Software & Systems Modelling


This article outlines our manifesto and journey in software development. Our mission is to lead globally in software applications through innovation, emphasizing the value of people, processes, and tools, now also incorporating education and support. We've refined our team structure to include cross-functional squads for optimal project output and quality, and we emphasize the importance of balance and continuous learning. Our processes are adaptable to customer needs, and our proprietary tools like Codebots drive our innovation. Ultimately, we aim to leverage our expertise to empower partners and excel in digital transformation.

This June, we attended TDC at Brisbane Powerhouse for an inspiring 3 days. The conference featured creative professionals sharing their journeys, with a standout didjeridu performance by Tommy of the Jagera people. The theme of AI in design emerged prominently, with discussions on AI as a collaborator and the responsibility of designers to shape the future. Key takeaways include AI's role in enhancing productivity and vulnerability, and the impact of consumer choices on corporate responsibility. Stay tuned for part 2 for more reflections!

Setbacks are inevitable, but they offer valuable lessons that can drive improvement. By analyzing past experiences, we can avoid repeating mistakes, enhance productivity, foster innovation, and share knowledge across teams. Key lessons from our recent workshop include: using the right tools for the job and staying open to learning new ones; prioritizing functionality over perfection in software development; making products easy and engaging to use; and testing early and often to catch issues before they become problems. Additionally, gathering and acting on user feedback, simplifying XML management with annotations and validation, keeping business logic separate from database calls for modularity, debugging by starting with simple solutions and considering broader impacts, coding with performance and scalability in mind, and reviewing past lessons before starting new projects are all crucial. At WorkingMouse, we capitalize on shared knowledge through interdisciplinary teams and a dedicated repository, ensuring we continuously improve and innovate.

Jidoka is a software development methodology that emphasises automation with a human touch. Its objective is to enhance and elevate the quality of a software project by leveraging models and pipelines. It is different from other methodologies such as Agile, Scrum, Kanban, and DevOps. Jidoka is a holistic approach to software development that optimises the balance between efficiency and effectiveness. The article discusses how Jidoka can be used to tackle software projects and how utilising the concept of Jidoka within an organisation can allow it to thrive.

Codebots has launched a new course called BotCamp, which we use to onboard our development teams. The four-week course, led by experts, covers model-driven engineering, augmented intelligence, and the Codebots product suite. It is now available to the public in Australia, Indonesia, Turkey, Brazil, and the USA. For more details or to register, visit the Codebots website.

WorkingMouse has been recognized as one of Australia's top custom software development companies by Clutch for the second consecutive year. This accolade reflects our commitment to delivering exceptional solutions and our clients' positive feedback. Located in Milton, Brisbane, our team is dedicated to tackling complex problems and continuously improving. We’re grateful for our clients' support and proud of our talented team. If you’re interested in working with us, feel free to reach out!

Visual aids help communicate abstract concepts more effectively, especially for visual learners who make up about 65% of the population. In software development, visual techniques like T-Shirt Sizing, Fibonacci sequencing, and Poker Cards can simplify project estimations. These methods help convey the size and complexity of tasks, making it easier for Product Owners to understand and prioritize work. Using a combination of these techniques ensures more accurate and meaningful estimations, aiding in better project management and communication.

We've just released Version 7 of our "Way of Working," an agile playbook designed to manage software risks and boost project success. This latest update introduces several key changes: a shift to a problem-led approach in the Brief stage for more creative solutions, segmentation of support into Enhancement and Product Success phases, differentiation between Brownfields and Greenfields projects for better adaptation, and a fresh new branding that reflects WorkingMouse's focus. These updates are based on real-world experience and aim to keep the process relevant and effective. You can explore these improvements and how they can enhance your projects by grabbing our latest e-book or physical copy!

WorkingMouse is rolling out its strategy for the 21/22 financial year, focusing on four key pillars: improving customer experience, enhancing continuous improvement, automating technology processes, and advancing career progression. Key initiatives include automating DevOps processes to streamline support and release cycles, increasing internal career growth opportunities, and simplifying customer interactions by reducing the number of contacts. The strategy aims to foster growth for both employees and clients, leveraging lessons from the previous year to refine their approach and deliver better results.

Design reviews are crucial for maintaining the aesthetics and functionality of web and mobile applications. As applications evolve, they often drift from their original design, making periodic design reviews necessary. To conduct a review, set up a document to track issues and recommendations, examine user workflows, check for font consistency and accessibility, ensure color and button cohesion, and evaluate HTML structure. Regular design reviews help keep applications fresh and aligned with brand standards, preventing UI/UX issues as your software evolves.

Discovery issues often increase the number of tasks in a project by about 15%, impacting time and costs. To handle this, acknowledge potential variations, incorporate a 10% buffer in your estimates for discovery, and refine your process based on tracked data. This approach helps manage unexpected changes and improve estimation accuracy.

Defining the problem accurately is crucial for effective software development but often gets sidelined in favor of quick solutions. To address this, we use the Lean UX Canvas, a tool by Jeff Gothelf, which helps teams focus on understanding the problem before jumping into solutions. By detailing aspects like business problems, user needs, and desired outcomes, this canvas improves problem definition and ensures better project alignment. Our adapted version of the Lean UX Canvas further refines this process, helping teams prioritize business and user outcomes to guide MVP development.

Iterations are small, incremental changes to a product that add value quickly and are used to keep products aligned with user needs and market demands. They involve regular testing and minor adjustments, such as UI tweaks or functionality updates. Pivots, on the other hand, are major changes to a product or business model that may be necessary if iterative improvements fail to address core issues or if market conditions shift significantly. Pivots involve comprehensive scoping and can be critical for rescuing or revitalising a product. Understanding when to iterate versus when to pivot is key to maintaining a product’s relevance and success.

Scope creep occurs when project requirements keep increasing without proper documentation or discussion, leading to increased development time and cost. It can derail projects if not managed. To avoid scope creep: 1) Nominate a single product owner to make final decisions on feature changes. 2) Continuously review and track changes in the project backlog. 3) Provide estimates for how changes will impact development time and cost. Preventing scope creep involves staying aware of potential issues, maintaining a project schedule, and keeping the backlog updated.

Scrum and Kanban are both effective methods but cater to different needs. Scrum focuses on structured, iterative planning with set roles and ceremonies, ideal for larger projects requiring detailed planning. Kanban offers flexibility with continuous flow and minimal meetings, suited for support and quick changes. At WorkingMouse, we use Scrum for development and Kanban for support and short-term tasks, leveraging the strengths of both approaches to fit our needs.

Agile project management offers numerous benefits, making it a popular choice for organizations. It enhances change management by allowing quick adaptations through iterative work and team feedback. With priority-driven development, Agile ensures that the most valuable features are built first by organizing requirements in order of importance. Its total transparency through daily stand-ups and retrospectives keeps all stakeholders informed and engaged. Agile also reduces risk by identifying issues early in short sprints, which enables swift re-evaluation and minimizes project failure. The methodology promotes enhanced team collaboration through regular meetings that address blockers and support skill development. Additionally, Agile improves cashflow by prioritizing key features, leading to faster delivery of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and quicker market testing. Overall, Agile’s flexibility and transparency help lower risks and deliver consistent value compared to traditional project management methods.

As we closed out the financial year, we took the chance to reflect and strategize for 2020-21. Our company-wide strategy day, led by CEO Matt Francis, highlighted our renewed focus. Our vision is to foster creativity and mastery to deliver valuable products, and our mission is to broaden our horizons through continuous improvement and client value. We have four main goals: 1) Ensure consistent quality throughout project phases, 2) Expand delivery capacity and customer reach, 3) Deliver and measure the value of our software, and 4) Prioritize people in our software development. These goals will guide our efforts as we continue to improve and grow.

Estimating software development costs is challenging due to the unique and evolving nature of software projects. Unlike other industries, software development involves many unknowns and rapidly changing technologies. Methods like bracketing, historical comparison, and scoping approaches such as T-shirt sizes or Fibonacci estimations are used, but accuracy improves with more information and scientific methods. Continuous learning and refining the estimation process can enhance accuracy, but no estimate is perfect.

Agile project management, unlike the traditional waterfall method, emphasizes flexibility and iterative progress, allowing for quicker adjustments and better risk management. It improves product/market fit by prioritizing customer feedback, enhances stakeholder collaboration, speeds up market entry, and optimizes feature delivery. Agile frameworks like Scrum and Kanban structure this approach, with WorkingMouse’s evolving Agile process addressing common issues such as unclear requirements and unrealistic estimates. Adopting Agile effectively requires both a flexible mindset and robust processes.

The length of the scoping phase in software development has a significant impact on development time. Our analysis shows a 90% correlation between scoping time and development length. While longer scoping can potentially lead to more thorough planning and better implementation, it may also extend the overall project timeline. Therefore, finding the right balance in scoping length is crucial to align development time with project goals and market needs.

Proper software release involves not just development, but effective deployment and hosting. Cloud hosting options are either private (more secure, costly) or public (less control, automated, cost-effective). WorkingMouse handles public cloud setups (AWS, Azure) efficiently, reducing setup time from weeks to a day with tools like Kubernetes. Costs for clients are minimized as WorkingMouse covers setup for public cloud environments, while private or customized setups may incur additional fees.

The length of a software development project depends on several factors, starting with scoping, which involves exploring and defining the project’s goals and estimating the time needed. Scoping typically takes 2-4 weeks. Agile development divides the project into iterations (1-2 weeks each) and milestones (which can range from 2 weeks to 3 months). The overall development time varies based on project complexity, scope, and priorities set by the product owner. Small projects may take around 6 weeks, while larger, evolving projects can extend over years.

Bugs in software are inevitable due to unexpected user interactions and changes in third-party frameworks. At WorkingMouse, we use a "trim the tail" approach, adding a time buffer to address bugs and quality improvements throughout the project. This method prevents last-minute issues and ensures better software quality. We recommend a 1.25x time multiplier for this buffer, and applying it incrementally helps manage bugs effectively and maintain project momentum.

Involving end users early in the development process is crucial for creating effective software. Many developers miss this step, assuming they know best, which often leads to costly redevelopment and abandoned projects. Engaging users through agile and lean methods helps identify issues sooner and reduce rework. Agile emphasizes ongoing user feedback, while lean focuses on efficiency and simplicity. By integrating user input from the start and adapting plans as needed, you can avoid common pitfalls and deliver better results. At WorkingMouse, we use iterative sprints to build and refine our products based on real user needs.

Before diving into Agile methodologies, it's essential to understand traditional organizational models like the waterfall model, where decision-making is top-down and linear. Agile emerged as a response to these rigid structures, emphasizing flexibility and iterative processes. Originating from the 2001 Agile Manifesto and concepts like Scrum, Agile focuses on continuous user feedback and collaboration. It aligns closely with Lean principles, which prioritize simplicity and incremental improvement. Both Agile and Lean advocate for adaptability and user-centered design, offering a more dynamic approach compared to traditional methods.

To prevent rushed development and misaligned expectations, we use epics and user stories to create a well-documented requirements backlog. Epics are high-level tasks that are broken down into detailed user stories, which outline specific functionalities and user needs. This approach allows for accurate project estimation and clear communication between project owners and developers, ensuring everyone has a shared understanding of the project requirements. For more information on how we implement this process, feel free to reach out.

Agile development's core principle of starting simple and iterating is now supercharged by software bots. At WorkingMouse, Codebots handle 90% of code writing, drastically reducing development and testing time, leading to cost savings. Despite this, human-driven business analysis remains crucial for innovation. Software bots enhance Agile by automating repetitive tasks, improving efficiency and cutting costs.

UX design goes beyond making a website look attractive; it focuses on enhancing overall user satisfaction by improving usability and interaction. Good UX design helps keep users engaged and increases the likelihood of conversion. With high expectations and standards for web experiences, businesses must prioritize UX to build trust, credibility, and retain users. A poor UX can lead to lost opportunities and sales. For insights on combining UX design with cloud networking, check out our White Paper.

Digital dashboards, like those from WorkingMouse, provide a visual overview of an organization’s performance by consolidating data from various teams. They come in strategic (overview) and analytical (detailed) types, helping to quickly identify trends and make informed decisions. For instance, Carelynx uses a dashboard to efficiently track health metrics and assess performance. Dashboards are crucial for visualizing progress and key performance indicators.

Gamification is often misunderstood as trivializing tasks or being aimed only at gamers. In reality, it enhances engagement and interaction by making processes more enjoyable and competitive, regardless of gaming experience. It's about improving user interaction without compromising task clarity. Successful gamification requires ongoing adaptation based on user data and frequent content updates to sustain interest. However, it's crucial to avoid relying on gamification as a quick fix for poor management; it should complement and enhance well-managed processes rather than replace them.

Scope creep, a common issue in project management, occurs when small, incremental changes or unclear stakeholder requirements impact a project’s scope. It can be managed through a variation metric, which measures how much requirements change during a sprint compared to the original scope. At WorkingMouse, this metric helps identify and manage scope creep by flagging projects based on the level of variation. Effective management includes reviewing project communication, managing expectations, and halting the build if changes exceed manageable thresholds. Properly addressing scope creep helps maintain project focus and efficiency.

Project managers often have abstract app ideas but lack the creative skills to visualize them. UX flows and prototypes help bridge this gap. UX flows use wireframes to outline user experiences, with low-fi versions showing basic layouts and high-fi versions detailing design elements. Prototypes then bring these flows to life, either as clickable mockups or semi-functional demos. Tools like InVision are used for prototyping, which helps in refining user interactions and interface appearance. Collaborating with UX designers ensures effective translation of ideas into functional applications.

At WorkingMouse, we use a Success Slider tool to help project stakeholders agree on success criteria by prioritizing scope, cost, time, and quality. This tool ensures all parties understand and accept the trade-offs and flexibility needed in each area. By discussing and shading the Success Slider, partners clarify their priorities and set realistic expectations for project outcomes. This approach helps us manage conflicts and make informed decisions throughout the development process.

The data revolution is reshaping industries like the Industrial Revolutions once did. Anticipatory Design uses data to predict user needs and improve UX, seen in tools like Spotify's recommendations. As machine learning and IoT advance, this data-driven approach is becoming essential in design.

By the end of 2017, organizations are expected to shift from perpetual software licenses to subscription-based models. With traditional software licensing becoming outdated, new models like subscription-based, usage-based, and performance-based licensing are gaining popularity. Subscription models, such as Microsoft Office’s, are now common, offering flexibility and ongoing access. Usage-based licenses charge based on consumption, while performance-based licenses link costs to specific outcomes. These new models cater to modern users and can be adjusted or combined based on how users interact with the software.

Prussian Field Marshal Moltke's adage "no plan survives contact with the enemy" applies to software development, where unforeseen issues often arise. Agile development addresses this by emphasizing flexibility and iterative design. One key method is prototyping user flow, which maps out how users interact with a product and helps align user and business goals. Wireframes, as low-fidelity prototypes, are crucial for early feedback and iterative improvement, ensuring better UX and ultimately a more successful product.

Agile development, favored for its adaptability, replaces the old waterfall method by using iterative sprints for continuous feedback and improvement. Key benefits include reduced costs and quicker market readiness. To maximize Agile's effectiveness, customize it to fit your business, consider variable sprint lengths, and integrate Lean principles. Agile also complements cloud migration by allowing gradual, iterative transitions. WorkingMouse enhances Agile with software bots to speed up development.

A hackathon brings together diverse experts to quickly prototype and pitch solutions. At the Unearthed Hackathon in Brisbane, WorkingMouse and MEC Mining tackled a challenge on sample supply chain custody, creating a GPS-enabled device and real-time tracking system. Using WorkingMouse’s low-code platform, they rapidly developed a solution with over 90,000 lines of code. Their demo showcased a sophisticated system for tracking samples, including GPS tracking and notifications. The weekend highlighted the potential of tech and innovation in mining, supported by Unearthed's drive to advance the industry.

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