Reduce Costs and Losses through STI Consulting Services

STI assists organizations with process improvement activities that will significantly enhance results by improving project management, software development, systems development, quality assurance, testing and configuration management methods for software, hardware and infrastructure programs and projects.

STI's Consulting Services staff is experienced in assisting organizations in the achievement of process improvements based upon CMM, CMMI, ISO, IEEE, NIST, DoD and NASA process models for all stages of the System/Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC).

We provide the expertise to help you pinpoint and eradicate endemic organizational and system flaws that manifest themselves in many common and painful ways:

1. A difficult defect that was fixed at great expense suddenly reappears.
2. The system worked in production yesterday, but not today.
3. A fully tested program suddenly doesn't work.
4. A developed and tested feature is mysteriously missing.
5. No one knows which components comprise the delivered system.
6. Developers are working on the wrong version of code.
7. The new infrastructure is too small to support production.
8. The latest version of the code can't be located.
9. There is no traceability between the requirements, documentation, code and infrastructure.
10. The system was built and tested with the wrong version of code.

STI Consulting Services will work hand-in-hand with your project team to achieve a smoothly operating, efficient project — eliminating the problems highlighted above along with many others. Today, fixing a problem after delivery can often be 100 times more expensive than finding and fixing the problem during requirements or design. Many software engineering efforts spend as much as 50 percent of their effort on avoidable work, most of which can be traced to about twenty percent of system defects. STI can guide your organization toward improved management methods and processes that:

1. Train your staff in improved process methods.
2. Facilitate better control over projects by management.
3. Facilitate improved estimates of cost and schedule.
4. Obtain increased productivity of your project teams.
5. Significantly reduce project risks.
6. Reduce cost of development, fixes and rework rates.
7. Improve your organization's ability to attract and retain good staff.
8. Increase customer satisfaction.
9. Reduce risks of legal action from dissatisfied customers.

Improve Execution and Team Coordination Through Best Practices

Knowledge leadership & the mentoring environment

Leading a team and project to success is difficult at best, and often impossible without the right mix of leadership, experience and technique. Project conditions and environment greatly affect the ability of a person to function well. In one environment, an individual may be able to channel and focus their energies — while in another that same person flails about trying to find a purpose.

There are simple tools for eradicating the conditions the create chaotic environments. The near-term goal of these strategies is simple: To create a collaborative, unified environment where the organization executes as a whole. At the root lies communication, empowerment and ownership. Individuals who take ownership in their efforts are proactive in achieving a positive outcome.

One voice, the architectural leader

Nothing results in a project team in search of a purpose more than the lack of clear leadership. In a technology setting this leadership needs to come from an architect. The architect role is pivotal in providing the unifying force and overall sense of direction that a team needs. This is more true in areas of intellectual property than anywhere else.

The architect role is best fulfilled internally although it can also be met using external support. Crafting the role, finding the right person and creating a unified environment must be given high priority — and careful consideration, as the role is all-influencing throughout the team and the company.

Empowerment

Empowerment of the individual means creating the ability to influence the project in a positive manner. Creating an environment that fosters mentoring and cross-team collaboration leads to creative thinking. Creative thinking leads to ownership and a vested interest in the outcome of a problem — and this, of course, results in involvement and an underlying desire to meet attainable goals. It also opens the door to accepting challenge — an open, collaborative environment is one where individuals are able to seek new challenges. The environment fosters growth and learning opportunities and naturally seeks to eradicate "siloing" within the organization.

Infrastructure and methodology

Choosing the right tools to get the job done is critical. Development process is not a simple, one-size-fits-all equation. From the Rational Unified Process to Extreme Programming, development teams have a wide array of techniques available to them — but it's important to remember that the project chooses the methodology.

The importance of understanding the variance between methodologies must be stressed. Choosing the right methodology for the project often determines the difference between success and failure. Heading into a project with pre-conceived notions that one methodology is the right one often leads to chaos.

Organizational communication

Any project that runs in a vacuum is doomed to failure. The best strategy to prevent this is to integrate all aspects of the business with the team, attaining a full level of knowledge transfer. This strategy helps to improve team communication as well — as employees interact and learn from each other, a collaborative group is formed. This is the first step toward achieving the level of integration needed in technology endeavors.

A most effective strategy in this regard includes constant "cross-pollination" between business units. Most methodologies emphasize this strategy, focusing on early involvement and frequent deliveries to project stakeholders. The most successful projects often include a strategy of rotating involvement by all stakeholders, establishing accountability and vested ownership, peaking interest and creating constant communication.