Nowadays everyone talks about agile methodologies as something new. Something that various companies are applying in the implementation of projects to increase the margins of success and reduce the uncertainty of the projects. But, how do we work on Swapps?

 

Read: Agile: what it is and why it matters for your company growth

 

Since the conception of Swapps in February 2013, we rely on these methodologies for all the processes of the organization and for the implementation of our clients’ projects.

 

Over the years, after putting many of these methodologies into practice, we have come to the development of one way of working or several methodologies that are part of what we call “The Swapps Way”.

 

And what does this mean? Well, we have managed to combine several elements of the best known work methodologies to give rise to a new way of working for Swapps.

 

Our methodology is based on principles such as transparency, permanent communication, prioritization, regular deliveries and adaptation to change. Relying on technological tools that allow us to correctly monitor the project to be developed.

 

Stages of a new project

 

 

Client and project configuration

Once the conditions of the project have been agreed, the client is registered in Swapps if he is a new client; otherwise proceed to the project configuration.

 

In the project configuration stage, all the necessary inputs or documents are requested, the project is created within our transparency dashboard, in ClickUp and a Slack channel for communication.

 

Gathering of requirements

Although the requirements had already been discussed during the quotation phase, a meeting is necessary in which to land all the requirements, transcribe them and prioritize them in the “Product Backlog”.

 

This document will be the starting point of the development phase.

 

Implementation stage

The implementation stage is iterative; that is, it is made up of several “sprints” or stages whose purpose is to take a portion of the requirements of the “Product Backlog” and execute them during a period of time that ranges between 1 week and 1 month.

 

During each of the sprints the following activities are performed:

 

• Planning meeting.
• Implementation of the activities.
• Review meeting.

 

Planning meeting

This meeting is held at the beginning of the sprint or on the last day, after the review meeting, in order to select the priority activities that deliver the greatest amount of value and that can be carried out during the sprint period.

 

All the members of the team participate in this meeting, the activities are assigned and they constitute a commitment of what is going to be delivered at the end of the cycle or iteration.

 

One of the characteristics of “Agile” is that we accept the change of requirements, so it is possible to include new activities that had not been defined at the beginning, but bearing in mind that this affects the budget or removes one of the requirements with less priorities.

 

During this planning meeting, it is time to make the negotiation that may affect the budget, delivery times or scope of the project.

 

Implementation of activities

This is where what was previously planned is executed.

 

It is where each member of the team makes their knowledge available to develop each of the activities with the highest quality and a user-centered approach, which allows for functional results.

 

As the tasks are completed, they will be notified of their completion so that another member of the team can carry out the relevant tests.

 

During this phase, the client will be able to view the status of the sprint on a dashboard and will be in permanent communication with the team to resolve concerns. 

 

Similarly, you will have at your disposal a testing instance where you can view the current status of the project.

 

Review meeting

The results of the sprint are reviewed here. The completed activities and a demonstration of them are reported for their acceptance by the client.

 

If they wish, the same space can be used to plan the activities for the next iteration.

 

 

Project Delivery

Once all the iterations of the project have been completed and it has been decided that the project is ready to be used, its launch is coordinated.

 

Additionally, the documentation is delivered and the necessary training is carried out with the work team that requires it.

 

Maintenance and improvements stage

The truth is that a software project never ends, so what we call the “minimum viable product” is the completion of the project in the previous stages, but to guarantee a correct adaptation to the market it is necessary to make periodic adjustments and updates in order to get the best out of the product.

 

This maintenance stage is done during a new cycle that, as in the previous phase, the requirements are defined and prioritized in a “product backlog” but, unlike the previous one, it is dynamic.

 

Read: Retrospectives – #AgilePractices

 

In this article we have addressed the main characteristics of a project implementation, from start to finish, in a general way and in order to give an orientation.

 

As has been observed, this is an iterative process, where communication and transparency prevail to ensure that the project always goes according to expectations and changes that arise along the way.

 

Read: SIDOC: A success case on Digital Transformation

 

If you want to have the peace of mind of having that ally in digital technology that is transparent, agile and that offers you excellent support to grow your company, write to us.

 

We are your technological ally.

 

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