In November 2008 Capgemini has set up the SOS (Snelle Ontwikkel Service = Rapid Development Service) .Net Development program for a very large government agency in the Netherlands. This development service combines Agile development with the Rightshore model in a new and innovative way. We use the Accelerated Delivery Platform (ADP) for .Net to work in an Agile manner. This platform however was never before used for realizing applications together with India. By setting up Rightshore solutions for most best practices of ADP we are able to develop user-friendly applications rapidly for a competitive price.
In the development service we have aligned the collaboration with India with some of the best Agile practices. We do this as follows:
- Active user involvement. There are two workshops with end-users of the application every week. In these workshops we model the domain model and the use cases. English translations of the use cases are added immediately. Halfway through the day one of the developers leaves the workshop to share the gathered knowledge with team India. This is done using an Eye Catcher or a C-Port. The most recent version of the model is used for this knowledge transfer. We do this halfway through the day in order to use the time difference to its fullest. It enables the India team to prepare questions during their morning the next day which they can subsequently ask the Dutch developers.
- Short iterations. We deliver working software to the end-users every week. The new version of the software is installed on the test environment by developers in India. The end-users test this application themselves so that they can give feedback on what is built. The developers in the Netherlands discuss with the developers in India, whether it is better to solve the findings in the Netherlands or in India. A new version is deployed one week later including the solved findings.
- Stand up meetings. Every day at eleven o’clock the Eye Catcher rings for a synch up. Within fifteen minutes changes and findings are discussed and all questions asked. Functional, technical or sometimes even personal.
- Model driven architecture. We use Enterprise Architect to model the domain model and use cases. The Smart use cases we use have a low granularity. This gives us the opportunity to include the entire use case specification in the description of the use cases. Both teams in India and the Netherlands are and feel responsible to keep the model up to date.
- Code generation. We use the Accelerated Delivery Framework (ADF) which, in combination with the Tobago code generator, gives us a solid foundation for the applications we develop. ADF has out of the box support for a lot of different patterns which can be used in your applications. Next to this the ADF delivers a huge set of templates which we use for code generation. Generation of the code is done in India, but always in close consult with the Dutch developers.
Because of the described techniques and the unique way of collaborating we build good quality applications fast. And with a competitive price!
Edwin Croes & Wouter van Twillert