Embrace Modular Technology & Agile Process to Deliver Business Impact (Section 2)

Introduction | Modularization Driving Agile Productivity

Companies that are investing in technology architecture today are creating a strategic advantage and a competitive differentiator for their businesses.

Enterprise architecture represents the vanguard

of modernization and digital transformation.

Organizations have largely moved to Agile methodologies. Agile productivity frameworks have a track record of helping drive iterative value, as well as helping product development remain focused on desirable product behavior.

However, the practice of sprint-based deliverables can be challenged by many commonplace aspects of enterprise software, such as:

·      large, complex codebases,

·      older or fragmented technology stacks,

·      differing customer needs,

·      complex data needs, and

·      evolving understanding of product direction.

Compromised architecture and big technical problems are not the environment in which Agile delivery thrives. Rather, they represent impediments which can reduce productivity and the quality of the final product.

Modularization presents itself as a way forward through large-scale technical encumbrances of a system. It can represent a cleaner delivery of functionality and help deployment options. As a step to technical modernization, modularization can also be a pathway to help reduce the risk of bringing portions of a product codebase forward in time while maintaining a complete working system. And, modularity can help to enable the shift toward increased leverage of cloud services.

The goal of modularity at the broadest level may be allied with a product strategy, wherein individual components or portions of a platform may be combined in ways that make sense to users. Formalizing the boundaries of service components within existing products may help to increase the opportunities in the same way that outward facing APIs have allowed customers to derive more diverse functionality from product offerings.

The acceptance of Agile methodology has come from the strategic and financial need to accelerate product development to provide differentiation and excellence in experience. Removing the obstacles to that delivery is a priority which must be taken seriously at the organizational level.