Development Team Empowerment

Despite having many highly skilled personnel, Customer #1 began to fall behind on projected timelines as additional development expectations began to accrue. Our customer believed that expectations could not be met by the existing teams.

The CTO had worked with Cooper Technologies previously and had great confidence in the consulting services offered by Cooper. Because of this, Cooper Technologies was invited to analyze their overall development structure and offer suggestions with the end goal of either hiring the missing talent or reorganizing and managing the teams in order to meet timelines. Very quickly Cooper noticed that the existing build system made code reviews difficult and impractical to implement. As a consequence, this was an environment where unproven components were being implemented before they had been fully tested. Far too frequently, these unproven components were not working properly and they would bog down the entire system or cause system-wide crashes. Overall, the existing build system was hampering development as everyone was continually required to search for and fix bugs caused by implementing unproven updates.

Upon implementation, our customer’s engineering teams’ hours were immediately reduced, development increased and caught up to the timeline. Eventually 50% of personnel were available for reallocation to other projects, and the customer saved valuable time and money.

The impact of these changes is much more far-reaching than just the immediate cost savings. Our customer’s engineers are happier with their work environment as they are able to enjoy a normal work schedule with weekends off and the CTO is again able to tackle new projects and know his business is functioning optimally, deadlines are being met, but most importantly his customers are also happy.

(Specific customer names were removed out of deference to our customers' desire to remain pseudonymous under the terms of our non-disclosure agreements.)

Lossless Data Migration

Customer #2 had been struggling for months to get their data migration system to work at a very basic level, let alone to work with all of the desired functionality they had originally envisioned. Their data supplier provided the data in one format, and our customer needed to migrate to another database system while keeping logs of recent updates.

Cooper Technologies was asked to find out why the existing data migration system was not working and advise on a recommended course of action moving forward. We quickly built and implemented a new and highly performant data migration system which functioned by compressing data and using multi-stage dumps which examined the database for changes and then logged and updated accordingly. The new data migration system allows our customer to migrate data seamlessly while updating the data at high frequencies which is vital to their near real-time data applications. This customer had no idea such a robust system could be built out and functioning so quickly. Cooper Technologies is happy to be considered the technology solution contractor of choice for Customer #2.

(Specific customer names were removed out of deference to our customers' desire to remain pseudonymous under the terms of our non-disclosure agreements.)

Automated Trading Systems

Customer #3, a financial technology company, wanted to have a a system which would allow them to trade their algorithms on the stock market. The software had to be built to specific performance specifications. An opportunity arose to allow them to be profitable if it could be completed and functioning within two weeks of the development start date.

Cooper Technologies completed the software in time for deployment. This software was key to enabling their trades to be executed in an autonomous manner. To date, this software is a key component of their IP.

(Specific customer names were removed out of deference to our customers' desire to remain pseudonymous under the terms of our non-disclosure agreements.)

Specifications & Design Consultation

This step is optional if you already have technical specifications and designs for the product to send us. Otherwise, this step is crucial for us to understand your desired outcomes and help you generate technical specifications and designs for your product.

How we work with you:

1. Initial consultation and assessment (hourly fee, first 30 minutes free) - This gives you the opportunity to experience our communication style and gives us the opportunity to establish where you’re starting from, where you’d like to go or what your idea is. If you’ve done some technical legwork already, we would also cover what tools you currently use, what alternatives you’ve already tried, and what you liked or didn’t like about each of them. Due to the nature of custom software development, we will ask you for a ballpark budgetary figure. At the end, we will outline mutually agreed upon expectations and define our working relationship moving forward.
2. Debrief and paperwork (fixed fee) - We will summarize what we covered during the initial consultation, send you an engagement letter, and draw up a service agreement. You can send us any documents you would like us to sign for us to review as well.
3. Additional technical and business consulting (hourly fee) - Through additional consulting sessions, we can provide advice that is specifically applicable to your needs. Benefits can include:
   • General education/history about the field you’re interested in leveraging and existing technologies in that field
   • Identification of potential innovations that would produce a competitive edge for your company and/or company’s product in that context
   • Typical project components for that type of work and their associated costs
   • Realistic timeframes for development of the software
4. Initial report (fixed fee) - We will conduct due diligence research on the specifics of your industry and identify potential practical applications and manifestations of your ideas to support the business advantage of developing your software. This can be a fairly detailed narrative regarding business implications and impact (e.g. pricing structure recommendations to offset specific overhead where applicable, etc.).
5. Specifications (fixed fee) - Once you’ve selected the components you would like to see in your software based on your understanding of the initial report, we will package them up in a set of technical specifications for you. This helps communicate broad feature-based expectations to product managers and establishes a solid foundation for discussing and engaging in design work. (See “What are technical specifications?” above for a list of components.)
6. Designs (fixed fee) - While the design can be delegated to the product manager if you are not very particular about the execution, (see components from “What are designs?” above,) this helps communicate expectations to the engineers and developers on a very detailed level. We will create technical instructions and visual representations for your software.
7. Whitepaper (fixed fee) - Some clients need a document that can be posted externally. While specifications and designs are typically internal-only documents, we would be happy to re-package the content from both documents into an essay or treatise suitable for a broader audience.

(This outline is for illustrative purposes. A timeline specifically tailored to your project would be detailed in your Master Services Agreement.)

Software Development & Product Delivery

Many tech-oriented companies still outsource portions of software development that are not part of their core competency. If this sounds like you, you could consider starting here because you’d know exactly what you want out of a product and will already have the in-house knowledge to understand how the software works by reading the documentation provided. Otherwise, this is the second step in the journey to making technology work for you.

How we work with you:

1. Initial consultation (hourly fee) - This gives you the opportunity to experience our communication style and for us to review your technical specifications and designs.
2. Proposal preparation (fixed fee) - We will provide a summary of your desired results and a detailed quote based on your technical specifications and designs.
3. Proposal presentation (hourly fee) - This gives you an opportunity to check for understanding.
4. Engagement - We will send you a contract to sign with a master services agreement and statement of work.
5. Initial deposit - We require an initial deposit to begin work on features. Depending on the project size, billing thereafter may be milestone-based or monthly.
6. Check-ins - For larger projects, we may offer regular check-ins to keep you abreast of updates or progress and any required changes to the specifications.
7. Feature delivery - Upon completion of each feature, we package up the code for you with a summary of work done, applicable documentation and instructions.
8. Inspection period - This provides you with the opportunity to review the deliverables and report any material defects you would like us to resolve.
9. Project completion - Your great idea lives! (This part isn’t set in stone.)

(This outline is for illustrative purposes. A timeline specifically tailored to your project would be detailed in your Master Services Agreement.)

Training, Adoption, & Integration Services

We highly recommend this if your staff isn’t comprised entirely of technical experts. Ideally, we would already have a fairly accurate idea of the number of users in your organization from designing the product, so being able to jump right in and draw up a rough quote should be a very smooth process.

How we work with you:

1. Initial consultation(s) (hourly fee) - We will team up each of your team leaders with one of our experts for a walk-through. For example:
   • CMO/Sales Lead: Accounts integration, moving through the pipeline, quoting, and report building.
   • CFO: Chart of accounts setup, journal entry, reconciliation, and report building.
   • COO/CHRM: Talent acquisition pipeline, hiring/on-boarding, and report building.
   • CIO/CTO: Back end maintenance, security, permissions, and report building.
   We will also take the opportunity to collect (updated) org charts and initiate discussion surrounding training deployment media and schedules.
2. Debrief & training plan preparation (fixed fee) - We will summarize what was covered during the initial consultations, note your comments, and address any feedback you had. We will also recommend training media and propose a training schedule accordingly.
3. Curriculum writing (fixed fee) - We will compile the training curriculum for each training session. Training curricula will be tailored to each medium and role.
4. Training delivery (hourly fee) - We will deliver the training sessions in the training schedule, solicit feedback from trainees, and deliver copies of all training materials upon completion of each training series.
5. Follow-up (fixed fee) - After allowing sufficient time to put learning into practice, we will distribute follow-up surveys to all trainees, compile the results, and offer to provide additional trainings to cover any gaps. If it makes sense for your industry, we may also recommend regular trainings.

(This outline is for illustrative purposes. A timeline specifically tailored to your project would be detailed in your Master Services Agreement.)