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Agile Software Development: A Case Study of Jharna Software

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Agile Software Development: A Case Study of Jharna Software

Question 1

Reasons to Why Financial Services Clients Were Increasing Demanding

Jharna’s financial services clients were increasingly becoming demanding because of

several factors. First, according to the case study, the clients were becoming demanding because

of their constantly changing needs. More fundamentally, at the time of the case, financial

institutions faced an uphill task of adapting to the ever-changing customer sophistication and

needs (Bose, Huang, & Huang, 2020). For instance, with rapid technological changes, the

financial services clients were facing dynamic changes in technological platforms such as

financial systems, payment processing systems, and risk management systems. Additionally, the

financial sector is a highly regulated industry. As such, financial services clients had to develop

software that not only delivers quality but adhered to the various laws and regulation.

How Agile Development Address the Issues

Agile software development would in various ways help Jharna Software deal with the

increasingly demanding clients. First, the scope and the requirements of financial services client

continuously evolve during the lifespan of a project. Nonetheless, agile software development is

adaptive in nature and can accommodate volatility (Abrahamsson, Salo, Ronkainen, & Warsta,

2017). Likewise, the case study asserts that the fundamentals of the agile methods were to

developed for it to be adaptive and thrive on frequent changes. This is because it is dependent on

people’s direct collaboration, competency, and expertise. Significantly, the agile method is

concentrates on the process rather than rigorous documentation. As such, the development

process is scalable, incremental, emergent, and self-organizing. Also, agile software

development continuously engages stakeholders throughout the project’s life cycle. As a result,
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the software product is released incrementally. The stated characteristics of the agile method will

help Jharna adapt to the increasingly demanding clients.

Question 2

How Adapting Agile Software Development Would Make Jharna More Competitive

Software development industry is highly competitive and requires Jharna to adapt to

methods that deliver quality software within the shortest time. Agile software development

provides several benefits that will increases the competitiveness of Jharna software. First, Agile

software development always engages stakeholders in each stage of the developmental cycle

(Biju, 2010). Such settings provide the project team with the opportunity to better understand the

client’s requirement. As such, because of the high degree of interaction between the project team

and the client by adopting the agile methodology, Jharna can develop products that fully meet

clients’ specification.

Additionally, agile software development will allow Jharna to develop quality software.

According to Biju (2010), improved quality is one of the greatest benefits of agile methodology.

This is because, the agile framework divides the project in manageable units allowing the

developers to focus on testing, development, and collaboration. Likewise, the quality of software

increases through the frequent testing in each iteration. Bugs and defects are quickly fixed and

expected mismatches are timely identified.

Likewise, agile software is transparent. The fact that agile framework engages

stakeholders throughout the development process increases its transparency. As such, Jharna will

be able to build clients’ confidence and trust which will go a great way to fend off competition

from other offshore development firms.

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Additionally, agile software development is flexible as it allows for changes. Most of

Jharna’s clients are from the financial sector where technological needs keep changing.

Nevertheless, agile framework allows for changes to effectively incorporated at each given stage

in the developmental cycle.

Lastly, agile developmental framework allows for effective scheduling and budgeting.

More significantly, agile methodology divides the project into units that can easily quantified. As

such, it enhances the decision making process.

Question 3

Changes that Jharna Should Make to Successfully Transition to Agile

Jharna has to enact several strategies to successfully transition into agile. First, Jharna

will have to empower its team to be able to make quick and sound decisions. More importantly,

unlike other traditional frameworks, agile structure requires quick decision making. Likewise,

agile eliminates the exhaustive checkpoints as it provides transparency. As such, the

transparency allows for team members to make decisions without seeking approval from senior

officials. Thus, should eliminate the exhaustive detailed documentation.

Notably, Jharna has to foster collaboration and enhance communication channels. More

significantly, regular communication is critical in agile framework. Platforms for knowledge

sharing and open communication enables team members to keep up with the changes (Julian,

Noble, & Anslow, 2019). Significantly, team members need to learn how to work together and

foster a collaborative culture. As such, regardless of the contractual agreement, agile teams

should always be incorporated as single teams (Lacey, 2007). Integrating teams together will

enhance collaboration and thus reduce process delays.

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Similarly, Jharna has to develop a roadmap that will guide the transition. This will

include hiring an agile coach who will train team members. Significantly, the coach would

manage the transition process and monitor if the different members have fully adapted to the

agile structure.

Lastly, Jharn transitioning from traditional framework to agile methodology is a

continuous process. As such, it cannot be done once as it is an iterative and incremental process.

Thus, it is important for an organization to change to change its culture to fully transition to agile

framework.

Question 4

Offshore Outsourcing Favors Agile Project Management

The structure of agile project management support offshore outsourcing. More

fundamentally, the agile framework has distributed models that enables teams to work in

different locality. Significantly, the agile methodology provides from three distributed models.

The first model, the majority of the team members are onsite and communicate with company or

the vendor. In the second model, developers are on one site while scrum masters, products

owners, and business analysts are onsite while quality assurance specialists and developers are

on different location (Himmelreich, Hildebrandt, Nalgirkar, & Bijlsma, 2020). As such, agile

project management favors offshore outsourcing as different teams can effectively while

working onsite and offsite.

Additionally, the fact that agile project management allows for incremental and iterative

development proves that it favors offshore outsourcing. Agile methodology develops software in

stages that they can be deployed. Thus, expected mismatch can be identified and debugging
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undertaken in time. As such, software companies that offshore outsource are better placed to

develop quality software.

Similarly, because agile framework is transparent, it favors offshore outsourcing. Agile

methodology is highly engaging as clients are involved in every stage of software development.

As a result, clients can develop confidence and trust in a company that outsource offshore as they

are engaged in every stage. Such settings allow companies such as Jharna to build long-term

relationship.

Moreover, the flexibility of the agile framework favors offshore outsourcing. For

instance, a bug discovered onsite when deploying the software can be easily rectified by the team

offsite. As such, changes in clients need can easily be incorporated at any stage in the

developmental cycle.

Question 5

Problems that Clients Face When Working with Offshore Software Development Firms

Barriers to effective communication is a problem for clients working with offshore

software firms. More specifically, communication is critical to the success of agile framework.

Client and the development team need to in constant communication to keep up with the

necessary changes. However, different time zones impair effective communication (Bose,

Huang, & Huang, 2006). The different time zone imply offshore partners might fail to respond to

messages unless they commit to working overnight. Additionally, to a larger extent, language

barrier is also a problem to effective communication. For instance, some of the offshore firms

outsource expertise from countries such as China. Likewise, staff movement between offshore

and onshore site might be difficult given the restriction of travel witnessed during the

coronavirus pandemic. Communication problem in such a setting can greatly affect the success
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of the project. Nonetheless, the different time zones can be advantageous. In that, it allows for

round the clock software development.

Notably, the client can face political backlash for offshore outsourcing. More

fundamentally, offshore outsourcing has been controversial as some quarters have argued that it

displaces job from one country to another. For instance, President Donald J. Trump have been

vocal against companies that offshore American jobs to overseas countries. In his “American

First Policy,” the president has praised companies that hire within its borders while criticizing

those that offshores. As a result, a client who is working with an offshore company such as

Jharna might be criticized back at home for taking jobs to a different country.
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References

Abrahamsson, P., Salo, O., Ronkainen, J., & Warsta, J. (2017). Agile software development

methods: Review and analysis. arXiv preprint arXiv:1709.08439.

Biju, S. M. (2010). Agile software development methods and its advantages. In Technological

Developments in Networking, Education and Automation (pp. 603-607). Springer,

Dordrecht.

Bose, I., Huang, M., & Huang, M. (2006). Jharna Software: The Move to Agile. University of

Hong Kong.

Himmelreich, H., Hildebrandt, P., Nalgirkar, R., & Bijlsma, J. (2020). When Agile Meets

Outsourcing. Boston Consulting Group. Retrieved from

www.bcg.com/publications/2019/agile-meets-outsourcing

Julian, B., Noble, J., & Anslow, C. (2019, May). Agile Practices in Practice: Towards a Theory

of Agile Adoption and Process Evolution. In International Conference on Agile Software

Development (pp. 3-18). Springer, Cham.

Lacey, M. G. (2007). Transitioning to agile: key lessons learned in the field. Paper presented at

PMI® Global Congress 2007—North America, Atlanta, GA. Newtown Square, PA:

Project Management Institute.