Travelers Insurance Company of Hartford, Connecticut, has adopted agile development methodologies. The insurance field can be competitive, and Travelers wanted to have the shortest “time to implement” in the field. Travelers set up development teams of six people: two systems analysts, two representatives from the user group (such as claim services), a project manager, and a clerical support person.

In the agile approach, the users are physically assigned to the development team for the project. Although at first it might seem that the users might just be sitting around drinking coffee and watching the developers come up with appropriate software solutions, this is not the case. The rapport that is developed within the team allows instant communication. The interaction is very profound. The resulting software product is delivered quickly—and generally with all the features and nuances that the users wanted.

Questions

1. Could this be done differently, such as having the users review the program on a weekly basis rather than taking the users away from their real job to work on development?

2. What mindset does an analyst need to work on such an approach?