Software Product Development

Software Product Development presents many tough challenges. Often, product development teams are tasked with meeting customer demands that force trade-offs between scalability for the future and high transaction volume vs. customizations to suit the most important customer in the near term. Sometimes, teams need strong seasoned guidance and project leadership to walk this tightrope. Sometimes, they just need to temporarily bolster their own team to ramp up quickly on an unfamiliar technology. Even when a team builds a "killer app," it doesn't stand alone. That application must adapt to and integrate with end-customers' varying systems, business processes and touch points. Failure to successfully address any of these issues significantly jeopardizes end-customers' satisfaction.

• The Business Issues

  Fast-growth companies and those with dominant core customers can't afford to ignore these customers' pressing demands. Often, these product development teams boast excellent application development skills, but they may not have deep experience in other areas that impact their ability to satisfy the customer's requirements:

  • Software project leadership experience,
  • Strategic guidance in product architecture for scalability,
  • Development process discipline and methodology,
  • and performance enhancement and testing skills.

  In other instances, the product development team just needs additional "hands on deck" to help to prepare the product for on-time launch or delivery. Using Summa's experienced consultants to bridge skills gaps or augment their own teams gives our customers the flexibility to quickly meet critical near-term project demands without making a long-term commitment to hiring. As a development partner for strategic staff augmentation, Summa can help a software product development team identify the best architecture, make the right near vs. long-term trade-off decisions and "muscle up" their development team for successful project completion.

• The Questions

  Summa's Software Product Development Services answer these questions:

  • Are we armed with the software development methodology, discipline and experience for commercial software development?
  • Are we making well balanced design choices that both satisfy key, core customers today, yet produce scalable, repeatable long-term solutions?
  • How can my team hurdle the challenges of fast growth with limited bandwidth?
  • What can we do to manage project-oriented bursts of development activity?
  • Can we meet our customer demands on short deadlines? Can we better set customers' expectations in the future?
  • How can we quickly adopt new, even unfamiliar technologies?
  • What end-customer integration or implementation needs must we address?
  • Are there capabilities required to accomplish a project or satisfy a customer that fall outside of our normal needs?

• The Solution

  Summa's Software Product Development Services provide the level of assistance that's right for your organization to get your product out the door into the hands of your customer on time. Whether you need to tackle big, strategic issues like the structure of your software architecture or to add high-impact additional players on your team, we can help. Our experienced staff knows a range of technologies, enabling them to quickly ramp up to your environment, and they are accustomed to meeting demanding schedules. With a strong track record of successful engagements at both independent software vendors and software product development units of larger companies, Summa understands the importance of software development process discipline and quality. We rely on the Rational Unified Process®; to conduct test-driven development, and employ many other best practices for enterprise application development. With broad end-customer facing skills, our consultants are ready to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with your team to address your challenges.