Agile software development

Examples of Agile software development in the following topics:

• Productivity Gains from Software

  • New ways of developing and using software have led to higher efficiency and productivity through greater interaction between users.
  • Agile software development is a group of software development methods based on iterative and incremental development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams.
  • Agile methods break tasks into small increments with minimal planning and do not directly involve long-term planning.
  • Each iteration involves a team working through a full software development cycle when a working product is demonstrated to stakeholders.
  • The development cycle includes:

• Hardware and Software Improvements

  • Improvements in software can largely be attributed to the implementation of software development models.
  • A third model is known as agile software development.
  • Agile software development uses iterative development as a basis but advocates a lighter and more people-centric viewpoint than traditional approaches .
  • A diagram laying out the steps of the waterfall model for software development.
  • A diagram laying out the steps in the spiral model of software development.

• Trends in Management

  • Modern trends in management favor agile, iterative processes that focus on innovation, software development, and social impacts.
  • Software, non-profit, and entrepreneurship are all seeing substantial deviations from standard corporate management approaches.
  • The two big words in software management over the past decade or two have been Scrum and Agile.
  • Development Team - This will be your functional specialists, all collaborating on a daily basis to construct a facet (or perhaps the entirety) of a new piece of software.
  • A key metric to a social entrepreneur isn't profit but community impact, usually in areas such as poverty alleviation, health care, education, and community development.

• Moving forward with information systems

  • When you decide it is time to move forward with leveraging your organization with information systems, you will appreciate the effort spent on developing a systems plan.
  • We will discuss these issues later in this chapter when we discuss the ways organizations develop a systems plan.
  • In developed economies, there are companies like Google and Amazon that offer so-called "cloud computing" services.
  • As with hardware, you have similar options with software.
  • While it is certainly possible for you to hire a programmer and have him or her develop the software programs your organizations need, it is rare when a start-up company needs to do this as there are so many software programs available for you to use (and some of them are free).

• Offshoring

  • Another focus area includes the software industry as part of Global Software Development and the development of Global Information Systems.
  • More specific terms can be found in the field of software development; for example, Global Information System as a class of systems being developed for/by globally distributed teams.

• The Freemium Model

  • Freemium, a combination of the words "free" and "premium," is a business model where the company gives away a free service or software to all customers.
  • Freemium, a combination of the words "free" and "premium," is a business model where the company gives away a free service or software to all customers.
  • This service/software is usually a basic, scaled down version of what the company offers as a premium paid service.
  • Beau Hindman from massively.com writes, "Why is this business model a good one to go with as a developer?
  • Feature limited (e.g. a "lite" version of software, such as Skype)

• Introduction

  • This chapter explores how Information Systems (IS) can be used by managers to better develop their business idea, launch and sustain their businesses.
  • Perhaps the most common example of this is software development.
  • Software engineers in developing economies can develop programs under contract from companies in the developed world at much lower cost.
  • Known as "outsourcing", this is effective because universities in many developing economies such as India, China, Brazil, and Eastern Europe have well trained programmers who are willing to work for wages above the prevailing wage levels in their home countries, but less than what a trained programmer earns in a developed country.
  • These products can range from very sophisticated (and expensive) products like Cisco's "Telepresence" conferencing tool (Cisco 2009) to relatively inexpensive (or even free) software tools like Skype (Skype 2009).

• Summary, discussion questions, and references

  • If you do decide to move forward with computer-based information systems it is wise to develop a plan first, and make sure you are proceeding in an orderly manner.
  • There are three general approaches to developing an IS plan.
  • Define a "software suite".
  • What are the advantages of using a software suite instead of a number of stand-alone software applications?
  • When should you consider using database management software instead of a spreadsheet?

• Knowledge Management

  • Develop new products and services that add value to their customers (innovation, competitive advantage)
  • Combined with the early development of collaborative technologies (in particular Lotus Notes), KM technologies expanded in the mid-1990s.
  • More recently, the development of social computing tools (such as bookmarks, blogs, and wikis) have allowed more unstructured, self-governing or ecosystem approaches to the transfer, capture and creation of knowledge, including the development of new forms of communities, networks.
  • Software tools in knowledge management are a collection of technologies and are not necessarily acquired as a single software solution.
  • Furthermore, these knowledge management software tools have the advantage of using the organization's existing information technology infrastructure.

• Detriments of benefits

  • The SAS Institute, based in the southern United States, is a software development company that competes against global software giants, such as Microsoft.
  • In order to attract employees that fit their unique company culture, SAS has developed an extensive employee benefit program that is offered to all employees at the company.
  • Not all software engineers would desire this lifestyle, but SAS recognizes that they hire from a unique niche of employees and seek to attract these individuals.