Scrum development on data mining system for an EU company

Keywords – Data mining, Scrum, .Net, 5 Shinetech developers
Roles involved – 1 Scrum master on client's side, 4 developers and 1 tester in Shinetech
Shinetech responsibilities – Architecture optimization & models' development

Client's situation
This is a service company that needs to develop a system to process large amount of data from its clients. The company itself has ever cooperated with a Bulgarian company for development outsourcing and stressed by the unaffordable development cost. It looked at the option of trying a Chinese company to reduce the cost.

Challenges:

• Complicated application development with changeable and unpredictable requirement.
• Low communication efficiency for lack of relevant business knowledge in the initial phase.
• The system should keep stable when running over 10,000,000 data.

Shinetech approach

• Separate working room --- Shinetech set up a separate room with enough whiteboard space for adequate communication within the whole team.
• Highly motivated & Self-management developers
  • Shinetech developers are encouraged to learn client's relevant business for effective communication especially on one-sentence requirement.
  • The provided developers are positive in their approach to problem solving and communicating with the client pro-actively.
  • Average team member experience is 5+ years in .net development.
• Make the client updated with the sprint progress – the client can learn the sprint progress at any time by PMS, Burn Down Charts and the daily scrum meeting.
• Early and continuous delivery of visible & working software is made in the end of each sprint which is around 2 weeks.
• Tools for issue management and work planning – PMS as an effective tool for project management is used in the project by which the client learns the project progress at any time and participates the specific daily work of each developer.
• Communication with the client – what the client really concern are two points: the one is problems and issues that set the development back, and another is whether the sprint could be completed on schedule.

  Ways for him to learn the information are:

  • Each develoer makes frequent communication with the client via email & Skype: email to clear requirement and Skype to tell development status.
  • Share the Sprint Burn-Down Charts with the client on a daily basis.
  • Inform the client in advance if the sprint could not be completed on schedule and work with him together to address the problems/issues.