Process improvement


In working with software development over 17 years, we have developed a substantial software development process expertise throughout our delivery organization. We are now bringing a focus to this inhouse expertise, and offering to share the benefits of our extensive experience with interested clients. The client benefits can be huge, but we also offer a flexible approach, working with clients to focus on the highest impact areas for improvement first. Two currently packaged solutions include Agile Coaching and QA Process Consulting.

Agile Coaching

Even though the theory of Agile is relatively simple, the actual adoption of Agile approach is seldom easy, especially when done in "top-to-bottom" way. Faced with Scrum for the first time, people ask a lot of questions. How long should our Sprints be? What is the right granularity of a User Story? Most importantly, what do we do when the ideal model from the book does not seem to work in our case?

While figuring out all the small details by trial and error might be a viable option in certain situations, it will definitely cost a lot in terms of both time and money. Even worse, it does not take many wrong decisions to ruin people's enthusiasm about Agile; that is why most of the success stories of companies who make the switch to Agile begin with an Agile expert.

Exigen Services began utilizing Agile processed during a series of projects for a well-known chip manufacturer in 2002. Seven years and over 100 projects later, we are a recognized leader in Agile software development, especially in the area of Agile outsourcing. Since 2006, we have been providing Agile coaching services to our customers.

Exigen Services' Agile coach is an expert in Scrum or/and Extreme Programming who has successfully completed several Agile projects in a varying environment and has vast experience in training and mentoring Agile teams internally. The coach will spend from one to three weeks with the team in question working on specifically tailored program to provide training, guidance, and feedback to the team members as well as to help the management understand associated benefits, risks, and impediments. The program has been highly valued by such customers as Standard & Poor's, Dell, and Deutsche Bank.

QA Process Consulting

Quality Assurance is often viewed as a relatively unimportant part of the software delivery process. These views usually result in an inadequate quality of the software delivered to the end-users. Unfortunately, it can be very hard to determine how much testing is sufficient for a project, making overspending on QA a common negative result.

Our QA Process Consulting offering is designed to help a delivery manager to strike a balance between the two extremes of quality and QA testing process. It consists of a project assessment in order to develop the definition of the acceptable product quality and to suggest ways of optimizing QA process to achieve that quality at smallest possible costs. It might include training on tools and methodologies for the team and management. The Exigen Services offering is always tailored for the specific engagement; however, the QA expert is usually expected to identify potential issues, recommend a solution, and point out the related risks and benefits.