MKS Integrity for the Agile Development Environment
Agile methodologies are gaining interest in software development organizations as they have been shown to be more effective than traditional approaches when the initial definition of requirements is vague or the rate of change is likely to be high. Unlike traditional approaches, which are focused on following a plan, Agile methodologies are about adapting to change.
Agile leverages concepts from Lean Manufacturing, in terms of implementing “just enough” process and artifacts to deliver working software, and taking a “just in time” approach to development activities, rather than trying to define all requirements up front or make all major design decisions during the first iteration.
MKS Integrity enables organizations to adopt Agile software development methodologies while also managing traditional development methodologies. MKS Integrity simplifies the transition from traditional processes and practices to more agile ones, through its unsurpassed process flexibility. Built as a single solution, it provides out of the box transparency and real-time visibility with the ability to manage all development processes and artifacts in a single data repository.
MKS Integrity for Agile Features & Benefits
- Flexible Process – MKS Integrity implements a proven, powerful process engine which can support an unlimited number of methodologies. Processes can be defined per project, or shared across multiple projects or departments. Solution templates based on a variety of methodologies provide starting points to reduce the amount of configuration necessary to get a team up and running. MKS Integrity provides out of the box notification, powerful rule-based process automation, reports, charts and dashboards with drill-down capability.
- Built In Transparency – With its single, common repository that stores all development artifacts and records all development activities, and its rich relationship model, MKS Integrity makes it easy to navigate between user stories, tasks, code, tests and defects. Rule-based process automation can enforce best practices such as requiring code changes be associated with a task, or that user stories must have tests defined to validate them.
- Real Time Visibility – MKS Integrity reporting and searching is part of the core engine, and works directly off the live operational data to provide real-time status. Developer workspace views (Sandboxes) are dynamic, showing not only changes committed by others but other users' intent to make changes via lock icons.
- Support for Refactoring & Parallel Development – MKS Integrity provides first class support, with moves and renames handled as distinct operations, rather than being recorded as drops and adds, and change packages simplifying the job of managing related sets of changes. MKS Integrity, with its built-in support for configuration-level branching and powerful change propagation functionality, simplifies parallel development and reduces the risk of unresolved conflicts.
- Ease of Use and Low Administrative Overhead – MKS Integrity’s intuitive and easy to configure graphical interfaces provide powerful support with minimal user training required. Process definition is done via a graphical workflow modeler, enabling the refinement or augmenatation of process definition to be done with minimal effort.
- Enterprise Scalability – MKS Integrity enables enterprise organizations looking to adopt aspects of Agile to apply these Agile processes and practices across large teams or groups of teams, and delivers high level visibility at the department, business unit and enterprise levels.
Agile Development Doesn't Have to Mean Fragile Enterprise Process
