Imagine you were given a penny on the first day of the month. And then every day thereafter you were given double the amount of the previous day. 1p on day one, 2p on day two, 4p on day three, 8p on day four, and so on. Assuming it’s a thirty-one-day month, how much money do you think you would have at the end of the month? £2,000? £5,000? £100,000? Actually, you would have over £21 million! £21,474,836.47 to be precise.

And so what does this have to do with software? Well, delivering software little by little in an iterative way can make a big difference to the overall success of a tech project. Am I thinking of Agile software development? Yes I am, and yet perhaps I am thinking about something more. Agile is a methodology where software development takes place iteratively against a backdrop of collaboration between requirement gatherers / stakeholders, and solution providers such as software developers. Where the overall solution is delivered in pre-planned smaller chunks, or Sprints, as termed in Agile. This way of delivering a project is great because it removes the risk around the All or Nothing approach of waiting until the end of a project to know if it’s a success or not.

The iterative Agile approach works well across many types of project, and I’ve seen it have great success for start-up companies in the development of Mobile Apps. When a software release is delivered to the marketplace it can be used by end-users and not just stakeholders. Delivering an overall solution to market in smaller chunks enables organisations to go-live with a particular part of an overall solution and start to make money sooner. Providing much needed revenue that can be used to finance future development. Delivering a solution in bitesize chunks also gives the opportunity for testing-the-water, seeing what the end-user thinks about your App, e-Commerce site, Web Portal, to see if you’re heading in the right direction. Feedback which can be used to further enhance the project.

Who is Agile for? Only for big companies? Only for software companies? Only for digital marketing agencies? Right? Wrong! An Agile methodology can be adopted by organisations big and small. In its most-simplest form, if a project is being managed in smaller parts in pre-planned releases, then it’s an Agile project.

And yet there are still aspects of this approach that can open the door to mistakes.

We need to ask the question as to what are we all looking for from a project? Stakeholders and requirements gatherers want to know “Am I getting what I want?” and “Am I getting what I want at the time I need it?”. Solution providers wants to know “Am I delivering what is required?” and “Am I on time?” But do these needs and wants align? Yes they do but even with the best documented solution, gaps can appear in terms of what each person interprets as the requirement. And even in three weeks sprint deliverables, there’s already a three-week time when development work is being undertaken that may or may not be heading in the right direction of travel. To a certain extent this is where the stand-up comes into play. A daily meeting, usually held each morning, allowing team members and stakeholders to touch base and see how things are going. Which is great for keeping everyone in the loop. However, usually what stand-ups don’t do is to allow sufficient time for the latest iteration of the developed solution to be demonstrated, and so the potential risk of “am I getting what I want?” is still hanging around.

One way I’ve found works well to mitigate this risk is to adopt a collaborative approach with regular catchups between developers and stakeholders. Informal, mini meetings that can be held at a desk or pod. Where the developer can quickly show the stakeholder the current iteration of the software. Instigated by either party, such catchups provide a confidence to all concerned that the correct solution is being delivered. I’ve also found this way of collaborative working increases the culture of innovation. Introducing an element of “I have an idea! What do you think?” So, not only is the organisation getting deliverables that satisfy requirements, but also a much more innovative solution.

And so just like with the earlier penny analogy, a little development and often, with regular collaboration can add up to something big.

My name is Richard McDowall and I am the Founder & CEO of Wow Bang Boom Ltd. With over thirty-years experience in delivering software projects, I started Wow Bang Boom consultancy to help companies of all sizes deliver better and more innovative IT solutions, deliver them on-time and within budget.