The Appian Delivery Methodology is organized into four phases: Initiate, Build, Release and Optimize.
During the Initiate phase, frequently called “Sprint 0”, the team will define the goals of the project, explore what the application must do to reach those goals, and map out a plan to deliver value quickly. This is accomplished through collaborative sessions with stakeholders from across business and IT. This ensures every point of view is included and stakeholders are aligned around a common goal. The intent is not to define every project detail, but rather to perform enough planning and design to get started in the right direction. As a result, teams usually complete these activities in one to two weeks.
The team builds the application in rapid iterations, usually two weeks in length, where a subset of features go through the full development cycle, with development and business quality-checks built into each iteration. The build process facilitates continuous collaboration between the development team and stakeholders.
Before the team releases the application to the business, they perform a final validation of the functionality and ensure stakeholders are ready to accept it. By leveraging testing and deployment automation, and by keeping releases small, teams can perform this phase in hours rather than days. End users are prepared and trained for usage of the new software. A short one or two week “hypercare” period will make sure an initial influx of support requests can be properly managed.
After release, the team will optimize the solution's value over time, as business needs evolve, and accelerate the organization's ability to deliver value even faster in the future. Also, in this phase the team plans out the support model for the solution. The team measures the impact of the application after launch against target key performance indicators defined during the initiation phase. Also, don’t forget to document your story to celebrate your success!