The Amazee Labs Approach to Agile Projects
In the realm of web and software development, "agile" refers to an approach that emphasises flexibility, collaboration, and incremental, fast delivery. The agile methodology originated as a response to the shortcomings of traditional, linear development approaches, such as the waterfall model, as it is better suited to the dynamic and rapidly changing nature of web projects.
Popular agile frameworks used in web development include Scrum and Kanban, among others. While these frameworks can provide solid guidelines and practices for implementing agile principles for web development projects, it's essential for teams to consider their specific context, constraints, and goals when deciding whether to implement them strictly or adapt it to better suit their needs. In some cases, a lighter-weight agile approach or a hybrid methodology might be more suitable.
What does “agile” mean for us at Amazee Labs?
At Amazee Labs, we normally employ agile principles in our projects - with a few exceptions. It is our strong belief that we as an agency, along with our clients, have greatly benefited from our agile approach. Let us have a walk through some of the agile principles and how we integrate them into our daily practices.
“Business people and developers must work together …”
Our team’s expertise lies in the creation of digital experiences. We know that our clients are experts at what they do, and therefore - to make sure that the products we create for them generate maximum value - we deem it absolutely essential that we work together. The foundation of our approach is therefore co-creation: we work in close collaboration with our partners. Regular meetings with clients ensure that we understand perfectly the goals and needs of our clients, and how to best solve them. In order to shorten communication paths and to enable a direct exchange between “business” and “developers”, we directly include a representative of the development team or - if the area which is being discussed requires any other specific expertise - a specialist.
“Highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software”
We cherish relationships with our clients and we are often reassured that the feeling is mutual. Trust is an essential foundation of any relationship, and we have found that the best way to establish and maintain it with our clients is to ensure that they are confident about the successful delivery of the product as soon as possible.
Sneak peeks - demos, as we call them - during the development process and frequent rollouts to test environments - sometimes even while development is ongoing - give our clients insights, not only creating transparency by unveiling the current status, but also allowing stakeholders to assess the user experience and functionality of the product, while still under development. For larger features - if applicable - it is also a best practice to divide the scope into multiple releases and to roll out releases separately, thereby allowing valuable new features to land on production as soon as possible.
Thanks to this approach, our clients are able to showcase work-in-progress features internally, gather feedback and make sure that other stakeholders remain reassured about the project’s success as well.
“Welcome changing requirements, even late in development …”
Thanks to allowing insights into the status of ongoing developments, there is a possibility to test products early on - by us and our clients. Based on hands-on experience with the product, or its prototype, there might be a need to change the original approach. Furthermore, in the fast-changing environment of the digital and business world, it may also be the case that circumstances or stakeholder opinions and priorities change throughout a project, or even during the implementation of a smaller feature. The agile approach leaves room for such cases: requirements are not set in stone, they remain flexible until they are implemented. In agreement with our customers, they might be adapted during the course of the implementation - or indeed, afterwards! Some features may become obsolete or lose priority in comparison to others over time: the agile approach allows us to react to such changes and ensures that development efforts are invested in features and functionalities that generate the highest value to our customers.
Do you have a new idea or a project to tackle? We're here to listen. Get in touch if you want to take a look together and figure out if agile is a good match for you!