We offer a range of strategic technical consulting services that focus on designing and delivering well executed software products. Fundamental to our activities are core service offerings. Use the menu above to find out more about these offerings, or use the links below to see how these offerings can be used to provide specific services.
Design
Our blueprints give you the insight you need to build software the right way. Each is tailored to your particular need and gives a detailed yet easy to use analysis of your business problem, key use cases, technical implementation and team structures needed to achieve your vision. Our blueprints can be used as a reference to development and engineering, but are equally presentable when seeking to build a business case for your product.
Approach
Our Minimum Viable Product approach draws on the best aspects of lean methodologies and forms a critical framework for the management of products and their delivery. It’s a no-nonsense approach that ensures customer validation happens as early as possible in the delivery lifecycle. We aim to get maximum validation for a concept for the minimum economic outlay and is equally applicable to early stage and mature companies.
Execution
We provide a range of expert technical services to help deliver products in the most timely and professional way. We provide CTO-as-a-Service, giving strategic technical guidance, right down to developer services to deliver working software. From one day to 6 months, our engagements last as long or as short as is needed and range from technical diagnostics, roadmap & product review, team structure and methodology to SaaS software engineering.
Software Design & Architecture
With over 25 years of combined experience in product and solution design and implementation, we provide application architecture services that tightly fit your business requirements. Our blueprint service is based upon the industry standard TOGAF framework and result in a clear and methodical guide to building software. We focus on a rigorous analysis of business requirements using our MVP approach, drilling down through logical and technical designs with a final focus on team structure and delivery schedules. Our design services are as much about a detailed technical ‘manual’ as an effective business case tool.
User Interface Design
We know what makes a good online application easy to use. Living and breathing web based systems gives us a unique insight into good user interface design for both browser based systems and mobile applications for iPhone and Blackberry. As part of our MVP process we often produce working mockups of web applications very early in the process for use in investor presentations, business case documents and sales materials. We are experienced in working with design and usability agencies too and can help inject some lean philosophy into what can be lengthy processes.
Product Marketing Website Design
During many of our engagements the focus on an MVP means we seek to publish details on a product as quickly and professionally as possible. We do this to gather essential feedback on product features for use in validation and justification of engineering spend. MVP focussed websites also serve as a key sales tool in early stage companies. We are therefore adept at producing professionally designed websites in a fraction of the time and cost normally required for such endeavours. We use industry standard content management system WordPress to produce sites in days not months.
Technical Diagnostic
Things don’t always go right in technical delivery. Often the problem can be due to carrying what we call ‘technical debt’. Technical debt can be accrued for good reason, but like real debt, the repayments can become difficult to cope with when changes in your team, commercial circumstances or technology trends occur. Our technical diagnostic helps companies objectively assess where problems lie, what solutions exists and what to prioritise to get back on track.
Product Management Diagnostic
Product management in software companies can often become a highly reactive and stressful process when high customer demand exists, or conversely can become an exercise in projection of internal desires on a small customer base. Our product management diagnostic will assess your mode of operation and make recommendations on changes to your approach and your product roadmap. We encompass MVP principles and can provide everything from education and training through to full roadmap review and presentations.
Product Validation Services
Throughout our MVP and development services we checkpoint ourselves and our clients against some basic validation points. Do your clients want this product? Is there social validation of the concept? Where is the best place to test the water on this new idea? Our validation services help you form a strategy to get the maximum amount of real evidence of the need of your product or service. This is not paper based analysis (we’re pretty sure most people can form a paper business case), but rather this is about gathering real statistics through techniques such as online surveys, new feature teasers in existing products and MVP feature websites.
Expert Software Engineering Services
We’re not just armchair consultants. We provide development services for small and large projects alike. We are experts in the delivery of web based systems with a strong preference to open source and java technologies. Projects we have delivered range from online collaboration systems, online information and tracking systems to highly technical development management tools. We utilise our MVP approach to keep development lean and agile ensuring we are a highly competitive partner for your software development needs.
Operational Support Services
Once up and running with a new software service, we don’t simply hand over the keys and walk away. We can be there for the long run and provide operational support to your company as you grow, or hire people to take on the continued management and development of your system. We provide proactive monitoring and support for SaaS solutions that we build using our development services, ensuring our customers can get on with the job of turning a successful product into revenues.
CTO as a service
Covering all aspects of what we do, our clients often engage with us on a CTO-as-a-Service basis. We are able to bring to bear many different people as is necessary for the tasks in hand. If you need a CTO that can perform complex and detailed architecture work, or one that can perform in at a board level, we are able to fill the role under one service agreement.