SAI conference : KBC .NET factory

KBC .NET software factory

Yesterday (11/10/2007) I attended a conference organized by SAI (www.sai.be) about Agile development and a .NET software factory as used at the KBC group (www.kbc.be) , a banking and insurance group.

The presenters (Peter Bauwens, Jan Laureys, Kim Verlot) did a very fine job in explaining and sharing their experiences with setting up a Software delivery & Maintenance center for .NET application with the KBC .NET software factory .

I'll try to sum up some point in a benefits & concerns style, meaning the things I 've learned and the things I wish I understood better.

Benefits

• Software factories (in the technology sense of the word) alone don't cut it. There is also a process part and an organization(people) part that are equally, if not more , important than the technology at hand.
• Pragmatism is key. They were not afraid to mix more "classical" engineering approaches in their agile methodology: The key phrase of Jan was : being agile in an agile way. for example scrum was expanded with an envisioning and a kind of requirements gathering period. After the scrum sprints, a phase for stabilization and transition was included.
• Visual Studio Team foundation was a big enabler in this way of working
• Only allow a fixed application architecture with some variability (winforms, Asp.net, batch)
• Always question your factory: it is never finished. Incorporate feedback of the developers.
• Only work with people who believe in this way of working because not the technology is the biggest hurdle (you have a lot of training possibilities) but the process asks a particular kind of mentality.

Concerns

• Having authority to impose certain things (process, technology) requires managemente involvement from day one. I wish I knew who I make a business case to invest in a software factory an SDC & Maintenance center
• While having a very flat project structure (project administrator, Lead developer, developers) makes communication easy I would say nevertheless I found the "burden" and responsibity they put on the LDEV very big. He combines, in variuos degrees, technology , process and domain knowledge. While writing user stories and talking (and thinking with) the "business" , he also was responsible for keeping the process on track and prefereable also knew the technology. I did not hear anything about system analist or functional analysist or business analist being a part of the team writing the use cases. I wish I knew how I could manage that.
• Project assignements go through a process of determing their criticality before being assigned to the development are's withing the KBC group (Low level SLA application and High Level SLA applications). Until now the delivery centers worked on LOLA apps. i wish I knew how I could organise a delivery center for HILA apps with .NET as major technology platform?
• The technology pilar changes at a relatively fast pace. When they started in 2005/2006. Some technology from Microsoft wasn't mature enough (Microsoft Software factories) .I wish I knew if it would a safe bet now to go along that path to make our software factory/Delivery center.

Once again, congratualation for the presentors.

Best regards,

Alexander Nowak

Software factory

Reuse of people,process and technology

A software factory is an approach to build applications with more or less the same structural characteristics through the use of more or less fixed combination of skilled people on the various topics within software development, processes and technology. So you say that software factories is a form of reuse. Not only "code", but also processes and people.

With a high degree of “industrialization”, it is seeking the maximum efficiency & productivity through:

• Processes Standardization for project management and software development
• Re-utilization & use of frameworks
• Automation & tools
• Skilled professionals
  

With these strategies it wants to reduce the development cycles (“Time to Market”) and the total cost of the project while keeping a high degree of quality for the complete cycle.
So if you have lot applications that share same structural characteristics such the development language, code organisation, and usage of third party libraries you can think about creating such a generic software Creation platform. I will be reused for all the concerned applications. More over you will be encouraged to let your future application share as much characteristics as possible. The more standardized to more benefit you’ll gain from re-use.

Usually Software factories are organized around a broad technology platform like .NET, JAVA, or SAP


Factory metaphor limitations


As with all metaphors you must not drive them to far else you’ll end up creating false expectations. Creating software is not the same as making cars or radios where predefined parts are assembled together while moving from one point in the factory to another until they are completed, checked and shipped. Software is not a mass-production item. It is not even tangible. More over, software is never finished. It build adjusted, expanded, reshaped throughout it life-time. Even during “assembly” the shape of the “product” is completely written in stone.

Microsoft definition of Software factories


Microsoft also uses the term software factories but it is not used to describe the assembly-line idea. They use it to name several Development accelerators packages. It frees the developer of creating something from scratch. The packages are materialized in the form of Visual Studio wizards, templates, project structures, components, frameworks but also best practices in the form of white papers.
De developer working with such a software factory in Visual studio will see the structure of the project so that the developer knows exactly which things to complete; which deliverables he has to work on; which are fixed for him, because they represent the architecture of that application.
So this definition does not emphasis on people and processes that much but rather on automation (technology).