3. Industry Trend
• Earlier most software
org’s were services
based.
• They concentrated on
basic technology and
skills.
• There were very few
‘product companies’
• Now! This is changing
rapidly.
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31. How Service Companies
Think and Act!
• Role: To consistently deliver significant new value to the business via
adding extra billable people.
• Purpose: Employ staff to service the perceived technology needs of
"the business“ and “clients”.
• Staffing: The lack of product managers, interaction designers, the
prevalence of old-style project management, engineers unfamiliar with
the demands of scale and performance, the existence of old-style
business analysts, and heavy use of outsourcing. A project typically
lasts for several months, after which the members of the project team
continue to work (together or not) on totally different projects, that
could belong to different domains, using totally different technologies
(or the same technology, but different frameworks and versions).
• Passion: Staff are like out-for-hire “merc’s”, who show little to no
product passion. They are there to build whatever the client wants
them to do. About 50-60% of the new employees will learn and will
make the transition towards new technologies right from the beginning
and almost all are likely to change the technology during the course of
their employment. (Jack of many trades)
• Quality: is controlled via experience and budget. Here employees are
evaluated according to the quantity of work they perform.
• Funding: Client-funded projects, in-demand skillsets determine job
opportunitybench-strength
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32. How Product companies
Think and act!
• Role: Aim to consistently deliver significant new value to
the business thru continuous product innovation.
• Purpose: Staff exists to service the needs of actual end
customers, within the constraints of the business.
• Passion: Staff are like war-time-missionaries. They have
joined the organization because they care about the
mission and want to help customers solve real
problems.
• Requirements: The necessary product to be built is
discovered over a period of time. It is accepted that
most ideas will not work with customers the way they
are thought of initially. Those requirements that do
work will require several iterations to achieve the
necessary business results.
• Funding: Funded through various models, product
teams are measured by business results (outcome).
• Quality: is controlled via datahttp://in.linkedin.com/in/manuswath
33. How Service Companies Work!
• Process: Atypical waterfall, even when the engineers consider themselves
Agile. Only part Agile would be at the tail end of build, test and release.
• Silos: Teams align by function, creating silos between the different areas of
the business, management, user experience design, engineering, QA and IT
site operations.
• Accountability: The people actually working on a project typically do not
have a real say in what they are building, on how it’s built, and even when
it’s due. Nor are they even interested in ownership upfront. If, the
leadership team try to hold them accountable for the results, immediately
hear complaints that they didn't get what they actually wanted, and because
of delays and costs, critical things had to get cut, and so it’s certainly not
their fault.
• Leadership: possibly looks for a silver bullet when it comes to
technology. In demand skill sets are always high on priority.
• Opportunity: Multiple opportunity if the service-company has many clients,
Possibilities of on-site travel exists to many depending on the client.
• Volatility: in a volatile client scenario, there could be other clients who can
hire staff in the in-demand experience levels (2-10 years of exp). Here
employees leave more often(inter and intra-company) this seldom affects
the company significantly. The low impact on the company is due to the fact that
most of the times the employees rarely develop expertise at product level, as mere
programming knowledge is enough to carry out the tasks.
• Strengths: Strong program management, customer management, crisis
management functions. Multiple touch points with customer organizations
by having dedicated Relationship Managers. Extremely good fire-fighting
capabilities when engagements or relationships go sour.
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35. How Product companies Work!
• Process: Fluid process enable faster movement, processes
work differently in order to deliver the necessary solutions for
customers and business.
• Silos: typically do not exist as teams depend on true
collaboration between product, user experience design,
technology and the business units. Optimization is for product
teams, not for the individual functions.
• Organization: 2 types of engineers ones that support “true
IT/Dev-ops” and those that work on the commercial products.
• Accountability: in product companies, all actions are measured
by results based on market acceptance of product.
• Leadership: technology enables and powers the business. It is
embraced and valued. The people that create the technology
are respected as the key contributors they are. Leadership in a
commercial product company understands that it’s their job to
create the culture and environment necessary to nurture
continuous innovation.
• Opportunity: Limited to inter-company, few possibilities of on-
site travel (exception are multi-site product company).
• Clients: a large number of customers get the same product.
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