How we work

With trust and a shared purpose, we can deliver great things.

We're here as your partner to solve your toughest business and technology problems through agile transformation, allowing us to build flexible solutions that enable your business to grow.

Client relationships begin with trust

It's the foundation that every project is built on. For most people, the natural default is one of mistrust. We quickly put ingredients in place to allow trust to emerge naturally, allowing us to focus on customer outcomes that matter. Whether we're embedding a whole team or a single resource into your existing development process or hiring an individual contributor to work on-site to supplement a skillset you need, we always lead with trust and transparency.

How we build trust

Autonomy - allow teams to manage themselves and form trusting bonds with one another
Collaboration - encourage problem-solving through constant teamwork and communication
Skill - hire multi-talented experts who do whatever's needed to deliver and hold each other accountable

The real meaning of agile

For many organizations, being agile means having standups, writing users stories, and developing in sprints. While those are mechanisms to help facilitate an agile approach, true agile is more than a step-by-step process. And implementing it effectively often requires shifts in your organization's culture.

Slices not layers

Think of a layer cake, with each layer representing a part of the development process—architecture, data, and user interface, for instance. Instead of building the bottom layer (architecture), then the middle layer (data), then frosting the cake (user interface), we cut down into the cake in little bite-size slices, ensuring we get a fully composed bite (piece of functionality) with flavors from each layer represented in each delicious fork-full.

Why this is good for you

By itself, each layer isn't very helpful. There's no way to really test it with users. But when you layer all three together into tiny slices, it not only gives the team a sense of accomplishment (you can actually build production-ready functionality in a single sprint!), but delivers something real for users and product owners to react to.

Options not predictions

Projects often start with a laundry list of exhaustive functionality for an MVP. How many times do you actually build all those things (and only those things) in the original timeframe? Probably never. Because decisions, needs, and constraints change constantly. We make technical decisions with the explicit intent of providing options at all scales and levels. Truly agile development increases your ability to identify, create, cull, and exploit options for your organization.

Why this is good for you

Creating this kind of ingrained flexibility allows you to easily change your mind, adjust course, or quickly respond to an evolving marketplace. It also allows you to take risks and explore new opportunities while minimizing exposure. It also increases productivity (up to tenfold) because you don't spend time building things you don't need.

Agile coaching & advising

We don't come in and "teach you agile," per se. We're there to teach you how to create and cultivate more options at all scales of your business and to empower you to learn what's possible. True mastery comes from doing, and our team is there to make sure you have the support you need to succeed as you learn.

Here's how we make that happen:

1. We conduct a personalized assessment to understand your unique challenges. We don't arrive at your door with a pre-conceived solution. Every organization is different, so we're there to help you organically develop the type of agility that works for your culture, people, marketplace, and regulatory constraints.

2. We don't require a fully baked idea to get started. Just a dream and the drive to see it through. You can have a pie-in-the-sky idea and no clue how to build it or what it looks like. We're there to help clearly define the solution and then take the lead on making it a reality.

3. We give you the power to change your mind. There's nothing worse than getting six months into a project and learning there was a better way to do something, but it's "too late" to do anything about it. We avoid those "too lates" by operating in a manner that maximizes options at every turn.

4. We create multiple design options and experiment with users to see what's working. For us it's a process of discovery, not of construction.

5. We deliver working software frequently and efficiently enough that we can easily pivot as needed. Experimenting can be expensive, but we mitigate this risk with frequent user feedback loops to help guide us where we need to go.

Meet our agile expert

Doug, Director of agile

He's been building software systems for over 30 years across a spectrum of business sectors, spending 20 of those as an apprentice of agile and lean methodologies. Doug doesn't have a life because he thinks about agile, lean, and antifragile software development 24x7.

Email Doug

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