Comelio Consulting Limited was founded in September 2002 by Phil Comelio to proivde specialst software development management skills to the IT Industry. Phil is a highly experienced Software Development Manager who has worked around the world on a broad range of significant software projects.
The aim of Comelio Consulting is to bridge the gap between the technologists and the project teams that frequently exists both in high tech start ups and larger companies who are just getting into bespoke software development. Typically this breaks down into two camps; the people whose primary concern is to meet the business needs of the company or end customer, but are not overly concerned with the technology that delivers it, or the technologists whose primary concern is to deliver a technical solution, but are not overly concerned with the business drivers which define the problem that it is actually a solution for! When these two camps fail to find common ground the project itself is doomed to failure.
Comelio Consulting provides the development management services to enable the software development process to be both sensitive and responsive to the constantly changing commercial climate in which the end user must operate, whilst retaining the need for the technical quality that must underpin the development of any mission critical system.
There are two keys to this:
Unfortunately there is no magic bullet for either of these, every project is different and has it's own differing needs. However, by engaging Comelio Consulting on your project we can provide an independent service to help you tailor your team and your process to deliver what your business really needs when it really needs it.
There are a number of processes and methodologies out there, all trying to get your attention and claiming to be the ulimate solution to all of your software delivery problems. The reality though, is that no off the shelf process is absolutely right for your needs and similarly no such process is absolutely wrong. No process should be followed dogmatically and no process is a one size fits all solution. Inevitably it is necessary to tailor any process to meet the needs of your company, your product and your market. Comelio Consulting has extensive experience across a broad spectrum of both software disciplines and methodologies, so can guide you on choice of methodology, provide specific recommendations on how it can be tailored to your needs, help that methodology be implemented and, most importantly, be applied in practice. Too many processes get defined and then forgotten about when the pressure is on, resulting in low quality products coming to market much later than originally planned.
The importance of choosing the right blend of methodologies cannot be overstressed. You need to consider the key success criteria for the project and choose the methodology that can meet those. For example an end user application that must deliver an excellent user experience is a good candidate for iterative development where the users can participate in focus groups which continually refine the design, whereas an embedded system which must be highly reliable, but can be very clearly defined upfront, is a good candidate for the traditional waterfall approach.
Some key critical success factors to consider:
Identifying the right skills needed at the right time, is the key to a project or a companies success, but it can be very difficult to do. The people who form a start up are often not those that have the skills to "Cross The Chasm" from start up to mainstream. Recruiting the wrong skills during the early stages of a companies existence places an enormous budgetary strain when those people cannot really contribute to the companies success. In this situation it's generally not the fault of the person, but the role itself that is too blame. The needs of the role must be understood before the recruitment starts. Invariabley this is not the case. However having the right skills when and where they are needed will pay dividends by keeping the focus on the end goal of the company - being successful, which generally means making a profit!
Some of things consider when designing the role are:
Comelio Consulting can help you meet the success factors that are critical to your company by delivering to process that is focused on your needs. Contact us now to find out more.