With the allure of lower running costs, flexible payment options, easier deployment, improved security and scalability, as well as painless upgrade paths, Software as a Service (SaaS) has steadily been increasing in popularity year after year. In fact, SaaS has become so popular that it is estimated that it will account for approximately 60% of public cloud spending by 2020.
Most companies are subject to some form of regulatory obligation, whether you’re building a product, or providing a service, you have to operate within a certain set of rules which have been created to ensure that your product or service is not only safe for use, but also provides value to your customers. Compliance at its core is being able to prove that you are doing what is expected according to this prescribed set of rules.
More and more businesses today are making continuous process improvement a top priority in order to ensure ongoing customer satisfaction while reducing costs and increasing profits.
The right implementation strategy is an essential component to being able to claim project success. Your project team could have spent months, even years, building what’s perceived to be the perfect product, service or process, but if it’s not implemented correctly, you could just be looking at wasted effort at the end of the day.
Big Data has become a popular buzzword within the IT industry. It may have you thinking: Is this something I should be paying more attention to? First, let’s start with the definition. Big Data is not just a lot of data, it refers specifically to data sets that are so large it’s impossible to capture, store, process and analyse using traditional software and database solutions.
With the introduction of Agile, DevOps and Rapid Application Development (RAD), we’ve seen how software development practices have evolved to support shorter turnaround times for the delivery of new software and features.
In the cut-throat world of project delivery, it can be easy to lose sight of the real reason why you’re doing what you’re doing. With immense pressure for projects to hit their planned go live date, it’s easy to understand how teams may be eager to claim success as soon as they’ve crossed that finishing line without taking a step back to compare the project results to the original project goals.
Why should you care about managing up? Because job satisfaction cannot be achieved in the absence of a good relationship with the person you report to. It’s what makes everything flow, ensuring a mutually beneficial relationship that supports a productive, collaborate and supportive work environment.
For projects following an agile methodology, the term “backlog” refers to pieces of work, otherwise known as “user stories”, that are not currently being worked on. In traditional project thinking, the backlog would also constitute the project scope, i.e. what needs to be delivered. The only difference here being, your backlog can (and likely will) evolve as the product you’re working on grows and new requirements and features become known.
With modern technology providing so many different ways to communicate these days, you may be wondering how effective virtual communication can still be an issue. The reality is, even with so many new and improved communication tools at our disposal,