IT Staff Assessment
Focusing on the business problem instead of the technology.
Some of our success stories.
Learn how we met the client challenge - quality solutions, on time, on budget, to specification, and exceeding expectations - with some of our case studies.
- Data Management - Microsoft DTS to Informatica
- Data Management - Signature
- Systems Integration - USA Bank Referrals
- Project Rescue - RM Builder
- Software Development - Vicor Lockbox
- Business Process Analysis
- IT Staff Assessment
- Data Management - ARM Reports
- Quality Assurance - BYO Checking
- Data Management - Microsoft Access Upgrade
Read more
The Challenge
American REIT, a real estate investment trust company with assets across the Sunbelt region of the U.S.,
had a need for an independent assessment of their IT staff. While most of the team members
had been with the company for a long period and had deep business knowledge, productivity and quality had
fallen off, forcing the company to outsource mission critical projects of the type that had been developed
in-house in the past. The company was moving to Microsoft's .NET platform and needed to determine the extent
of the gap between where the team was and where it needed to be. We were engaged to provide this independent assessment.
Our Approach
Our first step was to interview IT management to determine the strategic goals with respect to in-house development. This
allowed us to establish a baseline of "where the company was going to go". Next, we conducted a first-round of
interviews with the staff to discover work experiences and determine skill levels, both hard skills (specific technologies)
and the softer skills in software engineering processes and methodologies. We determined that there was a significant
disconnect between the team's perceived skill levels, the actual skill levels demonstrated in the past, and the
necessary skills needed to efficiently develop quality .NET solutions.
To assess the extent of the disconnect, the gap between perceived and actual skills, we devised a series of
hands-on exercises which would allow us to evaluate not only technical expertise, but the application of software
engineering principles and approaches to problem solving. Observing the developers as they worked through these exercises
gave us a great deal of insight into who could rise to the challenges facing the organization
Our Recommendations
We wrote recommendation reports in six different areas:
• Team Assessment - Evaluation of individual team members and the team as a whole.
• KPI's & Measurements - Recommendations for a set of quantitive measures to track progress and performance.
• Application Development - A light-weight methodology that could be quickly implemented and adhered to.
• Development Platform - Hardware and software tool recommendations.
• Configuration Management - A light-weight approach designed for rapid implementation and adherence.
• Quality Assurance - Recommendations for integrating quality assurance into the culture.
Results
By implementing our recommendations, our client was able to significantly increase the productivity of its IT function and
better serve its internal business clients.