Development Services - Agile Development Technique
Versa uses what is generally referred to as the Agile Development Technique
for all custom software developments and enhancements to our COTS products. This approach has several different variations and names including Crystal, Lean, DSDM and Extreme Programming (XP). Regardless of what it is called, the primary premise of this technique is to have developers actively engage customers during requirements meetings and also to have them develop their own software test scripts as part of designing and creating the software. This approach fosters customer “buy in” and better developer understanding of the business processes driving the code. A typical agile development cycle delivers fully tested and functioning code about every two weeks for customer feedback. Using this customer feedback through several iterations ensures there are no surprises upon delivery.
Industry proponents of the Agile Technique claim that they can deliver working high-quality feature-rich software much faster than with traditional "waterfall" methods. This too has been Versa's experience and it is Versa's position that the Agile Technique is particularly well suited to regulatory and licensing system development due to the complex and specific requirements dictated by agency specific regulations.
It has also been Versa's experience that the best practices for the Agile Technique - those that yield an extensible and adaptable software design - plan the overall information architecture up front. This means that 95%+ of the core data structure as well as user interface and system interface standards and protocols are agreed upon before creating the individual working modules.
