AGILE METHODOLOGY
At Apuliasoft we are committed to improving and innovating business processes by leveraging cutting-edge technologies and methodologies.
Agile Methodology goes hand in hand with technological excellence, allowing us to respond quickly and efficiently to the complex and dynamic challenges that companies face by delivering more value frequently to customers and stakeholders.
Agile Methodology is an iterative approach to software development that helps us maximize customer value and create more functional and happier work teams.
Achieving these objectives is possible thanks to the management of the software development cycle in an empirical way, through well-defined rules, roles, events and artifacts.
In addition, requirements, plans and results are continuously evaluated so as to allow the team on the one hand to respond quickly to changes and on the other to accelerate development, release and maintenance.
The opportunities generated by Agile practices can be summarized as follows:
-
Greater alignment between Business and IT
-
Faster time to market
-
Better quality code
-
Greater competitiveness on the market
Practices and benefits
The practices applicable within the agile methodology that generate a series of benefits for the development team are varied and depend on the needs of the company, the project and the approach of the project manager.
-
Effective communication between all the actors of the project allows a good analysis of the requirements and reduces the risk of misunderstanding;
-
Frequent deliveries allow to obtain immediate feedback from the customer and more precise information on the required requirements;
-
Pair Programming involves the close collaboration of two programmers, the "driver" who conducts the programming and "the observer" who plays a role of supervision and simultaneous code review. This procedure allows us to obtain a code of superior quality, free of errors;
-
Timeboxing consists in dividing the project into specific time intervals lasting a few days or weeks, in order to make frequent deliveries of the features and obtain immediate feedback;
-
Versioning allows for version control of produced and released software.
Framework Scrum
For the management of complex projects we use the Scrum framework, an agile, incremental and iterative framework, which allows us to maximize the expected value of the business and at the same time structure more functional and happy work teams.
The Scrum team is made up of key figures with well-defined roles:
-
The Scrum Master is tasked with helping the team be effective and achieve goals;
-
The Product Owner is responsible for maximizing the return on investment, identifying the product features and defining priorities;
-
The development team builds the product and its features.
The Scrum framework is built on three fundamental pillars: transparency, inspection and adaptation. In Apuliasoft the three pillars are the basis of each project and each of the iterations into which it is divided. In turn, the iterations are characterized by four formal moments:
-
Sprint Planning during which the functions to be developed and activities are identified;
-
The Daily Stand Up Meeting which allows the team to align on the evolution of the project to achieve the Sprint Goal;
-
The Sprint Review during which through the demo the progress of developments is shown to stakeholders to verify the actual achievement of the objectives and provide any feedback;
-
The Sprint Retrospective is the final phase of each interaction and is characterized by a moment of discussion on the processes, practices and objectives achieved.
To effectively manage each project, the Scrum framework provides for the adoption of three artifacts that enable the fundamental pillars of the framework:
-
The Product Backlog is an ordered and dynamic list of items to define the priorities of each Sprint;
-
The Sprint Backlog is the set of tasks to be developed for the subsequent product increase;
-
The Increment corresponds to the value produced at the end of a Sprint.
Each of the three artifacts includes a Commitment, which is an ultimate goal to be achieved in order to improve transparency and measure progress.