Managing project means managing risks
By the Project Based approach we mean outsourcing of the specific software development task, whether it is a new solution development, re-engineering or migration task, solution improvement or customization. The main distinctive feature of such type of outsourcing is that the cooperation (meaning contract) has all specifics of the IT project like uniqueness or predefined time frame or fixed budget. Project based approach usually implies fixed cost for the project and risks are mostly on the software vendor.
In addition to that, to reach success, development team should have experience in specific business domain to reduce the learning curve length in the beginning of the project, and in the required technologies and platforms to lower the technical risks during the project implementation.
With 15 years of experience utilizing the project based type of cooperation, hundreds completed projects, both positive and negative experience, Softengi has pretty good understanding of what to do, what not to do and how to do it to make the project successful.
Usually, business dictates strict time constraints for a project. It is very important to move fast through pre-project negotiations stage to let the project start on time. At the same time, sacrificing thorough analysis in the beginning may result in unexpected surprises later on.
Knowledge transfer
Software vendor must have ability and resources skilled enough to be able to get all the knowledge needed to start the project and transfer it to the project team. We are talking about people with high level of analytical skills and flexible enough to get deep into the project requirements and effectively process them.
For this purposes Softengi has a pool of specialists with such skills as excellent communication (including foreign languages), great technical and analytical background with experience participating in huge amount of IT projects in different business domains. This ensures that project team from Softengi will not only get pure technical specification, but will also understand actual business needs of the customer and set the main objective on creating the real added value for business and not just coding a software application.
Team building
It’s luck if software vendor has all necessary specialists immediately available for the project. But frankly, it doesn’t happen that often. Usually, to create the best fitting team it is necessary to perform set of internal rotations, train people and, quite often, extend the team with new specialists from outside the company. In addition to that, if we are talking about offshore outsourcing, there are other important things to consider like logistics, legal issues and staff readiness to get on-site during the initial phase of the project to maximize the efficiency of the engagement efforts.
Softengi has a wide range of IT engineers and flexible processes for team building, including:
- Managed pool of resources with variety of skills inside the company;
- Training infrastructure;
- Up-to-date network of software engineers and IT consultants outside the company, who are ready to join the team;
- Huge experience in organizing face-to-face sessions, where either core project team gets on-site onto client’s offices or client’s specialists arrive at Softengi’s location.
Project management practices
As software development company with the processes compliant to the CMMI level 4, Softengi can follow the most appropriate project management methodology for the each particular project. In the case of client having own requirements to methodology, our Software Engineering and Process Group together with project manager will adopt and implement chosen methodology in the project rapidly and effectively. Otherwise, Softengi’s team can suggest the methodology which fits specifics of the project, customer’s culture and project constraints.
One of important goals of the project team during implementation is to maintain communication with the customer, involve the customer in the project when needed, clearly and carefully manage all project changes. Softengi has experience in implementing such kind of processes to ensure that the customer will finally get what he really needs.
See our Methodology section to find more about our approach to the project management.
Delivery and transition.
To have the project finished successfully, it is essential to ensure that all project results are delivered in the right way, all project artifacts are in place and the customer knows what he's got. Softengi's experience allows us organize the process of delivery and transition in the most effective way. Depending on the particular project, this stage can include: deployment of the solution, delivery of the technical documentation and manuals, training and knowledge transfer for the customer's technical staff, end user training, initial support to let the solution go live.
The project based approach doesn’t mean that it is just a single case of cooperation between the parties. Often the series of projects follow the first one and each next is easier basing on the experience gained. And this approach also lets customer to save the budget between projects by not having to pay for idle team.
Quick facts
- Softengi has 15 years of the experience running the project based cooperation with the customers.
- Softengi has successfully completed hundreds projects for different customers.
- Projects’ volumes vary between 4 and 200 man/months.
- Softengi has mature infrastructure and processes to run the distributed projects to be close to the customers.
