How we work
Over time, we have refined a reliable and smooth process which ensures a proper start and a step by step consolidation of our partnership. Our clients depend on Avangarde Software to provide technology solutions in a cost-effective and reliable manner. We deliver digital transformation from start to finish, leveraging agile methodologies, proven customer collaboration frameworks and engineering excellence tools.
The Initial requirements
Understanding what you are looking for, what are your needs and how we can help is crucial for us. After gathering your initial requirements, we produce a detailed document outlining our proposed solution and initial system designs, guarantying you will receive useful advice and honest feedback. We realize specifications may change over time and are well prepared to be flexible, that is why we are happy to keep refining the proposal until we have a document which fully meets your needs. We precisely execute a business analysis and create a project mock-up. Our team of software developers and business experts will guide you on your way from the concept to the product ready for the market.
Data protection
We respect our personnel’s and clients’ privacy and treat all sensitive information as confidential, according to GDPR requirements. We recommend that a confidential agreement should be signed at the early stages of our collaboration.
Executing the legal part
Together, we are drawing up an agreement with overall terms, prices, and time frames. The Avangarde Software team is always ready to assist you and come up with suggestions at this stage. The general terms of our partnership can include details about the delivery model, ownership, work parameters, payment terms, rights and responsibilities of the parties and other aspects commonly agreed upon.
Project Mapping and Proposal
We make a complete project development roadmap and set up a project management process for you to have control over the process and regularly track progress. This will allow us to capture the big picture early and to consider the needs of different stakeholders.
Implementation and Support
We pay extra attention to select the best people for your project and to ensure the communication process and knowledge transfer work smoothly. Once your software solution is up and running, we perform maintenance and continuous feedback to help you keep up with the fast-changing business landscape. We implement the projects in successive iterations, with clear outcomes defined for each iteration. The implementation process generally follows several phases: offer, order confirmation, implementation, delivery and client acceptance.
Our approach
Agile is our favourite project management and delivery methodology because it is centred around adaptive planning, self-organization, and short delivery times. It’s flexible, fast, and aims for continuous improvements in quality, bringing order and efficiency to the development process no matter if we start it from scratch or engage with an existing project to improve it. All agile frameworks work alongside cultural values, emphasize teamwork, frequent deliveries of working software, close customer collaboration, and the ability to respond quickly to change. Scrum and Kanban aren’t competitors, while the practices differ, the principles are largely the same. Both frameworks will help you build better products (and services) with fewer headaches.
Scrum
Scrum relies on a self-organizing, cross-functional team and encourages teams to learn through experiences, self-organize while working on a problem, and reflect on their wins and losses to continuously improve.
The Scrum process is designed to foster short, concise time-boxed cycles that focus on high priority customer requirements and include customer and stakeholder reviews earlier more quickly during the process. The short time frame forces complex tasks to be split into smaller stories and helps your team learn quickly.
Benefits of Scrum will include but are not limited to:
- Better Product Quality
- Faster ROI
- More Control
- Reduced Risk
- Improved Customer Satisfaction
Scrum is the best fit for the large projects of high complexity if:
- The project requirements are not clear yet or the client wants to start the development and gradually improve the product
- The requirements are likely to change in the course of the development process
- Client and service provider proactively discuss and adjust project requirements to achieve the best possible result
Kanban
In some situations, a Kanban approach is the best fit for your project. Kanban allows us to provide our clients with all the advantages of Scrum while eliminating some of its drawbacks. This popular framework used to implement agile software development requires real-time communication of capacity and full transparency of work.
Kanban is all about visualizing your work, limiting work in progress, and maximizing efficiency (or flow).
There are many benefits to using the kanban system, including:
- Versatility.
- Continuous delivery.
- Reduction of wasted work / wasted time.
- Increased productivity.
- Increased efficiency.
Kanban can be a good fit when:
- The client has a large enterprise system with a huge amount of the legacy code
- The development team is larger than 3-9 members recommended by the Scrum methodology
- On-demand planning and tasks estimation can be introduced in favour of saving time for actual coding
Project Management tools we use
- JIRA
- Redmine
- Asana
Collaboration Tools
- Microsoft Teams
- Slack
- Confluence
Version Control
- Git (Bitbucket, Github)
- SVN
- Team Foundation Server
Continuous Integration
- Jenkins
- TFS
- Atlassian Bamboo
People and culture
A people-centric culture that nurtures our employees and our customers is the key to our success.
At Avangarde Software we work to understand your business objectives so that we can find the right specialists to match the specific resources needed for the project. Of course, implementing processes in our business helps accelerate growth, but in our people-centric culture, the processes never replace sound logic. Our colleagues are empowered to, and capable of, making decisions based on real-life scenarios and can adapt to exceptions as needed.
Expertise
We choose candidates who bring a variety of expertise and perspective to your project. At Avangarde Software you will find a complete spectrum of expertise and engagement models designed to address and complement your specific needs.
Cultural adaptation
Global Software Development often requires teams of different cultures to work together, that is why throughout the years we have developed high cross-cultural understanding, intercultural communication skills and management competencies. Our colleagues have excellent English, German and Hungarian language skills. Most of our team members also have extensive experience working abroad, in western business environments. We are conveniently located in Cluj-Napoca, one of the most important economic and educational centres in Romania, that offers a dynamic business sector for national and international customers.
Recruitment process
All the specialists you will get in your team come from a strong pool of software developers with years of experience in business projects. With advanced degrees in computer science or similar, these specialists demonstrate strong problem solving, logical thinking abilities, as well as excellent communication and English skills. Our team can adjust quickly to almost any area of application and business processes your company might need.
Training
Informal learning sessions and presentations are common practice within our project teams. Also, job training for specific tools, technologies, and soft skills to ensure a continuous training and growth program. The individual performance management system we employ includes yearly evaluations, and continuous project performance measurement based on client feedback.
Delivery model
We strongly believe that a good engagement model is all about the right mix of operational efficiency and relevant costs associated with processes and systems, for providing full control and a high level of transparency to our customers.
Our delivery models are designed to suit varying comfort levels, cost constraints, control and unique scenarios, that is why we choose the best model together with our customers, taking into consideration time pressures and budget constraints, the expected deliverables and desired outcomes.
We strive to provide the best partnering scenarios with flexible engagement models, customized to suit your different business needs.
Dedicated Team Model
Dedicated Team model, mostly used for long-term projects, is a new approach to applications and web development and it’s an agreement in which we provide a team of software developers to the customer. We bring the qualified tech specialists that will be able to complete the assigned project and meet the requirements fully. The team members are chosen based on their experience, expertise, languages and technical skills. The team can be managed by the customer directly or by a project manager provided by us.
Advantages:
- Skilled developers working just for you
- Ability to select and manage the team
- Collaborative & Flexible engagement including changes of requirements.
- Reduction of annual operating cost
- Faster turnaround time & increased productivity
- Absolute control over the project
Mixed location or extended team model
If necessary, we can also accommodate on-site presence at the client’s premises. Extended team delivery model implies that the team or part of the team members travel to the client, usually at the start of a complex project. The on-site presence may be needed when intense knowledge transfer is required or when the requirements definition and planning stages demand direct contact.
Time & Material Model
This model is best suited for a project with uncertainty, a lot of dependency and integration and the requirements are not predefined and may be changed. As the project scope is not defined, the work timeline is also not set and developers are hired on an hourly basis. This approach offers the flexibility to balance team size and project workloads and offers continuous control over time, budget and deliverables. You can also use this model for small projects, MVPs, fixed deadlines and limited budget and expect on-time, on-budget deliveries provided there are no changes to the scope.
Advantages:
- Flexible Requirements
- Access to best talent resource with reliable support
- Hourly Rates
- Product Quality
- Transparency
- Fixed Price