Our delivery approach
We have a range of methodologies and practices that we tailor to suit your circumstances, including Waterfall, Agile and our hybrid 'Pragmatic Agile' approach. Since we believe that no one size fits all, we work collaboratively with you to understand your business needs, challenges, prior Agile experience combined with our experience with what works best for the type of project that you are undertaking. In this way, we better understand which delivery approach will work best for you.
We work with you throughout the project journey from strategic thinking and scoping, to design, build, test, delivery and support.
Where an Agile methodology best fits the organisation’s culture and project needs, our preference is to use the Scrum framework. Scrum’s iterative process allows for increased transparency and the ability to regularly assess team performance as well as regularly demonstrate progress to stakeholders. Transparency plus continuous inspection and adaption, part of Scrum’s empirical process, help us deliver quality and meet business expectations.
An Agile project usually starts with a discovery phase (or Sprint 0) whose main goal is to start building the product backlog by working with you through a series of workshops. In this way, we fully define the high-level requirements and scope. These requirements become the prioritised product backlog. You may wish to involve our UX design specialists in these workshops.
The project is then structured into sprints, typically being 1 - 4 weeks in duration. Prior to starting Sprint 1, we will hold a planning session where the entire Scrum team is brought together to discuss roles, goals, team approach, and Scrum aspects such as sprint length, daily stand-ups, definition of ready and done, etc.
The implementation phase starts with Sprint 1. During each sprint, the stories selected to work on will be designed, developed, and tested to achieve the agreed ‘definition of done’. Each sprint will typically include the following:
You will be part of the implementation process, helping to keep delivery on track as well as ensuring the quality and quantity of deliverables are met in line with the expectations of the project. This process allows for early testing and rapid representation of work in progress. Joint governance between the two parties will contribute to an open and transparent view of progress and encourage constructive feedback to the collaborative project team.
Through our experience, we can identify where certain portions of a project are best suited to an Agile approach and others to a Waterfall approach. In this hybrid model, we take a pragmatic, common-sense approach that uses practical techniques from Agile software development and applies them within an overall Waterfall model.
Under this hybrid model, Waterfall stages such as initiation, business requirements definition, high-level design, build and test are followed as broadly sequential steps. However, within the delivery phases, Agile approaches are used. This includes an Agile design philosophy supported by a delivery approach that uses iterations (called sprints), and management techniques such as stand-up meetings and large visible wall charts, all with a strong focus on people. This approach is tailored based on your organisation’s culture and is project-specific.
Agile or a hybrid approach may not necessarily be the best approach for your project.
Some projects where we see that you have a clear vision and scope isn’t expected to change (such as where you are implementing an off-the-shelf product) or your preferred way of working is more traditional - we will defer to the Waterfall approach.
Waterfall is a linear approach to software development. In this methodology, the sequence of events is something like the diagram above. In a Waterfall project, each of these represents a distinct stage of software development, and each stage generally finishes before the next one can begin. There is also typically a stage gate between each; for example, requirements must be reviewed and approved by the customer before design can begin.
The strengths of a Waterfall approach include:
Delivery Methodologies
We'll discuss with you ahead of project kick-off which methodology is best for the project – more Scrum or Waterfall, or something in between. We use the Cynefin framework for assessing the appropriateness of a method for a given project.
Contact us to discuss how best to deliver your project.