revolving around the business needs, Value, Active User Involvement, Empowered Teams, Frequent Delivery, Integrated testing, Stakeholder Collaboration. Approach for delivery and acceptance criteria, DSDM uses “fitness for business purpose”. The main formula for DSDM is 80% system development in 20% time.

Feature Driven Development (FDD)

Feature Driven Development was developed by Jeff De Luca, along with contributors, A.M. Rajashima, Lim Bak Wee, Paul Szego, Jon Kern, and Stephen Palmer. It begins by first establishing the shape of an agile model, it is a short iteration process and it is model driven. Because they are small and useful, these features appeal to clients. By using these eight practices the FDD is designed and delivered, Domain Object Modeling, Development of Features, Component and Class Ownership, Feature Teams, Inspections, Configuration Management, Regular Builds, Visibility of progress and results.

Conclusion

A very exciting and fascinating approach to software development is agile management. The result is a more rewarding experience for everyone involved, by integrating the product developers and customers in the planning and implementing processes. If done properly, organizations can continuously find ways to increase the value to their customers. It produces more generous end results for the company by those who are actively working on the project and create a more positive experience for the customer. As Agile Consulting says “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.”

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