When you choose a partner for your technology project, there are plenty of things you’ll want to know:
- What’s their work like?
- Who have they worked with in the past?
- On what kind of projects?
Tech companies devote pages and pages of their websites to answering these questions with case studies, services and solutions sections, but rarely answer this one:
What is it actually like to work with us?
This article is all about what it’s like to work with the Bauen Group: How we build your technology, and the road we take together to your solution.
Building block 1: Your insights make the best foundation
Everything we build has an aim. Whether that’s solving a business problem or seizing an opportunity, the customer is looking for a way to get there using technology. Our first step is discovering your business goals or issues.
We ask how you’d achieve/solve them.
Well, who knows your business, your challenges and goals, better than you? A lot of the time, customers have a pretty good idea of what the solution would be from a business standpoint. This insight is invaluable when it comes to building something that really delivers for their business.
Building block 2: Time to dream big
If you’ve got a good idea of the what the solution you need looks like from a business point of view, chances are you’ll have some idea how you’d solve it from a technological viewpoint, too. However, you may not know how such a solution could be created—or if it’s possible at all.
At the Bauen Group, we know your insight into your own business is second to none. So, we ask you to use that insight and dream big. Say you’ve got a business process you need to update and improve. What is that process’s “best self”? In other words, in an ideal world, what would you envision the most streamlined, efficient, and effective version of that process to be?
That’s the blueprint. We can walk it back a little or make some tweaks if necessary, to meet any time or budget constraints you have, but that vision—your vision—is key to everything that comes after. Now we’ve nailed that down, we have to figure out the best way to get you there.
Building block 3: Hit the (digital) drawing board
Once upon a time, we and our clients would probably be sketching out possible solutions on the whiteboard, in time-tested fashion. That may not always be possible during the COVID-19 pandemic—or when working remotely with clients for any other reason. But we’ve become well-versed in digital collaboration as a team, and that means we’re able to make collaborating in this way work well with customers, too.
We’ll frequently use Microsoft Visio as well as Microsoft 365’s new whiteboard functionality, to plan out software diagrams and business process flows with our clients. The Bauen Group uses the Microsoft technology stack for much of our work, and those tools are fully integrated with the rest of the Microsoft ecosystem, so it’s a very joined-up way to work, and one that ensures the finished product stays as close as possible to the vision.
Building block 4: Who’s in?
We go by the following philosophy: “only the people who need to be in the meeting should have to be in the meeting”.
That’s because we value your time and want to make the best use of it. In the initial design meetings, it’s useful to have all the stakeholders together in one place, along with our technical lead(s) and project manager. After that, breakout sessions are usually the way to go.
The level of involvement a customer wants to take in the development process is entirely down to them. Some people prefer to be hands-on; others want to leave it to us as much as possible.
The arrival of new low-code development platforms such as Microsoft Power Apps means technical and non-technical staff alike can now share an unprecedented level of insight into the process. And we want your technology solution to really be your solution – hitting the mark in every way you need it to, shaped as closely around your business needs as possible.
So, we’re more than happy to have you on board and building with us, in whichever way suits you.
Building block 5: Seeing your solution take shape
We believe in visibility early and often. If you’ve got a clear and up-to-date picture of what’s been built so far, you can spot any enhancement opportunities or design problems early on, and we can make the necessary changes.
We give customers this visibility in three main ways:
- Updates during regular meetings
- Testing each module or stage of the project
- What we call the “integrated environment”
The integrated environment is where you’ll see all your project’s elements and functionality in one place and get a sense of how it all works together. This is ultimately where everything is tested in the final stage of development, where we make sure everything works and does everything you need it to.
It’s a great moment for us and for customers alike: seeing all the work come together in the finished product. We’ve completed a lot of technology projects over the years, but this part never loses its shine.
Building block 6: Setting customers up for success
Once the project is completed, and you’re completely satisfied with the solution we’ve built together, we’ll be there for an ongoing pre-defined support period. If it’s a larger-scale and/or more complex project, it could also involve a separate scope of work, where we can dedicate some of our team to support yours for a longer period.
But we always aim to transfer knowledge and train and upskill your staff as much as possible. And that’s why we’re keen to involve any personnel who would benefit from being in the development process as much as possible.
- Key employees who will be using your solution
- IT people who will be maintaining it
Building block 7: Collaborative to the core
If there’s one word our customers would use to describe working with the Bauen Group, it’s “collaborative”. We believe in good communication and fruitful collaboration as a means of giving you true ownership over your technology.
That’s what it’s all about, in the end. Building your technology together, to solve your business problems and bring you closer to your goals. Putting the focus on the solution part of “technology solution”. And that means not just thinking in terms of technology platforms, and how we’ve used them in the past, but finding new answers and crafting innovative tools. Building what you actually need—together.
If you’d like to discuss working with the Bauen Group to develop new technology solutions for your organization, just get in touch. We’ll be glad to explore the possibilities with you.
