Software Engineer’s Role in the Company

1. Software Engineer’s Role in the Company Managing Production and Support Services Margarita Antonova Volunteer Trainer @ Telerik Academy academy.telerik.com Business System Analyst Telerik Corporation IT Developers Business Product

2. Table of Contents • Organizing Software Production • Waterfall • Agile • Workshop 1: Process Management • Capacity & Overhead • Cost-Benefit Analysis • Time-Value Challenges • Workshop 2: Cost-Benefit Analysis of Product Ideas

3. Organizing Software Production Approaches and techniques for efficient development of software products

4. Organizing Development • Requirements – do we know what we need to produce? • Design – do we know how we want it to look like? • Is an interface necessary • User Experience • Development – do we understand what it needs to do? • Can we develop it? – Technology Acquaintance • How long will it take us? • Quality Assurance – is it actually usable? • Feedback – circle back to requirements

5. Organizing Development • Who works on developing a software? • Back-end developers • Front-end developers • Database developers • Designers and UX experts • QAs and Testers • Business Analysts • Project Managers • Production Managers

6. Organizing Development Waterfall vs. Agile

7. Waterfall Model • History – Winston W. Royce, 1970 • Definition: • Sequential design processwhere progress is seen as flowing steadily downwards one by one through the phases • Consists of phases, each phase has to be complete before the next one begins

8. Waterfall Model • Phases: • Conception • Initiation • Analysis • Design • Production • Testing • Implementation • Training • Maintenance

9. Waterfall Model • Pros – Big Design Upfront • Complete requirements • Cheaper to fix issues in the design stage • Documentation – no loss of knowledge • Allows easier employee turnover • Simple and linear • Good for stable projects

10. Waterfall Model • Cons: • Requirements may not be complete or clear • Expensive to fix design or requirements issues in the Production or later stages • Disconnected design and implementation • Unrealistic expectation that one phase can be fully complete before the other • Lack of transparency for client

11. Waterfall Model Example: ERP System development and implementation

12. Agile Methods • JIT and TaiichiOnho of Toyota

13. Agile Methods • JIT and TaiichiOnho of Toyota • Just-in Time lean principles – increase return on investment by decreasing in-process costs

14. Agile Methods • Some JIT benefits: • Employees with multiple skills are used more efficiently. • Increased emphasis on supplier relationships. • Supplies come in at regular intervals throughout the production day. • The flow of goods from warehouse to shelves improves.

15. Agile Methods • Agile Software Development: • Allows change in requirements • Promotes collaboration and cross-functional teams • Encourage rapid and flexible response to change • Development in increments • History – around since the 1950s, picked up speed in the mid 1990s • Methods – Kanban and Scrum

16. Agile Methods – Kanban • JIT and the Kanban cards • Kanban method definition: • A process management method following the agile incremental doctrine • Main feature – the Kanban signboard

17. Agile Methods – Kanban

18. Agile Methods – Kanban

19. Agile Methods – Kanban • Kanban Practices • Visualize • Limit WIP – pull system • Manage flow – measure & evaluate effects • Transparency – make policies clear • Feedback portals • Evolve through experimentation – continuous, incremental and evolutionary changes

20. Agile Methods – Kanban • Pros: • Simple and easy to understand • Flexible – sticky on, sticky off • Easy to follow – small tasks that are always visible • Less planning • Less friction among stakeholders

21. Agile Methods – Kanban • Cons: • Very fluid => risk for lack of discipline • Little emphasis on estimation • Hard to point delivery dates • Hard to measure pace

22. Agile Methods – Kanban Example: Working on multitude of tasks with equally high priority

23. Agile Methods – Scrum • Definition – an incremental software development framework for complex problems

24. Agile Methods – Scrum • Key concepts • Scrum Master & Product Owner • Self-organizing, cross-functional development team • Sprint increments produce a shippable product • Product backlog

25. Agile Methods – Scrum • Pros: • Transparency – Scrums and Reviews • Flexibility in adapting to changing or evolving requirements • Emphasis on value • Allows for easier estimations • Promotes measuring development pace - velocity

26. Agile Methods – Scrum • Cons: • Difficult to implement and maintain especially in teams that don’t know each other well or that work on a product from scratch • Blurred roles can cause friction in the team • A lot of overhead for planning, reviewing and retrospectives • Due to not finalized requirements, sprint work can be easily disrupted

27. Agile Methods – Scrum Example: Improving and updating an existing product

28. Role play in your teams Project: Website to sell shoes Players: Client, Developer, Designer, Project Manager Issue: Shoes are in stock Workshop 1: Process Management

29. Software Capacity & Overhead Challenges in applying our limited resources to a vast array of potential porducts

30. What Is Software Capacity? • Capacity – maximum possible output • Overhead - the ongoing operating costs of running a business • Capacity and overhead in the software business • Capacity includes the unclear tasks – bugs, code refactoring and maintenance, etc. • Cost relates greatly to time

31. Time vs. Value Do we code fast or do we code well?

32. Opportunity Cost • Definition • There is a choice to be made between mutually exclusive alternatives • Opportunity cost = value of the most profitable or lucrative alternative not chosen • Examples • You have 2 weeks and 2 developers: SEO vs. Processing purchases

33. Cost-Benefit Analysis • Definition - process for calculating and comparing benefits and costs • Justify investment • Provide basis for comparison • When is it applied? • Software industry examples: • Producing Product A vs. Product B. • Producing fast vs. well • Shipping cycle vs. Maintenance

34. Cost-Benefit Analysis Time + Effort + Maintainability vs. Profitability Maintainability = future time + effort Profitability = now and in the future

35. Cost-Benefit Results • Supporting Production • Service Packs & Updates • Support Department • Cost-Benefit Analysis of having it • Challenges

36. Organizational Challenges • Outsourcing • Geography • Language and culture

37. Software CompanyTypical Structure http://academy.telerik.com/student-courses/...

38. Workshop 2:Start Analyzing Consider the Pros and Cons of having Support for your products

39. Homework Assignment • Identify Software product or services ideas • Apply Cost-Benefit Analysis principles on each • Rank ideas based on the analysis results

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