Overview: An Agile Approach
Just as each book's content is different from all other books, so too does every book have its own “content imperative”—the impetus to reach the maximum number of readers, where and when and in whatever format required. For a novel, the best format may be a hardcover book. For a database of drug interactions, a PDA or laptop may be the best method of delivery. For interactive content such as a test, assessment, or reference work, the online version may even supplant the printed edition, generating greater revenues in the process.
Identifying each project’s content imperative is, of course, only the first step. Depending on your budget and needs, you can call on OBS for any or all of the phases of your online venture: Plan, Build, and Maintain. We’ll be there when you need us—and gone when you don’t.
Throughout the process, OBS uses up-to-the-minute agile methods to ensure that you get the most for your money. Here are some of the characteristics that make the agile approach different:
- Projects are user-focused
- Small, interdisciplinary working teams meet each project's needs
- Transparent communications and daily “scrums” (brief face-to-face meetings) ensure mutual accountability among team members
- Collaborative and non-hierarchical
- Adopts best practices and standards in production management
- Quick responses to new information and current conditions; organic rather than industrial or “assembly-line” in nature
- Functioning code is rapidly deployed to production rather than bogged down in lengthy specification documents
- A “permanent state of beta”—the most successful projects are never complete, but continue to evolve in a managed fashion
Once the project is in production, your staff can possess the code, and the know-how to maintain and update it—keeping you in control of your content.
Isn’t it time to turn the red ink black and put our publishing and technology experience to work, in areas ranging from business model development, to software engineering, sales and marketing? Together with your staff, we can make your online content profitable in the global information marketplace.
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