Close Customer Collaboration - the BMW case
Abstract
During his presentation Johan Lybaert, program manager at Cegeka, will illustrate how BMW and Cegeka established an efficient working relationship that lead to a successful project. Cegeka's agile development practices largely contributed to the realization of the set goal: getting an application that is in line with the customer's real requirements.
One of the weak spots in most development tracks is that applications are carefully specified beforehand but that, in the end, the application doesn't fit the customer's actual needs.
Sometimes, customers may find it difficult to express their needs, and sometimes, they don't know quite exactly what they really want. It is only by cooperating very closely with the development team, in a highly interactive model, that the end result will be to the customer's satisfaction. The agile development methodology provides practices that involve the customer as part of the team and that establish short feedback loops whilst the application is being developed.
BMW and Cegeka closely worked together as one team, having daily scrum meetings. Communication was very open and impediments were put on the table straightforwardly to get resolved asap.
The development was realized in small 2-week iterations (sprints). During each of those sprints, all the occurring business questions were answered by business experts. The complete team was brought together in one and the same project room. At the end of each iteration, a demo was given. This method of working allowed Cegeka to get an early feedback of the customer and to gain new insights that enabled Cegeka's team to build a system that fully meets the customer's concrete business needs.
At the end of my presentation, you will be convinced of the fact that the agile development practices lead to a close collaboration with the customer and, as a consequence, to successful projects.
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