SPEED PROJECT DELIVERY WITH AGILE DESIGNER
Poorly defined requirements destabilise IT projects It s a staggering statistic but over 60% of IT projects still fail in that they either run over time (74%) or incur more cost to complete (59%) with an average of only 69% of the functionality of the product actually being delivered. In fact according to the Standish Group Chaos Manifesto 2013 for larger projects ($1m+), this figure increases to as high as 93%. The question is, why? Surely with all of today s sophisticated processes, tools and technologies, one would have thought that these issues would have been ironed out by now? All too often problems boil down to scope creep on projects with poorly defined requirements and the costly rework of defects found late in the software development lifecycle. Only 4% of software projects have precise objectives. Development teams don t specify clearly enough at the outset what the product requirements are which leads to rounds of test iterations requiring specifications to be adjusted time and again. In fact, 56% of defects can be traced back to ambiguities in requirements. Wouldn t it be better if you could ensure that requirements were clearly defined from the outset to speed development and reduce project delays? A dynamic flow chart tool The great news is that there is a tool in the marketplace designed specifically to help organisations quickly and accurately do just this. Grid-Tools Agile Designer is a logic design tool that speeds the delivery of high quality software applications. Agile Designer is specifically designed for testing and project teams to storyboard a requirements process flow chart, and helps individuals to manage their logical thinking, whilst removing the ambiguities that arise from written specification documents. All IT project teams both internal and outsourced can quickly understand specifications from the outset, reducing critical delays in testing cycles often caused by miscommunication and ambiguous requirements. Agile Designer drives right first time by giving a visual picture of the requirement enabling both programmer and tester to build and test in one go. Minne Prins, Programme Manager, SDMC 2 www.agile-designer.com
Reduce ambiguities by 95% Agile Designer reduces the creation of defects by as much as 95%. Finding defects in requirements means less rework. Less rework makes it easier to accurately estimate the cost of delivering quality software. This means organisations can more accurately estimate the cost of new software development and changes to existing systems, providing a systematic way of enforcing SLAs with outsourcers and helping customers to introduce agile processes into their software development lifecycle. Prevent scope creep Reduce defects creation Make testing more quantifiable Agile Designer lets you convert requirements to unambiguous visual flow charts. This provides clarity when collaborating with users to define specifications. Early validation allows you to prevent the risk of scope creep, enabling you to accurately estimate the time and cost of each Agile iteration. Designing unambiguous requirements will significantly reduce defects. Finding defects earlier means less rework. Less rework allows you to more accurately estimate the time and cost of delivering high quality software. With one click, Agile Designer provides you with the perfect set of test cases, maximum coverage in the optimal number of test cases. This allows you to shorten test cycles and shift-left in the software development lifecycle. It also quantifies testing and let you know when testing is done. Align with your Agile methodology Agile Designer enables you to easily introduce Agile processes into your existing software development. Small software projects are twice more likely to succeed than larger ones and 45% of these are Agile. Agile software development is based on the concept of short, clearly defined iterations or sprints. With the help of Agile Designer these processes can be quickly and easily adopted to improve quality and accelerate software delivery. Agile Designer is intuitive, easy to use and provides an understandable visual representation of difficult problems. Using the tool it is amazing how quickly it gives testers the rationale they need to convince management what to test in order to optimise the testing process. Tony Kisby, CIO, Veda www.agile-designer.com 3
A multi-purpose tool Testers You need to know what to test and what results to expect. This comes from requirements but all too often requirements documents are ambiguous. With requirements mapped out clearly in Agile Designer, testers know exactly what the software should do and therefore what to test for. This in turn narrows down the number of tests required and cuts down the time in QA. Business Analysts Programmers Business Users CIOs Outsourced Service Providers If projects are split into smaller more agile work streams success is twice as likely. However this can be difficult for business analysts to achieve when working with end-users to negotiate the necessary trade-offs. With Agile Designer business analysts have greater clarity, enabling them to more accurately predict time and costs and collaborate better with users, outsourcers and internal IT teams. This enables analysts to standardise test case design and add value to existing tests or BPM workflows. 56% of defects can be traced back to ambiguities in written requirements, yet this is what programmers typically receive from business analysts. The result is defects in code. Defects result in rework and make it harder to communicate what needs testing to the testers. Agile Designer accurately maps requirements to clear flow charts, reducing defects creation, enabling programmers to design more scientific test cases which improves communication with test teams. When only 20-30% of the functionality of a product is actually used, most business users could reduce the scope of their requirements, making it faster and easier for them to collaborate with business analysts. Using Agile Designer business users can easily map their requirements to visual flow chats. This introduces clarity early on and allows the business to more accurately estimate the time and cost of the project, prioritising critical functionality to ensure the fast delivery of software. Getting a software development project delivered on time and in budget is a key priority and the buck stops with the CIO. Outsourcing testing should reduce costs, but all too often rework causes time and material costs to spiral. Agile Designer helps CIOs build structured work packages to help outsourcers deliver valuable quality work. Agile Designer enables CIOs to define clear fixed priced contracts providing a systematic way of enforcing SLAs with outsourcers. Outsourced agile testing is a growth market as it enables IT to reduce costs whilst still ensuring quality. However, companies are moving away from time and materials based pricing, and are looking to negotiate fixed-price outsourcing contracts. Agile Designer allows outsourced service providers to deliver high quality work earlier and for less as they are able to more accurately negotiate the scope of the work with customers. 4 www.agile-designer.com
Agile Designer eliminates business risk associated with application failure Wayne Ariola, CSO, Parasoft Key benefits of Agile Designer Reduces requirement ambiguities - cut defects by up to 95% Accurately estimates the cost of new software development and changes to existing systems Reduces the cost of testing by de-duplicating existing test cases Enables users to import business process workflows and automatically build test cases Helps to introduce Agile processes into the software development lifecycle Provides a systematic way of enforcing SLAs with outsourcers Links expected results to both test cases and data Maximises the use of virtualisation toolkits by designing the correct response/request sets Allocates people to tasks using an advanced scheduler Links to Agile Data to find and make the correct data at any point A wealth of experience Agile Designer is part of the Grid-Tools suite of Test Data Management solutions. At Grid-Tools we are specialists in the intelligent provision of data for non-production and software development environments. We are the leading provider of software products and services focusing on improving development and testing practices throughout the Software development Lifecycle (SDLC). With offices in Oxford and New York and also a global network of sales and delivery partners we help our customers develop valuable software products of the highest quality, on time and under budget. With over 30 years of experience delivering innovative and market-leading solutions for testing and QA in software Agile Designer enables mind shifting agility to our system development and it is becoming one of the most important tools to make requirement development more tangible and understandable for the business. Minne Prins, Programme Manager, SDMC To find out more about Agile Designer please: visit our website at contact us on or email us at agile-designer.com USA: 1-888-603-1213 UK: +44 (0) 1865 84600 agile-sales@agile-designer.com United Kingdom 11 Oasis Business Park Eynsham Oxford OX29 4TP USA Suite 320 500 Mamaroneck Avenue Harrison New York 10582 www.agile-designer.com 5