Thought Leadership From Industry Peers

Rapid Prototyping to Distributed Agile Development – How to build Scalable Solutions

Ashin Antony Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Ignitho Technologies
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In my previous blogs, we have already seen how to gain insight and sense opportunities for innovation, vision a feasible idea and convert it into prototype or Proof-of-Concept (POC) using a frugal approach. Once the proof of concept has been developed, Scaling up is the next stage in Digital Leadership which will be discussed in detail in this final blog in the five part blog seies on Digital Leadership. It is the refining and filtering of the concept from a problem-solver to a fully-fledged product with distinct features for better business outcomes. Scale up also involves scaling out ideas or features from the concept that did not work.

Every product or solution may have flaws. These flaws could prove to be the unique differentiator for an enterprise in a very competitive market. It is crucial to retain customer loyalty so that customers don’t go in search of a better solutions elsewhere. This is when IT leaders need to consider if they are ready to take the next step in digital leadership by scaling up their product.

How can a digital leader embrace this opportunity to scale up the prototype in a frugal manner?

Active Listening to Customer Requirements

Based on our insights and analysis, we have created a working prototype working with users. The journey does not end here. As the product is scaled, the continuous feedback from customers is still critical for success. The customer can help us to understand the areas where our concept performs well and where it needs modifications or upgrades.

Practice better project development methods

Now we understand where our product needs modifications so that it can withstand the competition and plan for the longer term to retain customer loyalty. To execute this, there needs to be a rapid ramping up of resources in the form of manpower, time, motivation, and investment. In today’s digital world, availability of these resources is a primary concern. At Ignitho, we have seen success in the form of increased productivity and reduced speed to delivery in scaling up innovative solutions through our Rapid Prototyping and Distributed Agile methodologies. Ignitho’s team of experts include close to 100 professionals particularly trained in Agile software development methodologies such as Scrum and Kanban. Our Agile Scrum development framework follows an incremental approach practising the right norms of Agile.

Embrace the complexities

It is easy to get into a comfortable zone and conclude that the existing solution is enough to satisfy customers. Leaders can become complacent to scale up their products when faced with challenges such as lack of time to devote to new ideas, resources to develop these ideas. The fear of failure after tasting success can stop any leader from thinking out-of-the-box and accept new challenges to be worked upon. As a digital leader, one needs to stay ahead of the competition. And, this calls for embracing new challenges and making a success out of it. This requires resilience, time and energy.

Scale-out what didn’t work

If something doesn’t work out, it’s time to bid goodbye to the individual feature/method/portion and quickly. Along with scaling up, it is also highly essential to scale out what doesn’t work and find out from customers as soon as possible. Customers will very quickly move to another product if there is something better on the market. Hence, it is never too late to admit the drawbacks and remove it from your innovation plans.

Choose an innovation partner who helps to take your innovations to the next level without disrupting your entire innovation budget. Ignitho provides a Frugal cost-effective approach to scale up your innovations.

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Ashin Antony Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Ignitho Technologies
Ashin brings to Ignitho two decades of technology leadership experience and was with Mindtree for close to a decade playing key tech leadership roles. His areas of specialization include Big Data, Cloud and Emerging Technologies; with expertise in designing and implementing digital enterprise solutions. Ashin is driving Ignitho’s Data, Cloud and Digital Engineering areas. He is also a business partner and is part of the core leadership team at Nuivio Ventures, Ignitho’s parent company.
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