Software developers are in demand owing to the increasing demand for digitization and SaaS solutions. 57% of IT companies plan to focus more on software development. Many companies are building their own SaaS products, apps and undergoing a digital transformation. 

The products and services offered through traditional channels is now being offered with innovative digital technologies. The increasing demand for technology products means software developers are in demand, but the industry is also witnessing higher attrition levels than ever before. It is part and parcel of the dynamic IT industry. 

As companies brace themselves for the digital wave, new software developers entering the industry must be ready for prime time. The development quality and ability to provide top class solutions is critical to the growth trajectory of software developers. Here we look at some of the mistakes made by new software developers and how they can be eliminated using inversion. 

1. Writing Code without Understanding Use Cases 

Planning is essential to writing code that solves the problem. Good understanding of a problem gives you the ability to think through use cases. Good developers understand the use cases and corner cases for which they are building the solution.

Good developers start with customers. Users and development teams can be a drastically distant set of users. Understanding things from the perspective of your users or customers is the key to building the right software products. The best software developers ask understand questions like: 

What do the users want to accomplish?

How would they interact with the product or service I am building?

How quickly does the user receive value for time spent on the product or service?

What is the job the customer wants to do with our product or service?

What are the current hurdles for the customer and how can our product or service address it?

Do I understand the type of users for whom this solution is built? 

2. Code Quality & Documentation

Developers need to be able to document things that they are doing. Software development is a job that passes from one engineer to the other. Attrition and changes are part and parcel of the industry. So, developers must keep in mind that they would be passing on the baton to someone in the future.

It could be due to them getting promoted, changing jobs or simply changing the projects. It is inevitable that someone else would be working on the project, code quality and documentation is a rarely appreciated skill, but perhaps it is easily one of the most critical ones to the sustenance of the project. 

Software developers need to understand the design principles and best practices of the programming languages they are using. By using a structured approach to writing code, you can not only ensure top quality, but also help your team to work on the codebase with ease.

3. Choosing the Right Approach 

Good programmers don’t jump to solutions without understanding the fundamentals, architectural requirements and scenarios for which they are solving.

The right architecture, design pattern, data structures, methodology can make a big difference to the solution. The right approach requires a careful consideration of the key components, building a modular design and adopting the right approach. 

The intersection of technology and customer needs helps companies deliver top solutions. The right approach seeks the best tools and technologies that can solve the problems of the customer seamlessly. When technology complicates things, it gets replaced.

The right approach to code development involves tradeoffs between options and choosing the best ones for your purpose. Some of the key questions software developers need to ask are as follows: 

What are the advantages of technology you are using?

What are the disadvantages of technology used?

Which new technological tools can help you solve this better?

What are the alternative options for customers that solve the problem and how does your solution compare to them?

What are the alternative ways customers can solve things, if they don’t use your solution?

What will be the architecture of the application — Centralised, distributed, replicated etc?

What will be the services and modules required for the application?

Are there any failure and recovery mechanisms needed?

What level of security and authorisations will be needed for the project?

What are the requirements for the data on the server, are all compliances met?

Do we need to develop a quick prototype or a fully scalable product? 

4. Quick Fixes & Technical Debt

Nothing hampers the quality and longevity of a codebase than quick fixes. When developers are assigned to solve problems, they are firefighting with critical deadlines that need to be addressed.

Clients are breathing down the neck of the development team, QA teams cannot do coverage for every line of code and developers don’t write test cases for all the code for fixing the bugs. This results in technical debt, the solution may have provided a temporary fix the problem, but would introduce several more bugs into the system. It is a vicious cycle. 

Developers must fix bugs in line with a keen understanding of the impacts their fix would have on the system. Automated test cases must be passed before the code is deployed for production.

A thorough code review ascertaining the architectural and quality guidelines must be passed before the solution is presented to the clients. It is better to have a late fix than a wrong fix, which leads to more patch work. 

5. Learning Developments in the Industry

It is important to embrace the new developments in your industry. When you are writing code and building solutions with outdated technologies, you will incur significantly more effort. But when you leverage the latest technologies and tools, it will reduce your effort and you can use the same time to deliver a better solution. 

The technology industry is dynamic and staying upto date can be a challenge. New developers must be able to identify the right channels for learning new developments in their fields of expertise. Staying upto date and use of relevant technologies is a core development skill today.

Software developers need to understand the trends in technology. For e.g. there could be new developments and technological changes that could obsolete their work. In such situations, they will need to update their products or services accordingly. 

6. Use of Libraries

The web development and programming in general is facilitated by libraries, SDKs, and language frameworks. In essence, these libraries provide APIs and constructs to accomplish a set of tasks.

Rewriting the same code becomes redundant, seasoned developers know which libraries to leverage and when to write code from the scratch. A library provides functions and objects that can be readily called by your application to implementing specific functionalities.

For e.g. libraries could offer specific functionalities for strings, fileIO, sockets, etc. These functions can be called using APIs. For large scale applications that require retrieving, indexing, searching, large data sets, libraries may be used for implementing these functions rather than rewriting the code from scratch.

Experienced developers understand and use libraries and frameworks. They know where to focus their programming effort to build the best solutions.

7. Usability Design 

Good development is when users are able to get their jobs done. Usability design and user experience is what makes code development useful. Usability design is an integral part of the web software and apps. The usability design facilitates a rich interaction between the technology and the users.

Developers need to understand things from the layman’s perspective. When building a new enterprise project or app, the usability aspects drive the adoption of the products you are building. 

The best software developers use gamification, automated workflows, intuitive designs, clear messages and integrated help for the users. It helps the users connect with the product or service with ease, increases the uptake and creates a habit loop for them.

Usability design makes a product or service delightful, sticky and engaging. Lack of it causes gaps in products or services, makes users frustrated and increases customer churn.

8. Improvise Existing Features

Many software developers often cringe at the sight of making changes to what they have implemented. But feedback and iterations are the starting point for improving the product or service you are building.

Improving the code requires constantly evaluating the usage data and improving the product, it also mandates explicit collection of customer feedback to see if they are getting the value. 

Three ways to improve existing features: 

i)   Improve the product functionally, emotionally or aesthetically

ii)  Frequency of Usage ( Making changes so that your product is used for often) 

iii) Getting more people to use your products or services 

The feedback ensures that the time to value from the code is optimized. In other words, customers can derive value from your code in their earliest interactions with your product. When the time spent on your product creates value the users, they will use it more.

The software developers also need to ensure that technical parameters with respect to security, user data and application performance and scalability etc. is fine tuned. And feedback also means not writing code for features users don’t want.

Kreyon Systems offers exciting opportunities for software developers, product managers, and other IT professionals. If you are looking for IT jobs, you may please contact us.

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Software development is the art of building products and services that make our lives more convenient. Software is eating the world. It has penetrated virtually every industry and function today. As companies are looking at the best ways to gain the edge for building software. Kaizen principles for software development are proving incredibly useful to bring out the best in teams. 

Studies have shown that the difference between the best and worst programmers is more than 10x. How can companies maximise their ability to create quality software products and services? Well, the Japanese business philosophy of Kaizen is an amazing tool that can bridge the gaps, reduce disparities and produce quality software consistently.

Software development using Kaizen can help organisations build better environments where teams are engaged and work efficiency is high. It can help organisations tangibly improve the output of their workforce and produce quality results. Here is a look at the Kaizen principles for software development that companies are using to make a compelling difference:

1. Improve Everything Continuously

The first Kazen principle is about improving everything continuously. It takes an approach of never stopping to improve the processes and systems to produce quality products & services.

The aim of software development is to work on iterative versions of products or services to manage ongoing improvisations. New technologies enable features that were not possible with previous generations of technologies. Software products that improve continuously manage to stay ahead of competition.

2. Eliminate Old Practices
The best companies know which old practices need to make way for new innovations. Take the example of Netflix, a DVD rental company that moved to online video streaming. It made the switch discarding its older practices. It made the move to stay ahead of the competition.

Blockbuster, the leading DVD rental company that had the opportunity to buy Netflix lost its way. Netflix was on offer for $50 million for Blockbuster. But, Blockbuster refused the deal. 

Blockbuster, which was a behemoth with over $8.4 billion market cap, didn’t buy Netflix. Eventually Blockbuster lost its way and declared bankruptcy in 2014. On the other hand, Netflix is worth more than $228 billion today.

Even the biggest and most established businesses are not proof of disruptions and changes. Companies that constantly find ways to innovate, stay ahead of competitors by eliminating the old and embracing the new, lead the way. 

3. Accept No Excuses and Make Things Happen

Excuses don’t make products and services better, innovations do. The Japanese Kaizen philosophy illustrates the value in being proactive. In the software driven world, there are ample tools and products to interact with the customers. These customer interactions can be used to shape the products and services as per the needs of the customers.

The idea is to find a bunch of methods that work for your company to deliver the results. The best companies find ways to make things happen, they build new features, services and products to pleasantly surprise their customers. They make things happen by constant experimentation and connecting the dots for their customers.

4. Don’t Assume New Methods will Work

Assumptions are dangerous, they must be verified against reality. Software products and features need to be introduced to the customers at the earliest stage for their feedback & inputs. Sometimes, the assumptions of the development team can be counterintuitive and not work at all.

The best development teams expose their innovations to their customers. The customers often point out important improvisations that make the products successful. Kaizen principles encourage companies to seek inputs and check their hypothesis of development at an early stage.

5. Make Corrections
When a product or service is exposed to the clients, there can be surprising ideas and improvisations suggested by them. Take for e.g. companies like Uber, Apple and Starbucks provide elicit feedback from their customers proactively. They take the inputs from their customers when a new product or service is launched. They also provide an interface where the existing customers can provide inputs on how these companies can improve further.

The best companies value customer feedback and make corrections. They stay in touch with the voice of the customer to know which way the winds are blowing. It makes a great difference for building a loyal customer base as well.

6. Empower Employees to Speak

Software development teams succeed when they are empowered and spend time discussing the project objectives with clarity. The top product teams empower employees to interact on a daily basis and bring things out in the open for discussion. It makes everyone in the team brainstorm and solve problems that matter the most. 

Kaizen and Agile methodology understand that regular interactions, communication and accountability is essential to improving the effectiveness of the teams.  

7. Get Information & Opinions from Multiple People 

A lot of innovative software products and services may not have all the information needed to succeed at the beginning. Teams can benefit by assimilating information from various sources and seeking inputs from people who have expert knowledge. 

The inputs and feedback from various stakeholders can offer different perspectives that are crucial to make the project successful. Innovations involve risks, but experimentation with the right bets and knowledge can provide good returns in the long run. 

8. Five Why Method

Asking questions and getting to the root cause of the issue is a fundamental need for deep understanding. Kaizen emphasises asking Why to reflect on the causal relationships between things. Going deep, peeling off layers and architecting better systems requires asking why? Toyota and many other organisations have used this method effectively to create systems that drive their manufacturing processes.

The 5 Why method can be used for root cause analysis, troubleshooting, problem solving and solving problems. When a problem is encountered, ask why it happened. Your answer needs to reflect the facts, and then ask the question again until you get to the root cause. 

For the 5 Why method to yield great results, companies follow these best practices:
a) Differentiate between causes and symptoms.
b) Use white boards to write down the problem and brainstorm with your team.
c) The cause and effect relationship is the key to the right solution.
d) Make sure everyone understands the problem.
e) Be precise with the answers. Facts are important, not opinions.
f)  Create a system to address the root cause, don’t blame people.
g) Follow step by step analysis until your team understands the root cause. Don’t jump to conclusions.
h) Assess what process needs to be fixed.
i)  Make sure that the customer’s perspective is represented when asking the questions.

An illustration of the 5 Why process in action: 

i) Why did the customer complain that they couldn’t use the “Email Marketing Campaign” feature of our product? Because there was a bug in the latest version.

ii) Why was there a bug in the latest release? Because we didn’t test the specific scenario where the email sending failed.

iii) Why didn’t we test this specific use case? Because we only tested sending 1000 emails per user per day. User sent over 1000 emails and this condition was not covered during the testing phase.

iv) Why didn’t we cover 1000 emails per day per user? Because this scenario was missing from the “Email Marketing Campaign” feature test cases.

v) Why do you think it was missing from the test cases? Because our sprint discussion didn’t include the hard limits per user per day.

Once the root cause is identified, the corrective actions can be taken by the development teams. As in the case above, a hard limit restricting the customer emails to say 250 per day per user is enforced. This stops the system from breaking down.

9. Be Lean & Economic 

Software development runs the risk of adding unnecessary features that bloat the system. It confuses the customers, slows down the software, adds unnecessary bugs, development time and derails the key objectives.

Lean development reduces wastage, it lays emphasis on building the product around the core features. It eliminates waste. The Agile and Kaizen principles are both driven towards lean development, it means writing no code whenever possible by eliminating useless features. It means obsessively focusing on the core features and leaving out everything else.

This is a guiding principle for the teams to focus their efforts on building the right products by working on highest value features for the right customers. It is energising teams to solve problems with the highest leverage.

10. Don’t Stop

Never consider your product to be finished. There is no limit to improvement for a product or service. Kaizen believes that improvement has no limits. Figure out ways to innovate, stay ahead of your competition and serve your customers with the best possible products or services.

Great companies stretch themselves by going the extra mile to deliver truly valuable products and services. Ongoing developments, new features and innovations drive the software world. The race for the future is won by companies who move forward and make things happen for their customers. Kaizen principles for software development offer a great model that is employed effectively by companies to improve the quality of their products & services.

Kreyon Systems is a software development company building innovative products & solutions. If you have any queries for us or need assistance in building software development, please get in touch.

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The API management involves defining API policy and release management. Typically, web APIs are used for integration across applications and it may involve using & sharing APIs with third parties too. The APIs can be classified and released as:

i) Private:
The APIs could be used only within the organisation and internal applications. No third party application or company will have access to these APIs.

ii) Partner:
These are the APIs reserved for the partner businesses & applications. These are restricted for common users, but could be availed through exclusive memberships or payments. The Google APIs provides subscription based services for Google Maps for its partners. These APIs provides routes, directions and information at a premium price for partners like Uber.

iii) Public
The public APIs are available for all users. The Google map requests for mobile apps is available for public use. Apple also provides its APIs for programmers. The payments apps like Venmo, Stripe, Visa provide APIs for applications to receive and make payments.

3. Consumers & End Applications

The APIs are typically created for application integrations, there are applications that consume APIs. The clients that consume APIs could be internal to the organisation or third party. However, the end user scenarios and requirements of the consumer applications must be met with APIs.

The APIs can be managed according to the services provided to the consumer application and diverse use cases. API management may involve building connected platforms, structuring information assets for reuse and plan adaptive integration.

4. Next Generation Devices 

While organisations have been building APIs for different client applications and mobile devices, there are new objects getting connected to the internet everyday. These objects and devices will be leveraging APIs. For e.g. Alexa, Google Home, and smart watches are some of the devices that will use the APIs. These devices are part of the ecosystem today and connect with users in novel ways.

The APIs are very much part and parcel of building an internet of things infrastructure. Whether it is your IP cameras, microphones, servers or applications, APIs can leverage two way communication with them. The APIs are powering the digital strategy for the next generation devices and connectivity.

5. Security & Access Management

When everything is interconnected, there are endless endpoints using data and many of them are at a risk of being exposed to malicious users on the web. The API management involves securing access to the data with authentication, authorisation and best practices for security management.

The information security from malicious users and third party apps is the prerogative of the API management. It must guard against rogue applications & users to circumvent any security issues. The API management may also involve a policy check for identity checks on connected devices and applications.

6. Scalable Microservices 

SaaS applications are typically built for scale and reaching out to a massive number of users. The architecture of the application plays a huge role in scalability. The microservices are architectural components that separate parts of an application into small and self containing services. These services can be called with the APIs and can be used for serving a large number of requests. An API can also involve calling one or more microservices to provide data to the client request.

Microservices are lightweight and deployable services that can be used for building individual parts of the application, it creates a base for building scalable web apps. The APIs and microservices are quintessential in creating performance driven applications on the web.

7. API Usage Metrics

The modern day enterprises rely heavily on APIs for their day to day work. In most cases, the companies consume more APIs than it provides. The detailed API usage metrics can break down the usage of external APIs, data and third party details. This API catalogue can also enlist all vendors, clients and partners for organisation’s APIs. The data footprint and users etc can also be tracked.

The API usage monitoring can help companies to plan building more robust and secured platforms. Any anomalous uses of data etc. can be mitigated and reported proactively to the senior management. The API policy can also disable third party applications and clients that breach the rules for consumption limits etc.

8. Development Friendly

APIs make the management of applications easier and development friendly. With the plethora of applications and use cases, businesses are looking to experiment quickly and build novel capabilities all the time. All companies are looking to augment their digital strategies with new tools and apps to make their business consumer friendly.

The API management can make applications decentralised and makes team work independently. With a microservices based architecture, it helps organisations to build separate services without affecting other teams. This loosely coupled architecture can help companies to have small teams to build services for clients. For e.g. an ecommerce company can have a separate recommendations microservice, this microservice may be deployed independently and doesn’t affect other components of the main application.

API management will be integral to how companies manage their data and provide access to other applications in an interoperable world. API management can make businesses more agile, adaptive and drive operations with interdependent applications. 

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How Agile Software Development Provides Great Value to Customers

Agile software development comprises various approaches to software development under which requirements and solutions evolve through the collaborative effort of self-organizing and cross-functional teams and their customers or end users.

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Culture, history, and business like to genderize. But software is neither male nor female. It’s just instructions that help get a job done.

Companies, organizations, and individuals have been using software to help address the gender imbalance felt across the globe.

Below I’ve explained how software development is helping women around the world.

Software companies improving access to education for women

Since 1972, US federal law demands that women and girls receive the same education opportunities as men and boys. While this has helped to bridge (but not close) the gap in the US, education still remains only a hope for women and girls in many countries.

Software companies are helping women around the world to turn hope into reality. One example of this is Intel’s She Will Connect programme. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rate of educational exclusion of all the regions in the world. One out of every six girls between the age of 6 and 11 is not in school, with 60% of girls between 15 and 17 not having access to education.

She Will Connect harnesses the power of software to give girls access to education. It improves girls’ technological skills and their digital literacy. The goal is that Intel’s software will give 5 million women better educational opportunities by 2020.

Access to software helps women to find jobs in the industry

Put simply, monoculture is bad for business. Workplaces with more men than women are unhealthy, less productive, and have lower revenue than those without a gender gap. The stats prove this:

• Businesses in the top 25% of gender diversity will have higher returns than companies that employ less women
• The sales figures at companies who have three or more female directors are 42% higher than those who do not

Despite this evidence, women remain severely underrepresented in the software industry. But there are a number of organizations working to address this.

Laboratoria tackles the problem of monoculture by training women from Latin America. Already, Laboratoria has been able to help 580 women to get jobs in the software industry – in roles such as UX designers and front-end developers – in companies throughout Latin America.

Social media software used as a weapon to end harassment

There were 118 years between New Zealand being the first country to grant women the vote and Saudi Arabia being one of the most high-profile countries to finally give women that right. Even if women around the world now have greater rights, there are still many battles to be had in the war to end female discrimination

Since 2011 Twitter has been perhaps the most public example of software being used as a weapon to help women end harassment:

This movement has empowered the victims of sexual harassment across the globe since its virality on October 2017. Through the vocal support of celebrities such as Alyssa Milano, Ashley Judd, and Jennifer Lawrence, women have begun shifting attitudes in the workplace and taking down the perpetrators of female harassment

#meNOmore

Memes gave the battle for gender equality in music fresh impetus in 2015. Festival posters with the male artists removed, exposing the gender disparity of the lineups, screamed across the internet:

In response to this, hundreds of Australian women have signed an open letter demanding that sexual discrimination, harassment, and assault is wiped from the music industry.

Featuring artists such as Camp Cope, Courtney Barnett, and The Veronicas, the movement has taken the hashtag #meNOmore to push the message

Ecommerce software helps tackle the gender imbalance

Since the Nisiyama Onsen hot-spring hotel was opened in 705, businesses have been run by, fueled by, and compensated men. But as technology has advanced and business software has developed, women have taken to entrepreneurship. And the stats confirm this:

• There has been a 45% increase in US female-owned businesses since 2007, compared to an overall increase of 9% in all US businesses  
• American companies run by women have increased revenues by 35%, compared with a 27% increase in all American companies

Ecommerce has been leading the charge in making talent, not gender, the driver of entrepreneurial success. Software has played a huge part in this charge.

Pet stores are a popular niche among female entrepreneurs because women tend to like pets more than men.

Alongside niches like party planning and babycare, pets are one of the many ecommerce niches flooded with ambitious and software-savvy female entrepreneurs.

Of course, it’s not all kitty whiskers and puppy dog tails. Women may be earning more than men in the ecommerce industry, but there is still a very real gender pay gap. While software can continue to help reduce this, the disparity must be kept in the public eye and decisive steps taken to make business truly genderless.

Software is genderless. However, this hasn’t stopped it from being a force for good for women all across the world.  Show your support by contributing to one of the many organizations or businesses which uses software to help women. Or take advantage of software you need to found your own organization or business.

Patrick Foster is a writer and ecommerce expert from Ecommerce Tips — an industry-leading ecommerce blog dedicated to sharing business and entrepreneurial insights from the sector, along with updates in the tech, software, and media used to advance online business. Patrick is passionate about erasing gender inequality. Check out the latest news on Twitter @myecommercetips.

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