Everything your Agile Development team needs to be fast and productive
The COVID-19 crisis took over our world and changed the rules overnight, without fair warning. We have seen lockdowns imposed across the world and closure of workplaces, and more than 81 percent of the global workforce of 3.3 billion people have felt its impact. With Generation Z entering the workforce this year, it is estimated that there will be a 30% increase in demand for remote work by 2030. A majority of working professionals worldwide are preparing for a future in which virtual and real workspaces merge seamlessly.
As we enter this new kind of reality, experiencing huge shifts in our workplaces and homes, from working in the “boardroom to the living room”. Work from home (WFH) which used to be a privilege or a benefit for few has now become a necessity. Workspaces that once relied on face-to-face meetings are going entirely virtual, driven extensively by technology.
Remote Working has always been part of the global narrative in the modern world, especially among development teams, with vendors, developers, and clients located around the world. What’s new is the overnight shift in workplaces and Work from home becoming a mandate across all teams in an enterprise. Looks like this situation is gonna stay and a lot many companies are stepping into this unfamiliar territory, one that entirely depends on remote teams collaborating seamlessly and delivering without delays.
This change in the way of working is not only about where we are working, but it is also about how we are working, and what channels and tools are we using to be efficient. From videoconferencing, to virtual whiteboarding to online chats, the pressure to stay productive has brought about large scale adoption of communication and collaboration applications.
Across industries, businesses are finding ways to continue serving customers without glitches, from mobile healthcare apps, online classes, digital supply chain management, banking chatbots, to voice commerce. For this to happen, the processes behind the scenes are also fast changing with enterprises relying on modern tools and approaches, from employee-facing technologies to cloud- based productivity tools.
With the sudden and abrupt move to remote working, we are having to reinvent entire workflows to ensure productivity. Teams are starting to emphasize the speed and efficiency of development workflow and what better way to do it than adopting the agile methodology.
An agile mindset offers the ability to understand how to work productively in different and evolving work environments. As the very first step, teams will have to break their silos and build bridges using innovative and connected technologies. They need to have “learning workers”, with diverse skill sets and an inclination to learn and be creative. In a broader sense, there also needs to be a shift in how organizations are perceived, as dynamic living organisms instead of machines, where the approach is organic and constantly evolving in response to the change in environment.
In spite of the uncertainties around us, an agile mindset can sometimes introduce a sense of cadence. With this cadence set, teams can establish their own rhythm, changes can be made faster and the desired working mode of ‘deconstructing to reconstruct’ can be easily achieved. For remote development teams under increasing pressure to meet go-to-market targets and to release applications with speed, an agile mindset can be empowering to make quick decisions, respond faster, and ‘develop more with less’.
Once you have adopted the agile mindset, the next step is to understand the actual tools that can help you work remotely and stay productive.
The essence of remote development teams revolves around collaboration, integration, and agility. Let’s look at a few best practices that can help with high productivity & faster delivery.
For enterprises with remote teams looking to implement some or all of the above practices, investing in an enterprise-grade low-code platform is a good idea. It will help you foster collaboration between teams, reduce dependencies on specialized skills, and achieve better productivity, as you continue delivering business apps without missing a deadline.
To keep remote dev teams functional in today’s “new normal”, many companies are seeking out automation and enterprise platforms, so as to optimize their resources and deliver faster. This growing need for developing enterprise applications with faster release cycles has led to wider adoption of cloud-native, low-code platforms.
With the WaveMaker low-code platform, developers can build modern web and mobile applications with just a browser. In remote working setups, the challenge of setting up local infrastructure on individual machines is mitigated. By using a virtual workspace, project resources and stack can be shared seamlessly, role-based access can be set up, and with project code stored in company-owned cloud systems and no setup delays, applications can be developed and deployed securely with speed.
Here is how WaveMaker ensures remote working teams stay agile and be productive:
Combining declarative tooling and code-behind, WaveMaker brings low-code tools to web and mobile user experience development, allowing professional developers to customize and extend code. It also provides an agile platform to build digitally on the cloud, helping remote dev teams build and deploy modern apps without any distractions.
We live in times where future-proof technology has become more critical than ever, to help us cope with this forced reality of remote workspaces. What the COVID crisis has taught us is that this situation too can change, overnight. Dev teams that are agile and responsive are the ones that will thrive in this brave new world of remote working. Low-code platforms like WaveMaker can enable enterprises, helping them build and deliver critical business apps without delays while working remotely.
Build modern apps remotely and quickly with WaveMaker Studio
