FINALLY – the industry is awakening to one simple truth: VALUE IS WORTH PAYING FOR.

As you know, over the past several years the business community has been tempted to try to find a cheaper way to produce software. This search for “cheaper software” almost destroyed the software industry and if you look close enough – the entire country. In many cases, this search led companies down the traditional Waterfall path (invented here in the US). In short, this process involves death by analysis and the compilation of volumes of nearly worthless “requirements documents”.

The promise of “cheaper software” was often held out like a carrot in front of a donkey – you can see it but its always just out of reach. Such is the case for companies that ship their requirements documents to some distant software sweat shops to produce various renditions of software that always seem to just miss the mark – again and again.

To be fair, the concept of finding cheaper labor was an option at one point, but the true costs of software is not found in the cost of labor. The truly alarming hidden costs of software development is a cancer within the process itself. The “Waterfall” approach is prone to failure because human beings and software engineers (humans too) are not properly equipped to communicate requirements via pictures and or Word documents. We are far too relational, sensual, and creative to expect paper to carry the proper requirements.

Agile to the rescue: As an industry, we are awakening to the reality that we can reverse the trends of the past. We can actually write software in a new and exciting way. We have the technology, the motivation, the passion, and a new approach.

Now for my primary point: Companies that once leaned on offshore companies in search of the holly grail of savings are beginning to benefit from Agile Approaches that Pillar embraces. They have tried and failed at various approaches. Failure on one path often leads to a willingness to try new approaches. For this I am grateful.

Three weeks ago I received a call from a large food distribution company. They were ready to try our “Agile Approach”. They were in a mood to try our fixed priced Agile Services. They had struggled with the offshore model for years, but in the final analysis they want someone to write the software right the first time. They want high quality code. They want to know the budget. They want to deliver on time and on budget. Those are the promises that we make.

I am happy we won the business. But the most important factor is the fact that we did not win on the basis of price. We won the business on the strength of several factors: We are an Agile Company – We write great software – Our software has great test coverage – We are truth tellers – We hold our commitments – We deliver great software products that work.

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