How we work
Most of our competitors have lovely (and some not so lovely) diagrams with planning, implementation deployment and review boxes connected by arrows in a circle of some sort. If you're into puzzles, then great—not us though! This doesn't give you much information other than how they would 'like' to work not necessarily 'how they work' and adds an unnecessary layer of understanding. We simply like direct communication and an organic workflow.
Surly iterations, reviews, improvements and support is all part-and-parcel of a professional web development service?Read on and we'll walk you through how we work:
Single point of contact
It's a shame that most development companies don't have a single-point-of-contact ethos from pitch to support. If you were impressed by the way a salesman talked your language, understood your project intimately and asked all the right questions but then handed you over to a project manager, surely the value is instantly lost?
We like to keep things simple. We'll give you one single point of contact through the life of a project from pitch to support.
Talking your language
It doesn't matter if you're an ideas person or a technical guru, we can talk on your level.
We will translate your raw idea into a technical reality or take technical instructions and implement precisely. Regardless of your experience level of software development, we'll communicate with you accordingly.
We have various tools at our disposal that will keep you in the loop. If you're non-technical phone calls, e-mails and face-to-face meetings will suffice however if you're highly technical you will most likely want access to an online issue tracking system, exchange information with UML diagrams and database schemas. If so, no problem.
Communicate your way
You may prefer face-to-face meetings, if so—that's no problem. Maybe you're more into telephone conferences, e-mail, Skype, MSN, iChat or Basecamp, again—no problem. Let us know what suits you and we'll communicate however you want.
Running a project
There are really 2 types of projects. 1 Formal and 2 Agile.
Formal, “high ceremony” projects require tight specifications, efficient scope control and change management procedures. We use industry standard tools such as MS Project to plan and monitor projects effectively. Key milestones, client reviews, deliverables with agreed acceptance criteria from the basis of project management controls at appropriate points. Our process is flexible and customer friendly, if you want us to keep to particular known methodology and documentation guidelines, no problem—we can follow it.
However more and more companies adapt more flexible approach to running IT projects commonly described as “Agile”. We find this approach working well not only with new startup ventures but even on a more formal “business automation” software projects. Some common attributes of Agile approach are:
- Extensive use of interface prototyping (wireframes, functional prototypes, proof of concepts etc...)
- The software is delivered in small units of functionality that make good business sense enabling the feedback to have an impact on the remaining system development.
The idea of Agile approach is simple: you learn a great deal when moving towards your target goal. Frequent adjustments based on the lessons learnt will lead to a better product or service.
We have assisted in “concept to development” engagements where the development scope is not fixed and have a proven track record of working successfully to demanding deadlines where required such as exhibitions, campaigns and scheduled media promotions.
Ways we achieve productivity and project sustainability
- Standards—Adopting the same design patterns and coding standards in every project independent of the platform or programming language used assures low overheads when adding extra developers to a project or moving a project to another team.
- Refactoring throughout the entire project life cycle. Refactoring keeps the design simple and avoids needless clutter and complexity. Code becomes easier to understand, modify, and extend.
- Rotation—Moving people around the code base. Instead of one person who knows everything about a given section of code, everyone on the team knows much of the code in each section.
- Resources—resource flexibility: we maintain our utilisation at around 60-70%, meaning that we always have resources available to meet the deadline.
- Expertise—It is a well known fact that productivity of developers can differ by the factor of 10. We only employ top-class specialists. All of them have academic backgrounds and are not only skilled programmers but also understand software design principles, project management and communications issues. New employees work only on internal projects for at least a year, learning our approach and development methodologies.
- Personality—When recruiting new talent we concentrate on personal qualities as well as technical skills. Loyalty, motivation, desire to work in a team are all key competencies for us.
- HR—We have very low staff turnover due to relaxed working environments and higher than market rates of pay.
- Quality—Although we charge higher rates than some of our competitors, our clients benefit in terms of productivity, timeliness, experience, knowledge and attitude.
- Forward thinking—Each stage of the project is treated as an independent part with finalised deliverables. So if you decide to move project to another team (including in-house) or hold on with the work, you still have valid work that can be build on in the future.
Also read about principles we follow in our work or contact us to discuss your project!