Anurag Shrivastava, Managing Director, Xebia India, has worked for major system integrators in Europe for over 15 years. In his present role he setup talent acquisition and nurturing program and facilitated the creation of a team that can function across geographical boundaries. In the past Anurag has done several IT consulting and management assignments for major organisations in Europe. He has also held the position of CTO at an internet start up in Amsterdam where he built in-house software development and support organisation of 10 people. Anurag has good exposure to software development, implementation of package solutions, middleware & project management practices. He has a good understanding of wide range of topics starting from ERP systems to the latest Web 2.0 trends like social networking and cloud computing. Anurag’s motivation to work in IT lies in his inner desire to make effective use of Information Technology as a tool for competitive advantage for the businesses and for the welfare of the society.
Xebia India, one of the leading advisors in Agile and Enterprise methodology started its Indian operations in 2006 in Gurgaon. It is a 100% owned subsidiary of Xebia Holdings based in Netherlands. The Xebia group has more than 175 employees in The Netherlands, India and France. A world recognized niche player in agile software development, it has repeated its success in saving failed software development projects and in rapid delivery of enterprise applications against a complex set of fast changing requirements. Xebia has not only made its customers more efficient with the use of agile methodologies but also offered them the best means to create a niche in the competitive market.
Replying to Anil Mascarenhas of IIFL, Anurag Shrivastava says, "Agile is emerging as the new approach to software development."
Brief us on the Agile NCR 2010. What is the purpose of this event?
Agile NCR 2010 is an annual agile community event conceived and initiated by Xebia. The event is focused towards bringing together raising the awareness and usage of Agile in North India. Since its inception in 2006, the event has grown in stature and popularity.
The purpose of the event is to focus on the growing community of agile practitioners and provide them with a platform to share knowledge and innovation pertaining to agile software development. The event is focused towards supporting and sustaining the agile practitioners and agile community in India.
What has been the experience in the last three years? What is the turnout and who are the typical attendees?
Agile NCR in the last three years have witnessed immense growth. It started as a small on-campus event in the year 2007 which was sponsored and organized by Xebia. In 2008, Agile NCR turned into a bigger event sponsored by GoodAgile, ASCI, SabreHoldings. Xebia organized the event at Ansal Institute of Technology, Gurgaon. Last year, Agile NCR 2009 generated great enthusiasm with the theme – "Been there, done that!"
Agile NCR 2009 was a big success with 100+ attendees from 30+ organizations across India. Ericsson and Xebia collaborated to sponsor the event in 2009. Seeing immense interest and enthusiasm amongst different segments, Xebia had organized Agile NCR 2010 in collaboration with Agile Software Community of India (ASCI) which was a huge success with the turnout of 300+ participants and 50+ companies.
What is the theme this year?
The event will cover four major themes, namely, ‘Agile for newbie’, ‘Agile Adoption Challenges’, ‘Workshops and Craftsmanship,’ and ‘Post Agile’. ‘Agile for newbie’ is focused on those who are partially aware or completely unaware about Agile methodology, whereas ‘Agile Adoption Challenges’ is focused on the nuance, challenges, pitfalls, and solutions that hound people on a daily basis. ‘Workshops and Craftsmanship’ will emphasize on real, practical, hands-on items that one can immediately associate with in an everyday working Agile environment. Furthermore, ‘Post Agile’, will leverage the possibility of the next stride in the software development putting light on Kanban, Lean, Velocity, and Flow.
The audience at the event is quite diversified in its nature, ranging from CIOs and CTOs to developers, researchers, web entrepreneurs, IT professionals, and even students. The themes are decided in order to cater to all segments in the audience.
What is Agile Methodology all about? What role is it playing in software development?
Agile methodology is a new way of developing, designing and improving software. Agile is the future of software development as it is the fastest method of designing, developing and improving software and a conceptual framework for undertaking software engineering projects. Agile methods attempt to minimize risk and maximize productivity by developing software in short iterations and de-emphasizing work on secondary or interim work artifacts.
Let me explain by citing an example. In the earlier days, if we have a concept and we want to build a system then first we would hire an analyst who would spend two months in analyzing what we really want; then we have to approach a company where they will start building solutions, which generally takes one month for a technical design and another two months to create a solution. Therefore, in order to view our first software working, it will take us six months approximately. However, in Agile Methodology such a result can be seen within a month’s time. So that is the difference. Here you can expect a swift outcome.
Agile is emerging as the new approach to software development. Even those enterprises where Agile has not been fully embraced, several Agile practices such as daily stand-up, unit testing and short iterations are already in used in the software development projects. Presently, there is no industry wide data that is available about Agile adoption, but large corporations and product development companies are having a serious look at Agile.
What kind of cost advantage does agility bring?
Agile approach allows companies to validate the business case for software development early in the development process. This saves costs which would otherwise have been wasted if it was realized very late that the business case for the project was not valid. Greater release frequency and better software quality are the added advantages of Agile.
How is it going to affect the Indian IT Industry?
Agile is great news for the Indian software industry because with the rising salary costs and emergence of other low cost software outsourcing, countries will force us to look beyond mere cost advantage of India for overseas customers. Agile methods can take the quality and productivity of our software industry to the next higher level.
Explain to us your business model?
Our business model is around providing specialized high-end consulting and software development services to our customers based in the developed markets such as USA, Europe and India.
What are the challenges here?
Customers abroad do not see Indian companies as a source for high end consulting services and a place where cutting edge technology based assignments can be outsourced. The main motive for off-shoring remains the costs.
Brief us on your financials?
Our annual turnover is Rs120mn while the group turnover is Rs1bn approximately based upon FY09 figures.