Agile Methodology and New Development Platform for Insurance Company

Overview
Our client, an insurance carrier, sought to completely overhaul its approach to internal software development. To promote efficiency and reduce platform-related costs, our client requested our assistance with a move from a waterfall approach to development planning to an Agile approach. At the same time, our client wished to migrate away from an externally hosted development platform to Microsoft Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) set up in a way our client could control directly.

Solution
A Concurrency architect and business analyst met with our client’s internal IT team to establish details about the current state and to map out the desired future state. By its nature, a development framework can’t simply be rolled out—it must be carefully planned to support the ways in which an organization will use it.

We then built out the technical specs for the new VSTS platform. In addition to structuring to support an agile methodology, the newly established platform freed our client from awkward limitations created by its prior platform having been hosted by a third-party provider for a fee. By shifting the framework to Microsoft directly, our client saved fees and gained full control over the setup.

In addition to establishing the framework itself, we worked with our client on how to implement the desired agile methodology, from initial code development through release of final code. Throughout this entire process, we provided hands-on training to the IT team and other organizational change management to ensure effective use of the platform.

The project resulted in a much more efficient approach to development itself together with elimination of unnecessary costs and hassles.