Every, or nearly every, company wishing to remain relevant is aware of the need for a digital footprint. That is both toward the company’s customers and internal end-users. Therefore, software delivery process refinement is a must to accomplish this.
Software delivery covers the entire process of a software’s life cycle: from the time when the need arises to the development and through the time when it becomes live. This process doesn’t end until the final product reaches the end user. To be successful, it’s crucial to fully understand why it’s profitable, and what are the several approaches to make it happen.
5 best practices for delivery management software
There exist numerous good practices that are recommended in order to achieve successful delivery management of software. Within them, we can find the following five:
- Set your Focus Where It Should Be: On Your Goals
Having a clear understanding of both the project’s objectives and the business is a key point in software delivery development.
It’s crucial for the company to determine what the purpose of the development is: what problem will it solve, how will it benefit the end-user, and so on.
With all this in mind, the team can begin to work. This applies to an in-house team or an outsourced product development team.
By focusing on the end goal, the solution will be effective, and delivery will have a much better likelihood of being delivered in less time.
- Make Early Testing
Ongoing testing is a key element in the software delivery lifecycle. Early testing leads to fewer bugs, and fewer delays when putting the development out for production.
Furthermore, the end-users appreciate a properly working app. And, in order to have an excellent E2E user experience, it’s imperative to make minor adjustments along the development process. It’s the only way to achieve a high-quality result.
The entire team needs to have this in mind so that they can seamlessly collaborate to carry out this task.
- Set up Your Dream-team, and Give Them All They Need
It might seem a bit obvious, but an essential aspect of achieving a high-quality and fast software-delivery job is to hire the right professionals to achieve it. These are professionals whom the company can totally trust to deliver the best product.
A second important factor is to ensure that the hired profiles fit well with each other. That way they will work smoothly together and will be prepared to solve any issue that might present itself throughout the process.
In addition, team members will need to have their priorities well set. Without the appropriate software delivery tools, even the greatest team is restricted in its ability to accomplish. Ensure that your team has all the hardware and software they need.
- Allow Yourselves Some Flexibility
Flexibility is indispensable in every aspect of life. The software delivery life cycle is not an exception.
As the project progresses, unforeseen events are likely to come up. Those may require some changes in the course, or in how something is being assembled within the project.
Some requirements that were initially proposed may need to be cut back, for example. Therefore, it’s crucial that the team members know how to accommodate all these needs, when required.
- Choose an Approach that Best Suits the Team’s Requirements
There is more than one approach to achieving software delivery. However, it’s always ideal to add value to what is being done through the framework that best fits the team’s goals.
Agile is the most popular, which we’ll discuss in depth in the following paragraphs.
Agile for Software Delivery Processes
If you’re working in IT, or if you’re interested in it, chances are you’ve heard the term Agile several times. This framework seeks to deliver as many software products as possible, in as little time as possible while adding value, so that they are high-quality.
Let’s explore some benefits of working with Agile when developing software products.
Early Delivery
Agile teams are driven by Sprints. In other words, work time periods range from 1 to 4 weeks.
That makes it possible to deliver new functionalities and experiences much faster.
Flexibility
Going back to flexibility, Agile is highly open to change.
This framework offers the possibility to plan ahead for a certain Sprint. However, there are also instances that allow refining the backlog and re-prioritizing it.
That means that if there’s a need to shift a goal or to change the way of doing a task, an Agile team will be able to adapt easily.
User-centered
Typically, Agile teams use a dashboard in which they build cards containing all the information required to work on a certain task.
These cards are usually built according to the criterion of “user stories”, which centers the characteristics of the product to be developed around real users. That way, products are designed to add value to the end user by involving them during the entire software development process.
The implementation of good practices when producing software delivery is critical to achieving high-quality products. That means that end users will get user-friendly software with all the functionalities they expect and need. Therefore, they are much more likely to choose your company’s app over the competition’s.
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