From Traditional to Agile Software Development - Changing Culture, Processes, and Architecture

Product management generates requirements and passes them off to development, who produces software and throws it over the wall to test teams. The siloed teams embark on a cycle of iterations, each working separately, which results in big bang releases where the connection to the customer is several steps away from the creative process.

As a new collaborative mindset takes hold within an agile organization, these old approaches no longer work, which means new processes must be implemented. In an agile environment, all groups are integrated, which removes the thick walls separating the teams and provides better collaboration. Product management and full-stack developers constantly working together on one team, generating small increments of value and validating what they build with real data (i.e. A/B testing, canary deploys.)

Teams must implement enough process to develop a consistent rhythm, which takes the form of agile ceremonies (planning, retrospectives), agile work tracking (sprints, Kanban boards), and agile roles (scrum master, product owner). The idea is to have just enough process for teams to function but not so much that the process itself becomes the focus.

These new processes allow organizations to maintain an immediate feedback loop during development. Every team delivers on their own cadence, while promoting continuous integration, development, deployment, testing, and delivery.

Discover a new architecture

An organization transitioning from traditional to agile software development must also change the way they architect their products. Even with a new mindset and new processes, if an organization is building monoliths, they cannot be agile. As an esteemed colleague of mine once said, “stack is a four letter word”. This is because monolithic software is highly connected, complex, and difficult to decompose. Monoliths can’t easily be partitioned into smaller services because of the lack of durable APIs and explicit contracts between concerns. Because all of the software is intertwined, teams must coordinate carefully with other teams, making it difficult to deliver autonomously.

Conversely, in a modular, microservice architecture (MSA), developers define portions of the software and constantly work with product management, software testing, customers, and others to iterate small changes in parts of the software on a weekly or even daily basis. Developers quickly try out new features to see if they have merit. If a new feature looks promising, the team can canary deploy to a subset of customers and monitor analytics (i.e. clicks), thereby testing and receiving valuable feedback faster.

Results of developing with a new agile methodology

Several years ago, I initiated a team tasked to develop new multi-cloud management software that simplifies private and public cloud usage. The team designed an as-a-service offering to provide customers improved access to a pool of IT resources spanning public cloud services and their on-premises environments.

To develop a better quality product and deliver it faster, the HPE OneSphere team (named after the application) needed to leave the old culture, processes, and architecture behind. Embracing a new agile methodology, the team successfully released the project on an aggressive schedule with quality. But more importantly, the team established a culture of continuous innovation, continuous integration, continuous deploy, and continuous release. Transforming the team into a modern, agile-oriented organization allows us to react quickly to changes in the market, improve quality, continuously deliver value, and ultimately delight customers.

Three pillars of agile software development

Delivering working, tested, deployable software on an incremental basis is possible. But it involves more than just getting teams within development and operations to work together. Agile software development involves the entire organization and a commitment to change three important pillars:culture, processes, and software architecture.