AGILE BUSINESS SERVICES

Guiding and supporting your business

at any stage of your agile journey

Overcoming barriers to agile success

Agile methods are being adopted by a wide range of leading businesses as an enabler to gaining an edge in competitive markets. By making the transition to agile, businesses can improve their ability and speed in responding to changing business requirements and external pressures. And, when executed well, agile can also be an excellent way to introduce testing earlier into the development lifecycle, facilitating the delivery of fast, high quality services.

In order to fully realise the benefits of agile over traditional development standards, a number of aspects must fall into place as described below. Without aligning to these values, agile can cause further challenges, and greater complexities will need to be addressed.

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AGILE PRINCIPLES WATERFALL APPROACH

Individuals and interactions Processes and tools

Working software Comprehensive documentation

Customer and stakeholder collaboration Contract negotiation

Responding to change Following a fixed plan

Source: Agile Manifesto, 2001

SOGETI AGILESERVICES

A Change in Culture and Thinking

At Sogeti, we know that agile is not just an overnight methodical change for development and testing teams. For agile to be adopted successfully, a cultural change, along with a shift in thinking, is required across the whole team and by key stakeholders.

Demonstrating the benefits of agile to those stakeholders and highlighting the importance of having commitment from senior executives is fundamental, but can be very difficult.

By taking the time to understand your business objectives and running workshops with delivery and management teams, we can help to generate the support and mind-set changes needed to drive a successful transition.

Collaboration

Successful agile adoption also relies on a high level of collaboration within the agile team itself; everyone involved needs to embrace new ways of working and work closely together.

Sogeti can help to improve collaboration by promoting interaction through workshops, working directly with your team during a sprint, and defining specific roles that can help to unite your agile team.

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Testing in an Agile Environment

Testing is, unfortunately, often seen as being responsible for delaying sprints or affecting the success of agile projects. However, this is commonly a sign of bad agile execution overall when agile is in fact an ideal method to support continuous testing and evaluation.

Training, coaching and strong project management are all viable ways to overcome this challenge, helping you to speed up your agile adoption.

Stakeholders / Project Owner Business Analysts

Development Scrum Master

Source: 2014-15 World Quality Report - highlighting the key challenges of testing in an agile environment

Lack of a good testing approach that fits with the agile development method

Inability to apply test automation at appropriate levels

Difficulty in identifying the right areas on which test should focus

Lack of the right test tools to create re-usable test sets

Lack of professional test expertise in agile teams

55%

51%

42%

35%

61%

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Using Agile Principles and Methodologies in Practice

The latest 2014-2015 World Quality Report published by Sogeti, Capgemini and Hewlett-Packard found that many (43%) organisations are not using a specific agile approach; instead they are using a hybrid of methods. It’s therefore no surprise that 61% of respondents still find it challenging to apply the correct governing methodology to agile.

In addition many teams transitioning to agile take the manifesto and its principles, and approaches such as SCRUM and KANBAN, as defined processes and try and follow them to the letter. In reality these methods are meant more as a guide, and are certainly not one-size-fits-all; so using them as a set way of working creates issues in practice.

Sogeti is well placed to help you work on a flexible tailored approach that works for your business – whether you need help with agile development, testing, or both – and our comprehensive training schedule can get your team up to speed with the right skills and knowledge to use that approach effectively.

46%We use DSDM test principles

No, we do not have a specific approach for agile testing

We use exploratory testing

We use agile TMap® principles

We do not use agile development methods

We use other methods

Source: 2014-15 World Quality Report - indicating agile testing approaches in practice

43%

40%

35%

7%

2%

45%

Our Business Driven, Tailored ApproachHelping your business to move forward

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Sogeti offers a range of tailored agile solutions to meet the needs of clients. We harness our experience and global reach to cover the whole Software Development Lifecycle, from requirements to agile development and testing.

After an initial assessment to gain an in-depth understanding of: how far your business is on the path to agile adoption, your goals and objectives, unique needs and challenges, and required outcomes from your investment, Sogeti then develops a forward-looking strategic plan with highly tailored and flexible solutions. We then provide support for your immediate needs, as well as helping you to implement and apply improvements effectively in the long term, with the support of the whole business to enhance project delivery.

Workshops and Training

These are focused on working closely with your team; assessing your current approach and coming up with next steps and a formal roadmap.

• Agile adoption workshops – We review your current agile approach with your delivery and management teams, and suggest next steps.

• Agile roadmap workshops – These workshops cover project management, product ownership, and story writing. We assess your current approach and ultimately create a formal roadmap that will help to deliver efficiency gains and meet your business objectives.

• Agile training – Our training courses can be delivered to individuals as part of a scheduled course, or onsite and tailored to your business and employees. Courses range from one day workshops to more structured, certified offerings.

Sogeti offers a number of techniques from workshops to development and testing services to help your business move forward:

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Development and Testing

Our agile business services tap into Sogeti’s scale, experience and global reach. We can help you to both build and test effectively in agile, combining our REWARD (Rapid Engineering with Agile Rightshore® Delivery) service with our deep expertise in agile testing.

• Agile development sprints – If you need to manage development costs, or progress project backlogs, our REWARD service can deliver cost-effective scalability via fixed-price workshops and sprints, while you enjoy regular interaction and control at a local level.

• Agile testing – We work with you to move your project team’s testing function to an agile delivery model by up-skilling or providing testing resources, and offering test management and test assurance.

• Agile development and testing services – We bring together our REWARD service and agile testing services to provide a proof of concept of a fully integrated agile approach. This can then be implemented on a broader scale to help your business with widespread agile adoption.

• Agile project and testing consultancy – We can support or shadow you during a sprint to enable improvements, augment time and materials expertise, or even provide an extended managed service.

To ensure your business gets the most out of your agile journey, Sogeti works closely with you to evaluate your agile maturity, providing insights into steps for improvement, and guiding your business to the next stage.

WHY PARTNER WITH SOGETI?A wealth of experience to support your initiatives

Customer experience: European transport business

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Sogeti has helped a variety of clients across a broad range of industries to make a smooth transition to agile adoption. With this experience we are well placed to help your organisation identify and overcome challenges to success.

With our global reach and expertise, including 20,000 professionals in 15 countries, Sogeti offers a powerful combination of experience, expertise, and practical training courses and workshops to help guide you on your agile journey.

Our wealth of experience has taught us that one size does not fit all and we take the essential time needed to understand your business and tailor the right solution to assist you.

Challenge

The client wanted to move onsite test resources to a clearer test-driven approach, using tools and automation frameworks in-sprint.

Solution

Sogeti provided skilled technical resources in the role of ‘Developer in Test’. Our advice on implementation strategies has enabled the client to raise the bar in terms of in-sprint quality. Partnering with Sogeti means you get the support you need for defining and committing to your agile transition.

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Sogeti is a leading provider of local, professional technology services and a global Microsoft Alliance Partner. We specialise in Application, Infrastructure and Engineering Services, offering cutting-edge solutions around Application Development, Testing, Mobile, cloud, and BI and Analytics, combining world class methodologies and our global delivery model, Rightshore®. Sogeti brings together more than 20,000 professionals in 15 countries and has a strong local presence in over 100 locations in Europe, USA and India. Sogeti is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cap Gemini S.A., listed on the Paris Stock Exchange.

About Sogeti

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Customer experience: Customer research firm

Challenge

The client faced project doubt when moving their delivery approach to SCRUM.

Solution

The Sogeti engagement lead demonstrated the benefits of adopting a Test Driven or a Behaviour Driven approach, highlighting benefits of agreeing the acceptance at the start of the sprint cycle and promoting collaboration. Sogeti and the client have built a partnership, and our proven trusted advisor role has been expanded to preferred single supplier of testing. Sogeti can help you to demonstrate the benefits of agile across your defined stakeholders to gain commitment to the change and full collaboration.