What Agility means to JDisc

In recent years, the concept of agility has dominated discussions in the software development world. Everyone claims to be agile, but what does that truly mean? At JDisc, we wanted to redefine agility in a way that aligns with our philosophy of putting customers first and delivering results quickly and efficiently.

Moving Beyond Traditional Development Cycles

Do you remember when software companies released updates every one or two years? Roadmaps would stretch far into the future, and customers often found themselves waiting endlessly for features they desperately needed. If your feedback weren’t included in the current cycle, you’d have to wait—sometimes years—for the next chance.

At JDisc, we decided to break away from that model. We wanted to ensure that changes, bug fixes, and new features were incorporated swiftly, focusing on responsiveness to customer needs. For example, adding support for new SNMP-based devices typically takes only 1-2 hours, including automated testing. Making customers wait months for such simple updates would be a shame.

Our Commitment to Weekly Releases

In 2024, we’ve made our approach to agility tangible with impressive numbers:

• 33 releases
• 128 new devices supported
• 70 new features implemented
• 106 improvements added
• 156 bugs fixed

By releasing updates almost every week, we ensure that our customers receive improvements and fixes as soon as they’re ready. But how do we achieve this level of responsiveness without compromising on quality?

The Foundations of Agility at JDisc

Agility doesn’t happen by accident. It’s built on a solid foundation of principles and practices tailored to our unique needs:

• Exceptional People (The MOST IMPORTANT ITEM)
  Our team is small but highly skilled. Instead of hiring dozens of average developers, we prioritize a handful of excellent ones who take ownership of their work. This minimizes the need for hand-holding, extensive reviews, and debugging, ensuring higher quality output from the start.
• Focus on Code Quality
  Speed isn’t everything. We emphasize writing clean, well-structured, and reusable code. Poorly written code leads to an unmaintainable product, making future changes or bug fixes more complex and risky. Quality, for us, is non-negotiable.
• Automation Everywhere
  Frequent releases are only possible with robust automation. From compiling source code to bundling dependencies and creating installation packages, every step is automated. Testing is another critical area of automation. Using SNMP simulators, for instance, we can run discovery tests and verify results against expected data, ensuring new features don’t break existing functionality.
• Do not Detach Developers from Customers
  Getting first hand experience is the best way to learn how to understand how customers use our software. Therefore, I am not a friend of detaching developers from customers. At JDisc, all our developers also connect with our clients when there is an issue in one of the features they implemented. With the direct feedback, you learn quicker how customers use our software and where we can improve the UI, wizards, or other aspects of our UI.
• No Long-Term Roadmaps
  Unlike traditional development models, we’ve abandoned long-term roadmaps. Why? Because customer needs evolve rapidly, and features that seem crucial today might become irrelevant tomorrow. Instead, we focus on immediate customer priorities and easy-to-implement enhancements, delivering them through our weekly release train.

Listening to Our Customers

Not having a fixed roadmap doesn’t mean we lack direction. Our goal remains clear: to create the best network discovery tool in terms of depth, breadth, and user experience. We’ve introduced cloud discovery, integrated password managers, and added Kubernetes support—all driven by customer feedback.

The Beauty of Simplicity

We’ve also simplified our release strategy. While our software is historically labeled as Release 5.0, the build number is what truly matters. Each build number represents an increment, reflecting our commitment to continuous improvement. Customers can always find the latest release notes to stay informed about what’s new: Release Notes. To stay up-to-date, you can register to our weekly release newsletter.

How we interpret Agility

At JDisc, agility isn’t about buzzwords or following trends. It’s about being customer-focused, prioritizing quality, and embracing automation. By doing so, we’ve created a development process that’s not only faster but also smarter—ensuring that we’re always ready to meet the ever-changing needs of our customers.

Agility isn’t just a methodology for us; it’s a promise to our customers that we’ll continue to deliver the best, one release at a time.