What makes our clients happy? Getting it is tough. But we did try to figure it out.
Our vision lies in adhering to this philosophy — “We guarantee the quality of your product and its delivery on time, on budget, on scope.” Below you will read what stands behind these simple words and understand why all our customers feel comfortable working with us.
Whether your cooperation with DICEUS is long-term or not, we are focused on building easy-going relations and exceeding your expectations. Our clients get not only the products that help them grow but also are sure that they can count on us in different cases ranging from technical support to assistance in discovering new values. No matter how mature your business is, we follow ISO development standards for any of the projects.
Time: What it’s like getting the project on time?
Inaccurate time and efforts estimates are often among the most frequent reasons why software projects fail. But our clients rest assured that their project will be accomplished on time. What are the ways we use to ensure this confidence? Each of our customers gets a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), which is a documented proof of our capabilities. WBS represents the whole scope of work divided into small components, i.e., tasks that are needed to be done to complete the project. WBS serves as a basis for accurate estimation and project scheduling.
Imagine, Eric gets a WBS from his vendor. What does that mean to him? Now, Eric has a visualized roadmap of his project with clearly defined timeframes for each of the tasks, deliverables, specific human, and skills resources needed to complete the work. He also knows how one job depends on the other, and why one task has a higher priority than another, respectively.
Why is it essential to have a WBS? Very often, we don’t understand why we can’t do this or that right now. However, after a while, we come to realize that before we do this, we need to do some other job. A WBS is a perfect way to see the sequence, dependencies, and how these dependencies affect the overall duration of the project. Our clients don’t feel overwhelmed about time to market as they can track the progress and control the performance.
So, coming back to the question about how it’s like getting the project on time. It’s like having clear timelines and no unforeseeable risks or issues. It’s like feeling confident in your partner. Ultimately, it’s like knowing your project is in the hands of reliable people.
How to assess on-time delivery? Our way to better performance
Any company has ever experienced delays, overestimation, or underestimation. We can’t claim to have achieved excellence in everything we do. However, we managed to organize a 100% on-time project delivery and would like to share this story with our clients:
DICEUS is people who respect the time, efforts, and resources customers invest in their projects. We understand that even a tiny idea or a small start-up may become your lifelong commitment. We see that light in the eyes of our clients when we are highly involved in their ideas, share the same philosophy and vision. And we can’t let them down. Thus, we have been mastering the best practices and methodologies to guarantee timely delivery.
We tried to understand and analyze the late delivery reasons, factors, and find out the root cause that at least once prevented our teams from being on time. After finding the reasons, we took actionable steps, reinvented and reshaped our processes to make those more efficient. Since then, we continually use metrics and develop new ones, monitor and review the results to make corrections in our on-time delivery strategy.
We talked much about time. However, that’s not the only thing that affects the quality. The proper budget allocation and the right scope are the things that impact the quality and are directly connected with the time. Keep reading to learn how our clients get their projects on cost.
Budget: In 10 out of 10 cases our customers get the project completed on budget
Often, cost becomes a defining factor when considering a software development vendor. However, note that a cost-effective proposition doesn’t necessarily mean anything. How can you get assured that your project will be delivered on budget? Many clients meet a lot of factors that create cost variances on their way to project success. Unlike others, our clients stand out from the crowd because they are sure that their project is affordable.
Our approach to estimation allows us to correctly estimate the cost of all the resources required to complete each of the tasks. We use Critical Path Analysis (CPA) to allocate the right support, consider rates, and mitigate the risks of cost contingency.
Why does it work? In building a critical path, we consider our experience, analogous estimations, resource cost rates, the lowest work package, aggregated cost of each activity, and a lot of other factors that influence the accuracy of estimation. Thus, our clients get a detailed estimation along with regular reports on team composition, risks, project performance against the metrics set in the service level agreements (SLAs).
Being head and shoulders above all others. Is this what we really want? Actually, that’s the goal of the majority of software development companies. But that’s not all about DICEUS. Instead, we would like to build a standard-driven IT ecosystem that will put a client in the centre. That’s why we are proactively adhering to the ISO/IEC 25010 standards. Quality is what everybody wants to get in meal, healthcare, or public services. In software engineering, it’s just the same. A customer wants to get quality, timely, according to specifications, at an affordable price.
Following the standards means that our clients get their solutions on scope. To achieve the goal successfully, our teams are attentive to details from the very beginning of the project. Proceed reading about scope.
More about Critical Path
Scope: We understand and consider all customer’s concerns while creating the scope
A personalized approach to defining customers’ requirements allows us to solve their problems as soon as it is possible. Our business analysts, together with system architects, identify both functional and non-functional requirements that make up the project scope.
The scope is what our clients expect to get once the product is done. To speak the same language with you, the functional requirement may sound like this “Sales reports should be generated every 24 hours.” These are logical and technical reflections of what you actually need from your software. Non-functional requirements are also critical as they define the quality of the future system. These may include performance, usability, reliability, scalability, and many other things. Usually, functional and non-functional requirements are contrasted and can be differentiated simply: functional are product features, whereas non-functional are product properties.
Read how we select non-functional requirements
How do our clients know that the project is being developed on the scope? We provide them with a traceability matrix, which is a tool for tracking how business requirements are aligned with system requirements. The two-dimensional matrix depicts how a requirement change affects other requirements so that a client is always aware of the project’s status, issues, blockers, defects, and other things that influence the flow.
Traceability matrix is used in high-tech environments and requires specific skills to deal with that’s why we guide our customers on how to use it appropriately.
More about Traceability Matrix
Quality: Quality comes first — always
How often do you hear this phrase from your vendors: “We can handle anything”? We believe, often. Do you always get what you expected? Our clients do as their project, and product quality is controlled by PMI/APMI certified project managers. They are responsible for many tasks ranging from planning and defining scope to controlling quality. Besides, they are playing a significant leadership role in managing, motivating, and encouraging teams as team spirit is as important for the project success as gathering the right requirements.
How satisfied our customers are after they have received the end product defines quality. However, it’s not the only measurement we use. Every project is unique to us. Together with a customer, we select the metrics that best suit their project.
Proactiveness and communication: Our clients know which way to go, who would help, and who would solve their problems
Each of our clients has a dedicated account manager who is responsible for providing oversight and coordination for the client’s project execution. In case there are any questions or problems, this account manager gives a fast feedback to a client, bridges the communication gap between a client and a developer, and suggests alternatives to solutions. These specialists have excellent communication skills, speak the customer’s language, and can quickly sort things out.
Proactiveness is another good thing that makes our clients happy. They don’t wait long for our strategy, plans, reports, recommendations. We are ready before risks happen as we have a well-defined procedure for risk identification, assessment, and management. We are prepared for any misunderstandings and manage to avoid those. Ultimately, we are looking into the future, and that’s what perfectly describes our focus on innovation. Above all, our specialists seek new business opportunities for our clients that can be seized with the help of technology. In today’s highly competitive environment, that is most timely.
Why DICEUS clients are successful?
Any client’s success depends on the software vendor’s commitment, empathy, proactiveness, and flexibility. We always keep this in mind. Here are some interesting facts that prove how we love what we do.
- “In most cases, 0 defects are found in production per 1000 lines of code”, reports DICEUS’s VP of engineering. The quality of software produced by our developers is extremely high.
- Each sprint lasts 1–4 weeks. The length depends on the project’s goal and risks. Every sprint ends with a retrospective to identify opportunities to improve.
- We guarantee clients’ data security, regulations awareness, and compliance with ISO/IEC27000.
- 250+ business analysts, certified project managers, and engineers work to embody clients’ ideas into reality.
- 30+ customers worldwide are ready to recommend our teams for long-term partnerships.
- Our clients get documented proof of our capabilities and guarantees that the project will be delivered on time, on, spec, and on budget. For that, we provide a Work Breakdown Structure, a Critical Path Analysis, a traceability matrix along with legal papers, project and user documentation.
- Monthly and quarterly, we report on actual performance against those defined in the contract.
- Our delivery-management balance in per cents equals 92/8, respectively. 80% of our engineers have a master’s degree in computer science while managers are certified by PMI and APMI institutions.
- If our new client is under the deadline, it takes us 48 hours to compose a team and select the right technology stack for a client.
- From the very start, our clients get a comprehensive DICEUS-Customer cooperation map showing how it works. Every single customer is guided through each step of accomplishing their project.
If you would like to try cooperating or consulting with DICEUS, feel free to contact us.
