Your Team of South Florida Agile Experts

Third Wave is a software services company made up of a diverse community of highly knowledgeable professionals focused on providing business value by rapidly delivering high quality custom software.  We collaborate with each other, and with you in order to address your company’s challenges and move towards new innovations. With over four decades of combined software management years’ experience, we use Agile project management principles to build custom software solutions and innovations to help a great number of South Florida businesses.

Our Agile experts have a number of technical specialties so that they are always contributing something of great value to the team and your projects.  Moreover, Agile development can also be interpreted into meaning a specific way of managing IT projects and teams.  Founded out of a movement which included a group of individuals in 2001 who coined the Agile Manifesto, it highlights four important values which continue to be relevant today:

•      Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
•      Working software over comprehensive documentation
•      Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
•      Responding to change over following a plan

In addition, Agile methodology can be applied to a number of IT developmental processes which also apply the above listed principles and are considered to live under the umbrella of Agile.

Methodologies That Follow Agile Software Development

As long as IT developmental technologies share the Agile philosophy as outlined in the Agile Manifesto they can be lumped among the same contenders.  It is important to note, however, that they all may not implement the identical practices and terminology when developing their software.  Some popular methodologies include:

•      Scrum:  This process has repeatedly demonstrated that it is both easy to understand and very adaptive.  Scrum team members identify progress to plan for future tasks and scheduling, rather than follow a developed forecast.  Time frames are divided into short increments, called sprints (one – two weeks) and the typical team member roles consist of:
  • Product Owner – holds the mission for the end product
  • Scrum Master – helps in prioritization and removing impediments for the team
  • Team Members – work on getting their tasks completed

•     Extreme Programming (XP): This highly successful process has as its hallmark the deep participation of its customers, aiming for their ultimate satisfaction.  Code can be reviewed and revised on an ongoing basis.  Furthermore, XP improves software development by good and equal involvement between its managers, customers, and developers, and it looks to improve processes through the elements of:
  • Communication
  • Simplicity
  • Feedback
  • Respect
  • Courage

•      Crystal:  This unique IT developmental software is made up of a group of methodologies:  Crystal Clear, Crystal Yellow, Crystal Orange and others, whose unique characteristics are driven by several factors such as team size, system criticality, and goals of the project.  Considered a lightweight methodology (not mission critical), Crystal’s main attribute is that it is not rigid or strict in its application of processes.  Methods which espouse Crystal include:
  • People
  • Interaction
  • Community
  • Skills
  • Talents
  • Communication

These methodologies are only three among the very many that exist under the area of Agile software development.  Some others include, Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM), Feature Driven Development (FDD), and Lean Software Development, just to name a few.  All of these follow Agile’s philosophy, but when it comes to implementation they can vary a bit to adhere to the priorities and objectives of the project.

Final Thoughts

It is notable that across the board IT projects bring with them complexity and difficulties that can make them hard to interpret and understand.  Put in the mix the requirements of stakeholders and deadlines and their ever changing conditions leaves the average person feeling doomed from the start.  For all these reasons listed, companies and entrepreneurs turn to Agile software development to make sense of it all.

Third Wave has seen South Florida businesses transform with Agile.  Our staff of South Florida agile experts effectively implement Agile methodologies and get to witness the dramatically improved turnaround of businesses.  Increasingly, our experiences show that with collaborative efforts, engagement, and respect that our team members exhibit to each other, our business also thrives along with yours.

Given the evident and enormous benefits that Agile software development brings, you may wonder in which kind of environment the implementation of it becomes a disaster.  In short, it is ineffective when it does not have support from the highest levels of management. When management does not embrace the solution and sabotages the process by either circumventing it or short circuiting it the end result is not good.