Agile is hot – and has been so for a while. The multitude of benefits offered by Agile, particularly its ability to bridge the Business – IT divide, has clients naturally gravitating towards it. Sadly, we’re also hearing horror stories, where agile development ended up being ‘fragile’, causing expensive project failures. The perfect storm is usually a combination of one or more factors: an offshore-based outsourcing model, ‘fixed price’ contracts, large engagements and even over-zealous customers and/or vendors with no prior experience with offshore agile. The question is, how do you setup agile projects to succeed under these kinds of complex environments? (more…)

ERP systems have long faced inflexibility and agility issues while addressing the process needs of an organization. BPM can play a catalytic role in making the ERP system more agile and flexible to the evolving and dynamic process requirements of organizations.

Many BPM tools and systems have evolved with the objective of leveraging existing investments in ERP systems, where the bulk of the core IT processing is being handled. BPM tools are expected to make ERP more agile by plugging gaps in human interaction and workflow process in enterprise IT systems. (more…)

Agile is here to stay. With its emphasis on lightweight processes, high-quality deliverables, flexibility in dealing with changing business priorities, short delivery cycles, higher team morale, and a whole host of other benefits, agile development offers a fresh approach to businesses seeking greater agility in their software engineering processes.

Agile over traditional practices brings in significant value; however our experience indicates that it is no silver bullet for the ills of enterprise application development.  Agile practices are developed based on several fundamental assumptions about the environment within which the project is executed.  In the right context, all promises of agile come alive; in the wrong context agile can add significant risks to the successful delivery of an engagement.  Especially in a global delivery environment, careful consideration of risk factors helps you avoid potential significant failures. (more…)