•July 02, 2021
In the fourth episode of our video series 3 Questions in 3 Minutes (or 3Q3M), RoleModel Software's marketing director, Jamey Meeker, and RoleModel's CEO Caleb Woods discuss how you can know if you're ready for custom software. Sometimes, business owners don't even know what they're supposed to know about their project before getting started.
Join Caleb and Jamey as they answer three questions that will help business persons define their projects and give them the confidence to move forward.
It's understandable that potential custom software clients may think they need to know exactly what they want their software to be. But the reality is that you're going to miss important pieces that you may not have thought of at the beginning. You'll also learn a lot about your needs as the project moves along.
The focus is on your business expertise. That's what we're helping you translate into your software through our own expertise.
The idea is not "Everything needs to look just like this", but instead, think of it as a point on the horizon that we're continually working towards. The journey is going to be a process since you're not just buying a set of features like you would with an off-the-shelf product. You're buying a team and a process to reach the final product.
Focus on the feedback and the process, not the features.
With RoleModel's custom software projects, we like to "start and steer". In order to do that and still have some guiding principles without having the whole project defined, we focus on the business.
No software is created in a vacuum.
We're solving a problem in your business or we're giving you an opportunity to scale.
As long as your business can provide the goals, that point on the horizon, there will be constraints that will guide the project and creativity will be unleashed. Our clients can hold us accountable and vice versa.
It's also important to know if there are certain integrations or other technical aspects that you consider essential to your long-term idea of success with the project. We don't need to do everything all at once, but with those noted, we'll keep on track towards what you need and want.
If you can't translate your business expertise into technical terms then that's a problem. That's where RoleModel Software Craftsmen come into play.
They're experienced in software building and project management from a technical perspective, but they also understand consulting in a business domain.
They're experienced with leading a team and pushing the development of the software projects towards that long-term goal.
RoleModel Software Craftsman speak both languages.
They collaborate with the business owner to figure out the business goals to then reflect that back in the form of real, useful software.
"Ultimately, what we're trying to do is software-enabled business improvement," says Woods. We keep our eye out for ways we can build improvement into your software and then use quality feedback loops to effectively steer the project and guide us towards the next point to focus on.
Check out the last episode of 3Q3M where Roy Miller answers three questions that everyone wants to know before they get customer software and stay tuned for more episodes in the coming days!
