A LinkedIn post how we took this uncertain time to define what makes us who we are led to several queries on just how we convert ideas into reality? This post is an attempt to define that.
Recently, the leadership at Forgeahead took the opportunity to reflect and identify what makes us who we are, especially as times around us became more uncertain and complex. It did not take us long to realize that at our core we are a company that converts ideas into reality.
Whether it was for large enterprise product companies or visionary startups, looking back on the long line of software products we have built shows that our starting point has always been an idea. Sometimes, that idea has been communicated to us as a single line brief. We have capably been taking these single line (sometimes) amorphous product ideas and have converted them into dependable technology products that have delivered tangible business impact for our clients.
Let me take this opportunity to flesh out and provide a peek into our template to show how building great software is woven into our DNA.
The technologists who make things tick
Firstly, to understand, distill, and translate single line ideas into robust technological products takes technical talent. Our teams of technologists have an exhaustive technical syntax that helps us enable real business transformation for organizations on their journey of product realization. Our range of technical expertise extends to working on complex and highly distributed systems as well as working with modern as well as legacy technologies.
Our product builders are also technology agnostic. We do not favor any particular technology. While harboring our favorites, we ensure that we choose technologies that are right for the job rather than being trendy.
To ensure the quality of our intellectual capital matches the expectations and workings of the organizations quite naturally influences the way we hire. We have robust hiring and selection processes in place and ensure that the technical vocabulary of the individual is exhaustive enough to adopt a consultative solution-driven approach to build products that can help clients scale.
The business orientation
Our technical expertise is complemented by a strong business mindset. This business orientation helps us understand client needs better, identify how the product fits into the business narrative, what is its purpose and who it is supposed to help to define how the product features and functionalities should evolve.
This is what we depend on to flesh out an MVP to test the idea, introduce the desired changes, and then build a mature product keeping things like maintainability and product evolution in mind.
This approach also helps us account for things like technical debt from the word go. This is an abiding concern for us. Keeping an eye on the technical debt is essential as it can become costly to manage and mitigate in the future and can severely impede product evolution.
With our business orientation and technical expertise, we guide our clients on what their product should look like, how it should serve the end-users and help them convert product users into product advocates.
Capability to understand and build deep tech products
The technology landscape has been dynamic for a long time now. Technology is evolving at a rapid pace and consequently, technology products are becoming more fluid and complex. Things like end-point security and high-end QA are becoming critical. Businesses are also becoming dependent on software and organizations are looking to expand their capability to build deep-tech products.
However, building deep tech products not only needs technical expertise, but it also needs an understanding of how these products will fit into the enterprise tech ecosystem seamlessly. It demands a clear understanding of the motivations of all influencers and dependencies to make the best technology decisions and develop a great software product that the end-users will love.
Process-obsessed and agility-focused
Our experience of building robust, business-critical software products across different domains and industries has been possible because we are obsessed with being agile and process-driven. We throw everything we have at these efforts. For instance, we have managed to remain close to the customer, become more responsive and agile in how we build software by extensively leveraging our nearshoring facilities in Canada. Product development becomes a task for a distributed onsite + nearshore + offshore team, and it works.
This orientation has also helped us curate the best processes that foster communication and collaboration. Our entire process ecosystem is designed to enable creative problem solving, ensure optimal productivity and efficiency, and drive crystal clear communication between teams and clients. This helps define how we approach, treat, and execute our projects. Our stress-tested processes ensure high levels of productivity and collaboration and ensure timely execution more often than not.
In Conclusion
“When nothing is certain, anything is possible.” But when you find yourself surrounded by uncertainty, it is best to reflect on your inherent strength and differentiators to identify and define who you are. Knowing yourself better helps you become better receptive to change. This attitude has become more important today because, as Darwin puts it, “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” What better time than now to take that advice to heart?
