Software design and development

Clients and their staff are not ignorant. They know when things are not right, and often they can clearly explain the problem given time and patience. On occasion, the lowest ranking member in an organization will have the clearest view of the issues. That can only be learned by listening with an open mind at all levels.

Get the design for the solution right and it will drive itself, often correct your mistakes, and succeed in ways you never imagined. Get it wrong, and you will fight it at every turn.

Build/test/fail/repeat and ensure the harvesting of the lessons and wisdom in each failure. Fight bloat code at every turn and be able to quickly and simply detail on a white board what the software does and how it does it. 

There are incredible tools available for the creation of software. We use LiveCode (link at the bottom of page) and Ruby on Rails. If something better evolves we will move to that. Technical evolution is relentless.

Do not reinvent the wheel. One of our best success stories (DRAM), taps the existing spreadsheet talent in most companies and the power of smart phones to create a seamless data gathering/reporting infrastructure. Be deeply suspicious of "custom builds" that turn into perpetual software engineer employment programs. 

Machine and artificial intelligence is ubiquitous and falling in price by the second. It is begging to be used, and the proper use can translate into massive savings.