Industry Benchmarking BI Tool

This industry-specific Business Analytics Tool enables organizations within that industry to compare their key financial performance indicators with those of their peers and with standard industry benchmarks.

With an initial go-to-market of 3 months, the application continues to evolve into a powerful tool for optimizing key operational processes.

Keywords: Agile, XP, PHP, CakePHP Framework, MySql, Flex, Fusion Charts, Selenium.

Learning Management System

A multi-tenanted, SCORM-compliant, industry-specific, corporate Learning Management System, which went from startup to go-live in 10 months flat, using Offshore Agile Development Practices.

This product’s  features include administration tools like managing user registration and profiles, defining roles, setting curricula, charting certification paths, assigning trainers and creating standard and customized reports on individual and group performance.

The LMS also has the option to create SCORM-COMPLIANT courses using its native Authoring tool and to upload third-party SCORM-compliant course packages.

Trainers can assign courses or users can self-enroll for the courses based on specific organizational settings.

Once a learner completes a course, the LMS administers tests based on proficiency requirements, report test results and recommend next steps, thus assuring that organizations meet the rigid certification and compliance requirements of this highly regulated industry.

Keywords: Agile, SCRUM, SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004, Zend PHP, Adobe Flash Builder, Flex, MySQL, Fusion Charts, Selenium.

Learning Content Management System

This is a web based application built on a multi-tenanted architecture. It enables Organizations to create their own Courses and publish it to their Learners through the native Learning Management System or extract the courses as SCORM packages for uploading to any suitable Learning Management Systems. Its key components include versatile Content Authoring Tool, Media Manager, QA Manager and Assessment Builder.

Some of the key highlights are:

• Content can be created using predefined templates as well as free-form template
• Option to customize the Course player based on the features required for the course
• Tightly integrated QA Manager with built-in work flow to handle the Courses from its Creation to Publishing stage involving multiple iterations
• Allows multiple Users to create content for the same Course concurrently
• Course specific Roles can be assigned to Users
• Flexible Categorization and Tagging for media assets

Keywords: Agile, SCRUM, SCORM, PHP,  Zend Framework, MySql, Adobe Flash Builder, Flex.

Analytics and Reporting Tool

This Business Analytics application is intended to provide strategic recommendations to organizations based on some of the specific inputs captured through a set of operational questions. The operational questionnaire is directly related to day-to-day business operations.

Some of the key highlights are:

• Option to customize the questionnaire based on the Organization’s needs
• Drill-down approach to Analysis through Tables and Charts
• Provides quantitative figures to indicate the opportunity for improvements in the business
• Highlights the specific process areas / departments where there is scope for improvements
• Multi-level Role based access

Keywords: Agile, XP, PHP, CakePHP Framework, MySql, Flex.

Research Portal

The Research Portal provides a well structured repository of industry-specific content. The content can be categorized under different Topics and various levels of sub-categories.

Some of the salient features are:

• Users can keep track of their Favorite content through a Favorites Manager
• Content can be viewed based on Topics, Sub-categories or specific time period
• Simple and Flexible interface to manage the Content

Keywords: Agile, XP, Drupal, PHP, MySql.

Project Building and Tracking Application

This application enables corporate managers to track strategic initiatives within their organizations.

Predefined, customizable templates are available to the users to build and track their specific Projects.

Some of the key features are:

• Categorize Projects into different categories based on the level within the Organization
• Map individual projects to their respective Process areas within the organization
• Role-based Access Control

Keywords: Agile, XP, Drupal, PHP, MySql.

Vendor Information Management

This enables Organizations to get information about Vendors related to their business needs. Vendors are grouped in multiple ways for easy access.

Some of the key highlights are:

• Users can choose to get continuous updates about activities of specific Vendors
• Users can rate Vendors based on their experiences with them
• Contents can be defined based on the level of the Vendors

Keywords: Agile, XP, Drupal, PHP, MySql.

We build products for our customers. It matters a lot how well we understand their Product Vision. It matters how quickly and effectively we can build the features required to take that Vision to the marketplace. It also matters how we can follow up on the initial successes and failures and continue to improve our customers’ offerings so that they are ahead of their competition.

Fixed Price Contracts rather than traditional Staff Augmentation rule most of our recent offshore development engagements. The pricing is agreed on the basis of very high-level requirements, sometimes, even based simply on the Product Vision. This helps us a long way towards delivering good working software quickly without going back and forth with the customer on requirements creep. We never discuss the commercial impact of requirements creep with our customers. We believe that requirements creep is an inherent, positive aspect of good software design and development. In fact, we will be genuinely concerned if there is very little requirements creep in a particular project.

The products we build, require our developers and testers to work closely with our customers. With the short iterations and frequent demonstrations we have in our development, there is continual interaction with the product owner. This keeps our teams engaged and also brings the best out of them.

It is interesting to note that User Stories take different levels of detail, even when they originate from the same individual or group. Our teams love this challenge, of translating these stories into technically executable working software.

The Agile that we practice, provides a lot of visibility to every single team-member. Great people are identified, irrespective of their age and experience. Poor performers are exposed early on, and the team gets stronger and better.

In terms of Agile Project Management software, we manage through a simple though popular solution rather than the more complex and ‘powerful’ offerings in the marketplace.

Recently, we have progressed into writing Automated Customer Acceptance Test Cases for each of the user stories,  in parallel with development. Automation is implemented using Selenium and follows the same number of iterations that the development cycle takes.