TOWER executes successful agile project

Tuesday, 16 June 2009, 1:11 pm
Press Release: Tower

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TOWER executes successful agile project

It is not often that a big corporate decides to implement an entirely new process, but for the first time ever at TOWER, the agile development process has been used to build new software for TOWER Health & Life’s independent adviser software suite - OPTIMUS®. While this was a relatively large project, more significantly, it was successfully implemented.

Instead of creating an extremely detailed plan for the OPTIMUS® project, including all the requirements upfront, TOWER’s IT team started with the high level objectives or ‘user stories’. These were assessed by the IT team in terms of their difficulty and then prioritised by the business. This enabled a high level release plan to be produced.

The plan design allowed the team to deliver something tangible to the business every two weeks for review. In each of these iterations, known as sprints, the team took the highest priority user stories and broke them down into a number of detailed tasks. Each sprint had a clear goal (e.g. ‘Capture client’s life insurance requirements’) which allowed the team and business to focus on one clear and achievable outcome at a time.

“This project was enjoyable to work on and the process seemed much more efficient, mainly due to better communication, resulting in fewer defects. There was also a real sense of achievement when each Sprint Review was completed successfully”, says a tester on the project, Kim Murray.

Using the agile process meant that the team was able to be flexible and responsive to developing ideas, allowing the business to prioritise these over existing requests. This solves a common problem in software development when stakeholders often don’t know what they really want until they see it.

By seeing working software every two weeks the stakeholders can request a ‘course-correction’ before it becomes too costly to change. With an agile project, the team delivers what the business actually wants and needs, not necessarily or only what they originally asked for.

“Using the agile process facilitated visibility and openness, as the development team was able to interact more constructively with the business and our independent advisers. This created engagement and also accountability for decisions made. The successful implementation of OPTIMUS® and its Electronic Advice Process (Best Practice) component can provide our independent advisers with considerable confidence in dealing with proposed regulation next year”, says Steve Boomert, CEO, TOWER Health & Life.

The final product was launched successfully, on time and within budget, and has received a lot of positive feedback from the New Zealand adviser industry. This is great news for a project which involved about 30 weeks’ worth of work and a core team of 7 – plus input from many others. And because of the success of this project TOWER is now applying the agile approach to more of its developments.
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