BANGALORE, INDIA: Chennai-based start-up Silver Stripe Software is a leading Indian provider of agile tools. With a goal to solve complex software delivery problems with elegant solutions, the company has come out with a product, Silver Catalyst, that enables agile teams to execute globally distributed projects.

Siddharta Govindaraj, founder of Silver Stripe Software, tells us more about the company and its products. Excerpts:

CIOL: How has Silver Stripe's products been addressing the needs of enterprises?

Siddharta Govindaraj: Our product, Silver Catalyst, enables teams to execute globally distributed Agile projects. We also provide training, talks, and workshops for companies that are interested in transitioning to Agile.

Our tool is used by companies in India and abroad. For instance, a company in the US uses Silver Catalyst to coordinate 50 team members in multiple locations. Some companies abroad are using it to coordinate with their offshore teams in India.

We are also in talks with various Indian SMBs that plan to use Silver Catalyst for handling distributed agile projects.

CIOL: Can you tell us in detail about Silver Catalyst, and how helpful it is for the SMBs?

SG: Silver Catalyst is a full-featured Agile Project Management Tool that enables Agile throughout the lifecycle from adding, managing and prioritizing user stories (a user story is equivalent to a requirement) to scheduling, execution tracking, defect management and reporting.

It is the only tool that supports the standard Agile processes as well as the Lean/Kanban variant. Silver Catalyst also integrates with third-party tools like source control and bug tracking to provide a comprehensive Agile project management platform.

It is ideal for Indian companies that do global, distributed Agile development. The tool is available in an online software-as-a-service model for smaller companies or as a server deployment for larger ones.

The prime problem for Indian companies that are thinking about using Agile is that it does not work well with globally distributed projects unless there is a tool to synchronize and make visible the process to stakeholders and teams across multiple locations. Companies are finding that their existing project management tools are not suitable for Agile projects.

Since most Indian companies operate on an offshore delivery model, this limitation is a major problem.

This is where a tool like Silver Catalyst comes into picture. Silver Catalyst has been developed as a  tool that can be used to manage Agile projects for globally distributed projects across multiple locations and timezones.

The tool acts as an enabler for Indian SMBs that are thinking about using Agile for their clients abroad, and eliminates the biggest risks that Indian companies can face when attempting to execute Agile projects in a distributed environment.

CIOL: You say that Indian companies are increasingly faced with offshore and globally distributed agile projects. What is the current scenario with such companies?

SG: Time to market and business agility have become important for companies in the US and Europe. The customers, in turn, are applying pressure on their outsourced development partners to release the software sooner, and make it adaptable to changing business needs. It is quickly becoming a requirement to be Agile in order to fulfill these contracts.

As a result, the number of globally distributed agile projects have been rapidly increasing.

While Agile has become mainstream in the US and Europe, it is only now beginning to catch on in India. Agile imposes less bureaucratic overheads compared to existing processes.

A need to recoup investment earlier in the development cycle, coupled with pressure from customers abroad will also drive companies to adopt Agile. Considering all these factors, I think we will see large growth over the next two years for Agile in India.

CIOL: In these challenging times, how liberal are Indian SMBs in their IT spend?

SG: Companies are certainly not as liberal as they were a few years ago. However, Agile processes allow a company to realize improved return on investment, earlier in the development cycle. This is something that is important for survival in the current economic environment.

This has influenced companies to migrate to Agile, and they do not mind spending a bit today if they can reap these rewards tomorrow.