Agile software development is a combination of iterative and incremental process models with focus on process adaptability and customer satisfaction by rapid delivery of working software product. Agile Methods break the product into small incremental builds. These builds are provided in fortnightly iterations.

Waterfall is a structured software development methodology, and often can be quite rigid. This is because all the planning takes places prior to a project commencing. Waterfall does not embrace the fact that requirements and priorities may change throughout a project, whereas the Agile methodology is known for its flexibility and achieving the most value in the shortest amount of time.

MVP stands for Minimum Viable Product. This is an important concept in the software world. What you do is design your software, thinking of all the possible features. You then strip it back to the bare essentials. What’s the “minimum” product we can build, that has the value we need? The value depends on what you must achieve from the product – for example the minimum might be that it has certain important functionality and allows it to be bought online with a credit card. However you might decide that allowing customers to buy “on account” is not necessary from day one. Therefore if it’s not critical, don’t build it. Then you end up with a leaner product, costing less, and available much sooner. Then you get feedback and really start to understand what people want out of the software. You might find out nobody wanted to buy it on account after all. If you try to think of – and include – every possible feature up front, it takes far longer to build, which costs a lot more of course, and it simply delays getting it live, in use and bringing value to your organisation. Find out more about our software consultancy services.

Yes, and we have dozens of examples of this in our portfolio. We work with Microsoft Xamarin and React Native, allowing our developers to write native Android and iOS apps. For more information see Mobile App Development.

There are numerous advantages to outsourcing software development, the most obvious being you can switch us “on” and “off” as needed to match your projects requirements. Also, by outsourcing to an established and trusted software house you are gaining access to our talented team. At DCSL GuideSmiths we have everything needed for quality end to end software development.

Building bespoke software allows you to build the software in a way which matches your exact requirements, providing complete business process optimisation. As opposed to trying to “make something fit” which is a common occurrence when it comes to off-the-shelf solutions. Most importantly, when DCSL GuideSmiths builds your software, you own the code (or IP / Intellectual Property). This is important because it becomes an asset to your business and holds its value. It’s a bit like the difference between buying and renting a property.