Developing the WITRAC platform with Agile and Lean methodologies
Discover how WITRAC product team combines Agile and Lean methodologies to develop the platform that makes your supply chain assets smarter.
Digital acceleration is a reality that is driven by growing competitiveness and increasingly demanding market requirements. In this environment, the fourth industrial revolution or Industry 4.0 is becoming increasingly important as it reduces operating costs through greater efficiency. The increasing accumulation of large amounts of data or Big Data, the use of algorithms to process them and the massive interconnection of digital systems and devices or Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) allows cycle times to be shortened and bottlenecks to be reduced.
At WITRAC, for the development of our platform that makes all supply chain assets smart, we use a combination of Agile Methodologies (SCRUM and Kanban) and its precursor Lean Manufacturing as a framework. This allows us to be at the forefront of Industry 4.0 and to add, in an agile way, value to our product by responding to market needs.
The Agile Project Methodology is based on iterative and incremental development, where requirements and solutions evolve over time according to the need of the project. The Lean Methodology is oriented to operational excellence obtaining maximum efficiency of resources. A characteristic shared by both philosophies is the importance they place on quickly delivering a product to users that generates value for them. Both ‘lean’ and ‘agile’ seek to constantly adapt their processes to the changing needs of users. With the ‘Agile’ approach we are able to focus on the user’s needs and provide them with value in a fast way, obtaining a quick feedback that allows us to iterate at the same speed, refining our product. Applying ‘Lean’ we focus on developing the product while maintaining the quality expected by the user and being able to do it in the most efficient way possible, eliminating obstacles to achieve shorter times.
With the objective of developing a modular and configurable platform, at Witrac we work in product increments combining Agile and Lean methodologies in three development areas: software, hardware and delivery.
One element that we would like to highlight in the way these three teams work is the stand ups. With this type of meetings we achieve a constant flow of communication that facilitates the alignment between all product areas and allows the development of a consistent and robust solution that meets the needs of the market. Witrac’s stand-ups successfully combine remote and face-to-face meetings, as the team is spread throughout Spain. This fact allows us maximum flexibility, as well as an extension in the search for profiles beyond the physical location of our offices.
Now look at two types of standups: Weeklies and Dailies.
During the weeklies, which are attended by the CTO, the Head of Product, the SCRUM Masters of product development (HW, SW and Delivery) and the Product Owner, priorities, incidents are addressed and all activities are aligned with the product strategy, keeping the focus on making the platform adapt to the needs of users in a flexible manner.
Regarding the dailies of the software development team, we highlight the pre-refinements between the SCRUM Masters and the PO, in which we work on the meeting point between what the users need and how to materialize it from the technical point of view, the What and the How.
Before the start of each sprint, after the pre-refinement sessions, each SCRUM Master meets with his team to analyze in detail all the new functionalities to be implemented in the sprint. They are then subdivided into smaller tasks so that more than one developer can work on the same functionality and it is developed in less time.
To maximize efficiency and mitigate the particularities of remote work, at Witrac we use different management tools. For project management we use the Atlassian suite: Jira for project planning and Confluence as a repository. In the communication area we use Slack and Discord allowing a fluid and constant communication between the teams. For the management of everything related to user experience (UX) we use Miro, Notion and Figma, which allows the team to keep creativity at a high level without losing sight of the product objectives.
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