Have we been ripping off our customers for years?

June 30th, 2009 | by admin |

Craig Byren, ViaData’s MD takes a critical look at the state of systems development.“Physician heal thyself” is a proverb found in Luke 4:23 of the bible. It is also an apt admonition to Software & Systems Development houses everywhere. We are liable to punt IT systems as the means to a competitive edge in business, a support structure to enable a business to run more effectively and efficiently. “We’ll help you work smarter” we say. No lie there; we can and we do. At a price. A price that drives all but the larger corporates into the restrictive path of ‘off the shelf’ solutions to shoe-horn their businesses into, with the tail often wildly wagging the dog.Development of custom software takes time and developers are an expensive resource, after all you need smart people to create code that drives that software that fits your company like a tailored suit (or should I have said expensive tailored suit?). I don’t deny that it is worth being rigorous in understanding the needs of a business well before creating the IT system that enables it; I have to ask if we’re spending those costly hours on the right stuff? If we’re so smart we can fix other people’s businesses, how come we haven’t fixed our own so much more effectively? How come we charge a customer to redevelop forms, screens, reports, etc where we’ve done very similar ones for any number of other customers before? Hours spent on cosmetics that add little to Acme (pty) ltd’s top or bottom line.One reason could be that it is not in our interest to do so. Hours = Revenue. More time spent on a project, as long as they can be justified on an invoice, means income for the business and thus is welcomed. No one in the industry will confess to that attitude, but the logic lurks there like a skeleton in the cupboard. Another reason is that we have been chasing the goal of more efficient and effective programming down the seductive path of technology: Java / C# / {fill in language flavour of the year here} or methodology: Agile / SCRUM / {fill in methodology flavour of the year here!} is going to be that silver bullet. Each time we develop a system, the artist in the developer (what developer sees themselves as a technician?) wants to try a new way of building the wheel. There are benefits, no argument with that, but incremental not radical. Kaizen. Incremental improvement.Surely by now, we should have come up with software that writes software? OK, so that is reaching a bit, but how about a development framework that reduces coding to a bare minimum; that handles all that cosmetic stuff, like screen layouts; that provides a clear, controlled framework without restricting what the resulting system can do; that places in the hands of a business mind the means to build a software system to meet business needs? One that is not seduced by the Technology in “IT”, but the Information?At ViaData a few years ago the frustration levels at our inability to be more effective spawned a project code-named Catalyst. The initial aim was to eliminate 80% of the coding needed to build a custom system. The team outdid themselves, they managed 100%. Apart from interfaces to 3rd party systems and batch processing, a Business Analyst with SQL scripting skills can use Catalyst to create a fully operational CRM system, ERP system, billing system, etc. 100% custom, no coding required. In a fraction of the time - the best we’ve done so far is an estimated 80% time saving, but we’re consistently achieving 50% or more. With potentially similar savings in cost to the customer, that is leaving us with very satisfied customers and more capacity for work. We’ve forgotten what is like to justify cost and time overruns and under-delivery on functionality.We believe we have a game-changing, paradigm-breaking, market-disruptor on our hands. This is what SysDev should be and we’re having a lot of fun using a powerful tool that just gets smarter by the week. Now we just have to find smart Business Analysts who see beyond their own limitations to wield this tool aggressively.Willing to step up to the plate? Give us a call.Craig.