December 16, 2021 | 3 min read
Agile Delivery Center Of Excellence Cranks Out Innovation
Mario DiBenedetto
Managing Director
Given more than 60% of software delivery projects either fail or fall short, it is prudent to design and follow a delivery blueprint to increase the probability of success. Once business analysts and software developers document clear detailed functional/technical specifications, the last mile burden for success falls to Agile Development teams to consistently produce user-friendly software. For tech veterans, there is a method to software development madness. To continuously crank out innovative solutions, create an Agile Delivery Center Of Excellence by arming your dev-delivery teams with the following arsenal:
- Direct Relationships with Clients and End Users — Having combined teams of Project Managers, Design Specialists, and Senior Developers communicate firsthand with clients to clearly understand business goals and user stories is a crucial first step to successful Agile Delivery. Teams that develop interpersonal chemistry with clients facilitate seamless communication and creative solution insights that drive clarity and compress timelines. Long drawn-out meetings evaporate in favor of real-time “Slack” insights that generate immediate resolutions to burning issues.
- Iterative Sprints & A Culture of Collaboration — Having a culture of “fail fast” encourages teams to test new architecture and development concepts without fear of jeopardizing the strategic end game. Decomposing project delivery plans into consumable 2–3 week sprints, with daily standups and collective solution reviews, create a culture of positive checks and balances assuring project acceleration and higher quality software. Junior associates mature and add more value as their ideas are tested and adopted within a disciplined solution framework. As team confidence grows, designers, developers, and architects take on more leadership roles allowing for greater delivery scale and accelerated ingenuity across the organization.
- Tools and Methodologies — A true Agile Center of Excellence hangs its hat on leveraging unique tools and approaches that allow for consistent high-quality deliverables. First, start with the end in mind by creating Visual Prototypes that provide a tangible vision for users, stakeholders, and technology leads. By sharing “click-through” software, teams can gain agreement on usability and technical specifications upfront minimizing downstream errors and issues. Next, invest in building Solution Frameworks such as bespoke “Scaffolding”, mortgage domain rulesets, and DevOps design patterns to enable reusability for scale and speed. Lastly, Rigorous Testing throughout the Agile Delivery cycle assures fewer defects and strong performance regardless of transaction loads. Incorporating well-defined test plans upfront is critical to quickly uncovering defects and remediating them to neutralize downstream uncertainty, waste, and risk.
Creating an Agile Delivery Center of Excellence does not happen by accident. It takes a proactive leadership team willing to invest in the people, methodologies, and tools to facilitate relationship building and real-time collaboration across systems development teams. With the right culture and discipline, Mortgage IT project success rates can skyrocket to bring about real process transformation for front-line teams in dire need of better Digital tools to execute more efficiently.
In our final Part 4 of this series, we will share some Case Studies that leveraged the Brimma Innovation Recipe to deliver real results and ROI. If you are interested in discussing this, click HERE to connect with Brimma now.
