Cyrus provides financial service firms with clear advantages over traditional software developers. We optimize your ability to respond quickly to change. We develop software that delivers the greatest impact with the least expense. And we team with you to enhance your competitive advantage.
- Agile seems so radical. Why not gather written requirements for the whole project upfront, like everyone else?
- That standard approach to software development notoriously leads to delays, cost overruns and systems that don't really meet business or user needs.
- How does the Cyrus approach prevent delays and cost overruns and ensure systems that work?
- Cyrus verbally gathers requirements in small steps, with full involvement of management, IT and users. This supports understanding, delivery of working features in two-week iterations and the flexibility to develop a system that actually does what you need it to do.
- If a developer follows written requirements, why won't the project turn out the way it should?
- Written requirements can be misunderstood by developers. Waiting for project-wide requirements and the entire system to be developed also slows delivery of working features you need quickly, and hinders development flexibility. Flexibility is important because business needs can change as a project moves along, and actual development of each step may require technical changes to subsequent steps.
- How can you possibly deliver working features in two weeks?
- By breaking down the features you need into two-week iterations, prioritizing them in terms of the whole project, and "user-proofing" them, we, in effect, define each feature as if it were a "mini-system." We build one mini-system after another and integrate each new one with all the previously completed ones until we finish the entire project with the leanest resources in the shortest time.
- How would Cyrus deal with our existing, non-Agile technologies?
- Migrating from legacy systems is a concern with any new software. Fortunately, Cyrus's Agile test-driven development and two-week development increments make successful transitions quite easy, regardless of how the old systems were developed. We have extensive experience making sure each feature works before integrating it and dropping the old.
- What is the Cyrus "target-cost pricing model"?
- At the start of a project, you and Cyrus establish the features you need (scope) and schedule. Then Cyrus calculates a fixed profit based on a percentage of estimated time. Cyrus bills you only actual time, at cost. Our profit never changes, unless there is a change in scope.
You get the software you need when you want it. And you gain genuine control over your budget. You know where you stand every two weeks when Cyrus delivers working features and time reports, and you have the flexibility to change development steps. Cyrus gets to build great software. And because there is no reward – in fact, a penalty – for spending more time than necessary, Cyrus is incented to be time-efficient. - Who uses Agile?
- You'll be surprised. Here's a partial list: Bank One, Borderland Software, Chrysler, Citigroup, General Mills, GM, Google, IBM, JPMorgan Chase, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Motorola, Sabre, Sun Microsystems, Travelocity. Impressive, right?