Extensive capability development programme created for a European cloud software company
What was the challenge?
The customer is an international business-critical cloud software vendor for hundreds of customers worldwide. The whole software development function has been outsourced to one single vendor as a nearshore model. Product and business management is conducted internally.
The customer faced both quality and throughput challenges and Codento was asked to conduct a systematic assessment of the development process and capabilities and provide recommendations for improving the efficiency and maturity of the operations.
Our solution
Codento delivered a business oriented assessment covering the entire operations from business and product management, product development management and product development including DevOps.
84 areas of software business and development were assessed. These 84 areas were grouped into 3 logical entities: Business and product management – manage the product, Product development management – manage the development and Devops – develop. Expert opinions from the assessment team form the final justification for the assessment results and proposed development actions. Interviews conducted were used as the main information source. The intention of the business survey was to understand the importance of possible improvement areas from the business perspective.
What were the results?
The customer received a comprehensive assessment report of 100 pages and it included a development programme which was used for improving operations thereafter.
Examples of overall recommendations were e.g. to clarify strategy and goals, product Institute to include proper resourcing, simplify decision making, reduce the dependency on a single outsourced product Institute and invest adequately in continuous learning and a capability development program. A comprehensive three phase development program was outlined with the following objectives:
- Clear vision for the future
- High quality product feature output
- Faster development
- Complete visibility and transparency
- Increasing value of the IPs
- Less overall risks for the setup
- Ability to scale faster
- Less investment cost / service costs in a longer term
- Manageable and less stressful working environment
