big river technologies inc.: Communicating the Right User Story

"Quality is an inseparable element of software design," begins John Free, Founder and CEO, big river technologies inc. Time and again, businesses keen to outgrow the market competition end up developing software that deviates from their real requirements. With gaps in communication between the users, developers, and testers, there is a lack of accuracy between the documentation of the fine details and the actual working of a successful software solution. A tech veteran with three decades of experience has set out to help companies get the business, developers, and the testers on the same page by laying the cornerstone of big river technologies. Leveraging Agile methodologies, big river has built a unique version of ‘business-driven development’ or Gherkins to pave the way for enterprises to capture the user stories accurately and communicate the same to the technical teams working on the software. With big river’s business-driven development model at their back end, enterprises are now able to make sure that quality remains an innate part of the software they develop.

At the outset of client engagement, big river comprehends the basic user story before delving into the development process. Using Pivotal, an Agile process development tool, big river breaks down the user epics into smaller software functionalities or stories in the back end and further assigns those modules to development teams. At the time when developers engage with sprints, quality analysts develop Gherkins, and the testers build tests and test data simultaneously.

Once the software functionality is developed, the Gherkin kicks in and validates it with concurrent progression tests. Also, a user acceptance test is conducted at the near-end stage of each development process to identify loopholes and fix issues.

To guarantee an immersive user experience, big river uses sketching, a technique using which the stakeholders can work with the developers to define and self-customize the user interface as per their needs. By offering story tracking tools to stakeholders, big river portrays a clear picture of what the overall expenditure of the project will be and also assures that high-quality software is designed right from the first stage of development. big river’s ability to interact with business stakeholders from the outset through to deployment journey is the key differentiator.

Free explains how their services are finding great traction with companies that are witnessing significant changes in the industries of which they are a part. Evolving compliance mandates, digital transformation needs, data lineage, cloud adoption and mobile strategies are among the prominent areas where big river is delivering value. “We combine our experience and the best practices to deliver results that the clients expect in their software development initiatives,” says Free.

He mentions an instance where they helped an international investment bank offer native mobile experience to their customers. After reviewing the code that the client used in their application, big river incorporated Agile practices which helped the client expand the functionalities of their application. Apart from the basic HTML5 based desktop version, the application is now available on Android and iOS platforms as well.

The success of big river speaks volumes about its potential. Commenting on the company’s dedicated and talented team of 50+ employees, Free goes on to say that big river is expanding to 200 employees in the near future. The company is now looking forward to venturing into Europe and also extending its service portfolio to crypto-currency Forex and regulatory compliance applications.