Agile development methodologies such as Scrum are by no means new in developed countries. In fact, Scrum has been created more than 10 years ago, but in Panama not many companies adopt it as a work methodology. Even in universities it has not been fully adopted in the curricula.
Agile methodologies have proven to be very efficient not only in small software projects with dubious requirements. It has even been proven to be successful in large projects, such is the case of the FBI’s SENTINEL project.
“The primary lesson? Agile actually works. It’s not perfect and many people in government and in the contractor community still struggle with it, but it’s succeeding where it counts—enabling the rollout of large-scale IT projects that are on time, on budget and actually do what stakeholders want them to do. Imagine that.”
In Scrum, a functional product is delivered to the user in short periods (iterations), say every two weeks, where the user can interact with the product. This helps to ensure that as features are implemented, feedback is received on what is required in the final product. This avoids investing too much time in planning requirements that are often defined without really knowing how the end user will interact with the product. It helps to reduce the risk of having to invest too much money and time in something that is not useful to the end user.
Benefits
Innovative and high-risk projects, typical of technology-based ventures, benefit considerably from using agile methodologies. Launching an MVP (minimum viable product) to receive timely and prompt feedback from the market is indispensable in this type of projects. Having to invest large sums of money, to launch a finished software that is not yet certain to be successful; is a thing of the past.
Developing a technological venture under the Scrum framework can increase the probability of success: the initial investment will be minimal, by focusing on developing an MVP to help validate the idea. If the validation is successful, the feedback from the end users in each iteration will help implement the improvements that the users expect.
There are many areas of our Panama where technology can come in to solve so many of the problems we still face as a developing country. Just look at the health and education sectors, diverse opportunities to solve problems through apps and technology in general. Relying on agile methodologies to mitigate the risks of entering this world of opportunities for the good of the country, should be part of our vision. That is efficient and fast at the same time.
