I spent the last eleven days in St. Petersburg visiting our offices where we employ just under 500 software developers, project managers and some of our senior management team. The rest of our staff are spread over Kazan, Dubna and the Ukraine.
The visit provided an opportunity for us to finalize some important milestones
in preparation for 2007. St. Pete was in the middle of a heat wave (nearly 45◦
F each day) which was actually a good compliment to our business this past
year. We had the pleasure of hosting a number of clients this past week from
the US, UK and a selection of Benelux countries.
We also had the pleasure of acquiring a new client this week
that came for a site visit and finalized the contract terms while they were
there but that was only one of the highlights of the week. The other highlight
came in the form of a conversation with one of our existing clients (one of the
world’s leading chip makers) who shared with us how they view not only StarSoft
Development Labs at this stage in the relationship but Russia itself as a
premiere outsourcing destination. Some of the important points were centered
around how many of the world’s larger corporations are realizing that projects
which require specialized development approaches, i.e. Agile and higher levels
of quality are now being handed over to development teams in Russia vs. India
or China. We’ve talked about the reasons before of why this is true but it is
always satisfying when you hear it from a client, especially one with such a
global footprint.
- Daily Scrum meetings of all developers from multiple sites.
- Daily meetings of Product Owner team.
- Hourly automated builds from one central repository.
- No distinction between developers at different sites on the
same team.
- Seamless integration of XP practices like pair programming
and aggressive re-factoring with Scrum.
Back to Russia; one major highlight of the trip was to experience the further growth and development of StarSoft’s IT College. This school, which we operate in St. Petersburg, has become a significant driver for furthering the education of our staff. It allows our developers, program and project managers to refine their technical skills as well as their soft skills in managing projects, budgets and ODC relationships.
With the senior staff we employ it has become a tremendous
opportunity to foster the learning culture internally. Additionally, our staff
experience two classes per week dedicated to enhancing their English speaking
and writing skills. The commitment to ensure cultural alignment is a major
priority in the company and we are excited to roll out some new initiatives in
2007 that will play upon this successful program.
Talk to you soon…
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