Everyone says they want to be partners and collaborators with their customers - so much so you may have already written this article off!
My experience has shown though that your projects can fail if you can't collaborate with your development team.
What Makes A Good Development Team?
This article was inspired while listening to a Construx podcast on how to build a great software team. On the podcast, Steve McConnell highlights from his experience, that there tend to be four areas that need to be filled for a team to be successful.
- Technical Expertise
- Software Engineering/Project Management
- Communication
- Application or Domain Expertise
You will rarely find a single person strong in every area for your project, and I'm no exception. Instead, you must build a team.
What Wiresmith Needs - Your Application Expertise
I aim to have excellent technical expertise in areas related to instrumentation and work to improve this all the time. The same goes for software engineering - the best technical skills in the world have to be guided by sound engineering practices.
I probably don't have your level of expertise in your application area.
Instead, for us to work together, we would need to build a partnership. Your domain expertise guides what you need building and what the priorities are. My technical and software engineering skills can make sure your development moves forward and produces accurate and reliable systems.
And both of us communicating consistently to get the job done.
For example, when I worked with Sphere Fluidics on their micro-fluidics platform it was my first exposure to the technology. However, they were able to guide me through the specifics of their equipment and I could advise on the best technology approaches that got us to a successful system.
So if you are looking for someone to hand a spec sheet and get a finished product handed back - That isn't me.
However, if you know what you want the system to do, but aren't sure how the components fit together, I think we will be a great team!
If it sounds like I can help - get in touch.