Is Agile Development the “Silver Bullet” to Increase Speed to Market and Save Costs?

June 24, 2020

Based on Dewpoint’s experience with several companies, we think so when Agile processes are truly followed.  For example, a global biotech company engaged Dewpoint to provide multiple Agile Development teams to deliver products faster to market, to improve product quality and to update and upgrade legacy software products.  By working in partnership with our client, we assisted product owners in learning how to manage scope for agile projects with a business value driven functional backlog.  Our teams quickly pivoted in response to evolving business needs.  By using time boxed sprints with frequent demos and client feedback, our teams produced high velocity value streams for each of the software products Dewpoint modernized or developed greenfield. Our Agile development teams assisted with backlog grooming, ensuring both the client and the developers fully understood what was needed by the business in each sprint.

Our team made up of application developers, scrum masters, database analysts, test analysts and our chief architect completed several projects using a wide variety of technologies including the following:

• C# .NET, using both the traditional framework and Core 3.1
• Python for iOT based software
• JavaScriptand CSS frameworks such as JQuery and Bootstrap for web development
• Microsoft SQL Server 2016 database, using the express, standard, and enterprise editions as required.
• AWS infrastructure including EC2 Windows and Amazon Linux virtual machines, RDS and multiple Virtual Private Clouds
• MongoDB 4.0 using the Atlas managed service for big data services
• Visual Studio 2019 as the primary IDE with other development tools as needed such as ZAP for local security scanning of software

The technologies used were chosen based on our client’s current and future needs.  Dewpoint worked with the client to gather functional and nonfunctional requirements before selecting specific technology stacks.  Our teams conducted the analysis to ensure the technologies used were cost effective, could be supported by the client, and could be easily upgraded throughout the life of the product. 

Projects undertaken resulted in “real world” results.  These included automating previous error prone manual processes, eliminating the need for continuous reprogramming, and reducing data storage of large data sets by over 90%.   Even more importantly, the changes allowed our client to expand their capabilities, offer their customers more business functions and meet their customer’s service level agreements.  These results were accomplished on time and on budget by following disciplined Agile Development methodologies.