Effective soft. company overview & it competence

©2010 EffectiveSoft, Ltd. Minsk, Belarus

Company Overview &

IT Competence

The information contained herein is subject to change without notice

Company Overview & IT Competence 2

©2010 EffectiveSoft, Ltd. Tel: +375 (17) 284 60 00

Minsk, Belarus e-mail: [email protected]

Contents 1 COMPANY OVERVIEW..................................................................................................................... 3

1.1 ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL CAPACITY............................................................................................... 3 1.2 LOCATION INFRASTRUCTURE ........................................................................................................... 3 1.3 COMPANY BACKGROUND ................................................................................................................ 4 1.4 TECHNICAL INFRASTRUCTURE ......................................................................................................... 4 1.5 STAFF INFRASTRUCTURE ................................................................................................................ 5

2 TECHNICAL AND KNOW-HOW CAPACITY ..................................................................................... 6 2.1 SERVICES ..................................................................................................................................... 6 2.2 CUSTOMERS.................................................................................................................................. 7 2.3 PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ...................................................................................... 11 2.4 CERTIFICATION ............................................................................................................................ 11

3 MANAGEMENT COMPETENCE ..................................................................................................... 12 3.1 BUSINESS MODELS ...................................................................................................................... 12

3.1.1 Offshore Development Center.............................................................................................. 12 3.1.2 Time&Material ..................................................................................................................... 14 3.1.3 Project-based ...................................................................................................................... 15

3.2 PROJECT MANAGEMENT ............................................................................................................... 16 3.3 DEVELOPMENT MANAGEMENT ....................................................................................................... 16

3.3.1 Rapid Prototyping ................................................................................................................ 16 3.3.2 Concurrent Development ..................................................................................................... 17 3.3.3 Agile .................................................................................................................................... 17

3.4 RISK MANAGEMENT...................................................................................................................... 17 3.4.1 Risk Categories ................................................................................................................... 17 3.4.2 Risk Management Workflow ................................................................................................ 18 3.4.3 Top Risk Factors and Mitigation Steps................................................................................. 20

3.5 RELEASE MANAGEMENT ............................................................................................................... 21 3.6 CHANGE MANAGEMENT ................................................................................................................ 21 3.7 QUALITY MANAGEMENT ................................................................................................................ 21 3.8 COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT .................................................................................................... 22

3.8.1 Internal Communication ....................................................................................................... 22 3.8.2 External Communication...................................................................................................... 23

3.9 CONFIDENTIALITY AND SECURITY................................................................................................... 24 3.9.1 Confidentiality...................................................................................................................... 24 3.9.2 Security ............................................................................................................................... 24

4 CONTACT US ................................................................................................................................. 27 5 APPENDIX ...................................................................................................................................... 28




1 Company Overview A glimpse at:

Economic and Financial Capacity

Location Infrastructure

Company Background

Technical Infrastructure

Staff Infrastructure

1.1 Economic and Financial Capacity EffectiveSoft states that the company has never experienced the following cases before:

insolvency or/and liquidation

unprofessional conduct or/and any disputes

tax any other financial indebtedness

1.2 Location Infrastructure Belarus, the former Soviet Union republic with a wonderful meaning “White Russia”, is situated in Eastern Europe. Since 1990’s, when the Republic of Belarus regained its independence, the Belarusian IT outsourcing industry has been developing at a fast pace. Belarus has been recently acclaimed as a low-priced yet high-quality IT outsourcing location. Belarus inherited the Soviet reputable educational system and solid technical infrastructure. Today, the Belarusian IT outsourcing seems to be the most mature as compared to that of the former USSR countries.

EffectiveSoft is located in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. Minsk is within a two and a half hour flight from Frankfurt. It takes one hour to drive from the national airport to the offices. The company representative will meet you at the airport and accompany to the hotel, which is a 5 minutes drive or 15 minutes walk from the offices—one of the best hotels in the city, with a magnificent view. The offices are located in the center of the city with all necessary infrastructures nearby including banks, restaurants, lunchrooms, parking places, shops, etc. There is a metro network in the city and many leisure time opportunities.

FAST FACTS ABOUT BELARUS:

Location: Eastern Europe; borders Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, and Lithuania.

Population: 9,9 million people; 1,7 million in Minsk.

Language: Belarusian, Russian

Currency: Belarusian ruble (Br)

Universities: 30 (43 high schools in total)

Territory: 207,600 km2.

Average temperature: January–6oC, July +19oC.

Time zone: GMT + 2.

Airlines: Belavia, Lufthansa, LOT, Austrian Airlines et al. Direct 2-way flights to West Europe, Ireland, UK.

Visa: For the citizens of foreign countries, except CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States), an entrance visa is required. You apply for it either in the embassy of the Republic of Belarus in your region or get it directly at Minsk airport upon your arrival. If you plan your visit to our company, please let us know in advance so that we are able to prepare a corresponding invitation for you in due time.




Geographical location of Belarus (at the border line between East and West Europe)

MORE ABOUT BELARUS:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarus

http://aci.byelarus.com/

“Outsourcing in Belarus”, the article by Ulad Radkevitch: http://www.belarusembassy.org/science/outsourcing.htm

1.3 Company Background EffectiveSoft, Ltd. was founded in 2000 as a privately owned company. The owner of the company is a citizen of the Republic of Belarus who had formerly held an executive position in an IT company in Silicon Valley. EffectiveSoft started its IT activity with custom software development, Flash content development, and semantic research and development. Subsequently, EffectiveSoft diversified into a web design, web development, database and e-commerce solutions, etc., and has turned into a full-range offshore IT outsourcing company. The number of the company employees has grown from 30 to 250 people.

1.4 Technical Infrastructure Offices are located in the center of Minsk, the capital of Belarus

Working area is over 2400 square meters

Space for about 250 people is equipped with modern workstations

50 servers for e-mail, FTP storage, Web content

Dedicated 24/7 Internet connection 10 х 10Mb/sec




1.5 Staff Infrastructure Over the years, EffectiveSoft has created a solid community of qualified and highly-motivated persons. They each expand creative and productive potential of the company. All of the company members have bachelors or master’s degrees in the following sciences: mathematics and computing, physics, radio electronics, linguistics, economics, and some other sciences. The majority of the staff has at least four years of the domain-specific experience.

EffectiveSoft possesses enough intellectual and technical resources to realize a project of different complexity and scope, being able to attract necessary specialists on demand.

EffectiveSoft people:

o VP Business Development and CEO

o Project Managers

o Software engineers

o System analysts

o Business analysts

o GUI designers

o QA engineers

o System administrators and technical support specialists

o Semantic Tools team (linguists and semantic software engineers)

o Designers (graphic designers and animation artists)

o Technical writers

o Translators

o Domain experts and scientists

o Sales and marketing personnel

o HR manager, office manager

o Accountants




2 Technical and Know-How Capacity A glimpse at:

Services

Customers

Proprietary Software Development

Certification

2.1 Services

Branch

Services

Used technologies & programming languages

Custom software development

C++ Programming

Java Programming

UNIX/Linux software development

Embedded software development

Database design & consulting

Application re-engineering and re-factoring

Creation of distribution packages with application installation

Packaging and CD cover design

Manufacturing packaged software

Technical support

Visual C++

Visual C#

Visual

Studio

Visual

Basic

FoxPro

Win32 API,

COM,

DCOM,

COM+,

MDAC

MAPI,

CDO,

ActiveX

.NET

ASP/ASPX

Java

Servlets

JSP

PHP

Perl / CGI

Internet/Intranet software development

Client/Server application development

Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRM)

Distributed application development

Corporate document management systems

Corporate knowledge management systems

Intranet search engine development

Question-and-answer systems

Internet/Intranet collaboration tools

C / C++ / GNU C / Java / .NET,

COM/COM+/DCOM, RMI,

XML/SOAP, Java Servlets / JSP,

PHP, CGI / Perl, Client/Server,

Distributed Processing, Macromedia

Flash / Action Script, MySQL /

InnoDB / PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL

/ Microsoft Access, ORACLE,

Interbase, IBM UDB, IBM DB2, IBM

Informix, HTML / DHTML, CSS,

JavaScript.

Mobile software development

Custom mobile applications development

Games design and development (based on J2ME or Brew OS)

Embedded mobile applications building

Porting of mobile application to other platforms (Platform Migration)

Creating websites for mobile devices

Mobile applications in .Net and Java

Mobile payment services, SMS applications development, and some more

iPhone, Palm WebOS, Symbian,

Android, J2ME, Brew, BlackBerry,

Windows Mobile, PalmOS




Branch

Services

Used technologies & programming languages

Web development services

General

Web-Design

Web-Programming

Flash/Flex and multimedia development

Content management system development & integration

Internet collaboration solution development

Browser-based software development

E-Commerce

Online product catalogues

Online-shops

Payment system development & payment gateway integration

Supply management systems

Other

Online data and knowledge bases

Online games and entertainment

C / C++ / GNU C / Fortran / Java /

BASH / SH.NET,

COM/COM+/DCOM, RMI,

XML/SOAP, Java Servlets / JSP,

PHP, CGI / Perl, Client/Server,

Distributed Processing, Macromedia

Flash / Action Script, MySQL /

InnoDB / PostgreSQL, HTML /

DHTML, CSS, Java Script.

2.2 Customers At the customer’s request, we provide our services under a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA).

Therefore, we cannot list here all of our customers. Some of them are listed below.

Customer: Arkitektkopia AB, Sweden

Project Arkitektkopia

Short description A family of distributed Web-based applications that provides online ordering of drawings and color prints for the building and construction industry in Sweden.

Project metrics Total project development time: 4 years

Lines of code: C# - 389,967, HTML/CSS/JavaScript - 18,458

Tools used: MS Visual Studio .NET, MS Visual Source Safe, MS Visio, Sybase Power Designer, MS

Technologies used: C#, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, IIS, MS SQL Server 2000, HTML/CSS/JavaScript Windows Clustering Service, Network Load

Business model Offshore Development Center

Customer: Savuti, USA

Project Flex Interactive Map

Short description The Flex interactive map is designed for sharing images and videos with the public online. The media data are linked to the specific locations on the geo map. Each photo and video has the geo tag – information about latitude/longitude and altitude of the place where the snap was made.

Project metrics Total project development time: half a year

Lines of code: PHP – 400 000, Flex – 28 000

Technologies and Tools used: CakePHP, MySQL, AMF3, Subversion, Visio, DreamWeaver, Adobe Flash CS3, Adobe Flex Builder 3, Apache




Languages used: PHP5, JavaScript, SQL, Action Script 3

Business model Project-based

Customer: WorldMate, Israel

Project WorldMate Live

Short description The application serves as a personal travel companion, allowing travelers to manage their entire itinerary – flights, hotels, meetings, and ground transportation.

Project metrics Total project development time: half a year

Lines of code: 148 000

Technologies and Tools used: .NET Compact Framework 1.0/2.0, MS SQL Server Compact Edition, MFC, WINAPI, STL, COM, OLEDB, J2ME, MIDP 1./2.0

Languages used: C++, C#, Java, SQL

Business model Time&Material

Customer: QuizWinners, Holland

Project Online Multiplayer Quiz-Game Platform

Short description The system provides the ability to organize online quiz competitions between real players. Games are turn-based and players have to answer a set of questions as fast as possible to win a prize.


Lines of code: about 300 000

Technologies and Tools used: Zend Framework, Zend Studio, Mysql/InnoDB, Power Designer, Subversion, Visio, DreamWeaver, Adobe Flash CS3, Idea, ElectroServer, Apache, Memcached, Nginx, TestTrack, Subversion

Languages used: PHP5, Java, ActionScript, JavaScript, HTML, XML, SQL


Customer: Scandinavian Kyl&Frys AB

Project Routine Business Registration

Short description A program for recording staff business activities and managing supplemental information in the company.

Project metrics Total project development time: 3 months

Lines of code: about 12,000 code lines and 2,000 SQL-script lines

Tools used: Builder C++, MS SQL Server 2000, Power Designer

Technologies used: Win API, Client/Server





Customer: Edgetrade Inc, USA

Project Edgetrade Trading System

Short description Stock data control and statistic system. Combines market data, execution to multiple destinations, order management and risk management into one easy to use application.

Part 1 – Servers. Execution Management System is a high-powered, low latency platform for market data and execution that maximizes speed in delivery of quotes and routing of orders building on Java technology.

Part 2 – Client. The rich SWING–based network application for real time stock data analyzes statistic collection and forecasting.

Part 3 - The control and management servers system. Back Office System is a web based application allows users, accounts, links, connections and other parameters remote management of Execution Management System servers.


Lines of code: Java – 439 211, HTML/CSS/JavaScript/JSP – 23 404

Tools used: Eclipse, Idea, CVS, MS Visio, Sybase Power Designer, Toad

Technologies used: J2SE (Core, Socket, Thread, SWING, Java Beans), J2EE (JDBC, JNI, JMX, Servlets, JSP), XML (XSL, XSLT, Xpath)


Customer: ValTech Communication, USA

Project CLEC CRM

Short description A web-based Customer relationship Management (CRM) system for tracking ordering and billing processes between customers and vendors through the mediation of ValTech for the telecommunications industry of USA.

Project metrics Total project development time: 3,5 months

Lines of code: C# - 275 296, HTML/CSS/JavaScript - 98 757

Tools used: MS Visual Studio.NET, MS Visual Source Safe, Sybase Power Designer, Crystal Report

Technologies used: C#, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, IIS, MS SQL Server 2000, HTML/CSS/JavaScript


Customer: TruCode LLC, USA

Projects Search Drug and Account Maintenance

Short description Windows application that provides searching capabilities over drugs database.

Windows based accounts configuration tool.


Lines of code: C# - 485 516, HTML/CSS/JavaScript - 112 019

Tools used: MS Visual Studio .NET 2005, MS Visual Source Safe, MS Visio, Sybase Power Designer

Technologies used: C#, WinForms, ADO.NET, MS SQL Server 2005, XML, XSLT, CSS

Libraries: Composite UI Application Block, DotLucene search engine


Customer: EffectiveSoft Ltd., Belarus




Project Intellexer Enterprise Solution

Intellexer SDK

Short description Intellexer SDK is a suite of libraries designed to bring the power of Natural Language Processing to your software solutions. Using its API you can either enhance your existing solutions or build custom semantics-powered programs. Intellexer SDK features include: Natural Language Search, Document Summarization, Comparison and Categorization.

Intellexer Enterprise Solution is an enterprise-level knowledge management system, incorporating information search and retrieval techniques, document summarization, comparison, categorization and clusterization.

Project metrics Total project development time: 3.5 year, more than 50 men-years R&D works

Tools used: MS Visual Studio .NET, MS Visual Source Safe, MS Visio.

Technologies used: Windows API, C#, ASP.NET, IIS, HTML/CSS/JavaScript, Linux API, C++


Customer: 3alab, USA

Project 3alab iRadio

Short description A new way of capturing and collecting music from radio stations over the Internet. It allows listening most of media streams, provides on-the-fly audio stream processing, automatically cuts continued online stream in separated media files and assigns corresponding names.

Other self-design features:

Conversion from different audio formats to MP3

GUI with self-design control engine that includes Flash control units

Media CD recording

10 band equalizer

Full range MP3 toolkit

Record time scheduler

Project metrics Total project development time: 6 months

Tools used: MS Visual Studio .NET, MS Visual Source Safe

Technologies used: C/C++/C# XML, XSLT, COM/ACTIVEX, MS Media SDK , RealOne SDk, MP3 toolkit


Customer: IWINT Inc., China

Project Content Development Tool (CDT)

Short description Web-based applications for developing technical articles for Knowledgebase filling. It provides support for complicated article handling workflow, supports several user roles; provides reach set of reports.


Lines of code: C# - 32,914, ASPX/HTML/CSS/JavaScript – 9 965

Tools used: MS Visual Studio .NET, MS Visual Source Safe, Sybase Power Designer

Technologies used: C#, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, IIS, MS SQL Server 2000, HTML/CSS/JavaScript





2.3 Proprietary Software Development EffectiveSoft provides various software development services based upon its proprietary linguistic platform, Intellexer™. Semantic technologies used in Intellexer™ facilitate development of such solutions as:

Semantic analysis of documents

Natural Language Interface for Search Engines

Document Comparison

Document Summarization

The advantage of the Intellexer™ linguistic platform is its flexibility. The Intellexer™ SDK can be used for the development of your custom solutions. Intellexer components can also be delivered in the form of ready out-of-the-box solutions.

Examples of such solutions include:

Question-answering Systems

Natural Language-based Search Engines

Document Summarization (Summarizer)

Document Comparison (Document Comparator)

Document Categorization (Document Categorizer)

2.4 Certification 1. EffectiveSoft became ISO 9001 Certified, February 22, 2008.

(http://www.effectivesoft.com/news_iso_9001.html)

2. EffectiveSoft as a MS Gold Certified Partner, January 22, 2008.

(http://pinpoint.microsoft.com/en-BY/partners/EffectiveSoft-Ltd-4296630072?LocId=393766898327352 and http://www.effectivesoft.com/news_ms_gold_certified_partner.html)

3. EffectiveSoft as a MS Certified Partner, August 15, 2006.

(https://solutionfinder.microsoft.com/Partners/PartnerDetailsView.aspx?partnerid=a8ef326f294b4041977ad4b1b138a9f2 and http://www.effectivesoft.com/ms_news.html)

4. A Certificate in Project Estimation from the Institute for Software Research International at Carnegie Mellon University, February 19, 2005

(http://www.effectivesoft.com/news_software_research_certifies.html)

5. A Certificate in Risk Management from the Institute for Software Research International at Carnegie Mellon University, November 27, 2004

(http://www.effectivesoft.com/news_risk_management.html)




3 Management Competence Our managerial and technical competence in providing outsourcing software development services results from our knowledge and experience in:

Business models application

Project management

Development management

Risk management

Release management

Change management

Quality management

Communication management

Confidentiality&Security management

3.1 Business Models EffectiveSoft offers customers a choice of business models to mutually better launch the cooperation:

Offshore Development Center

Time&Material

Project-based

3.1.1 Offshore Development Center Description: Offshore Development Center (ODC) is a virtual team of software engineers. The team is tailored to the customer’s project requirements and business needs and acts as the remote extension of the customer in-house staff. This business model is of benefit for the customers who are in need for offshore IT-specialists due to some reasons: onshore project time pressure, lack of some intellectual assets, cost savings, and some other.

Payment schedule: The customer pays a weekly or monthly charge for the work done.

Contracts/agreements:

Obligatory Optional

Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA)

Consulting/Development Agreement

Agent Agreement

Framework Agreement




Cooperation scheme:

Responsibilities

Customer EffectiveSoft

Remote project management

Provision of business requirements

Project workload tracking

Remote access to project-related documentation,

product codes, if acceptable

Documentation

Product-related content

Any papers/references that might be helpful to the

development and better understanding of customer’s

services/product specificity

Optional: design sketches, technical requirements

Project management

Team formation

Tasks assignment

Project schedule definition

Change management

Team management

Decision about the team scalability or downsize as per

project requirements

Decision about the team skills

Product development:

Programming/design

QA/Testing

Delivery after each milestone achieved

Reports

Task tracking and reporting, weekly/monthly

Documentation

Development and provision of requirements

specification, product design, system architecture,

where applicable

Help systems, tutorials, administrator’s and end-user’s

guides

Other product-, project-related documentation

The scheme is negotiable




3.1.2 Time&Material Description: EffectiveSoft offers the Time&Material model if the project requirements are foreseen as dynamic. This model is of convenience when the team size, workload and project schedule need to be modified in the course of the project.

Payment schedule: The customer pays a weekly or monthly charge for the work done.


Obligatory Optional



Agent Agreement

Framework Agreement

Cooperation scheme:

Responsibilities


Remote project management and monitoring

Tasks assignment

Project schedule definition (jointly)

Workload tracking

Documentation

Design and provision of System Architecture and

appropriate specifications

Product development:

Programming/design

QA/Testing

Delivery after each milestone achieved

Reports

Task tracking and reporting, weekly/monthly

Team

Decision about the team scalability or downsize as per

project requirements

Decision about the team skills

The scheme is negotiable




3.1.3 Project-based Description:

EffectiveSoft usually offers this business model (sometimes called Fixed-price Model) for the projects with a full development cycle, including design, programming, QA, technical writing, and technical support, where the entire project scope is transparent and is not expected to be modified during the project execution. All of the requirements to the product are collectively discussed with the customer and described in the specifications and other technical documentation in details. EffectiveSoft thus estimates the complexity of the project scope and submits a fixed project price, project timeframes and its deliverables, which are stipulated in the Development Agreement in sufficient details. The project is executed in strict accordance within agreed-on plan and budget.

! When the project scope and budget cannot be precisely defined at the moment, other business models are recommended.

Payment schedule:

Large projects Small projects

Alpha version – 30%

Beta version – 30%

Release – 40%

50% prepayment

50% after release


Obligatory Optional



Agent Agreement

Framework Agreement

Cooperation scheme:

Responsibilities


Partial remote project management

Project tracking

Project management

Workload estimation Project schedule definition Tasks assignment

Documentation Design and provision of System Architecture and Scope

of Work documents, other product specifications

Product development Programming/design QA/Testing Delivery after each milestone achieved

Reports Task tracking and reporting, weekly Software builds, weekly

Team Decision about the team scalability or downsize as per

project requirements Decision about the team skills

* The scheme is negotiable.




3.2 Project Management EffectiveSoft methodology to project management is based upon the industry standard Rational Unified Process (RUP). It encompasses all workflows necessary to sequentially run the project, including requirements management, analysis and design, implementation, testing, and deployment. The documentation and design works are based upon the application of the Unified Modeling Language (UML).

3.3 Development Management Our methodology to software development is based on ISO/IEC standards, company norms and approaches gained from our experience in providing outsourcing services. Depending upon the customer’s wishes and project scope, we usually apply one of the three development models:

Rapid Prototyping or

Concurrent Development or

Agile

3.3.1 Rapid Prototyping Rapid Prototyping or Prototyping development model is normally applied for the projects with fixed price and timeframes (Project-based business model). Prototyping assumes the application of the system prototypes or mock-ups at the infant project stage. Accomplished with comments, they visualize the future product by showing and explaining how it will work and look. This enables the customer and EffectiveSoft soundly discuss mutual suggestions, make appropriate adjustments and finally agree upon the product design, functioning and architecture. With Prototyping, it is possible to make accurate project estimation, define milestones and deadlines.




Projects executed under the Prototyping development model cover the following stages:

1. Requirements Analysis

2. Prototyping

3. Project Estimation (including budget, schedule, and efforts)

4. Detailed Technical Documentation and Project Plan Development

5. Product Development, its Quality Management

6. Release (possible after-release enhancements)

7. Maintenance and Technical Support

3.3.2 Concurrent Development Concurrent development model is usually applied for the projects with dynamic product requirements and variable project scope in general, short iterations and continuous communication. The work is proceeded on “as needed” basis. To keep the consistency of the project, the teams work concurrently, where they interactively share updates, communicate the status of the finished tasks and collectively trace the entire maturity of the project.

Concurrent development is of benefit for the projects with unclear requirements at the beginning, being however précised during the project run. The product is thus developed incrementally taking the advantage of synergetic attracting the most competent employees in order to meet the project goals.

Concurrent development is preferable for Time&Material and ODC (Offshore Development Center) business models.

3.3.3 Agile Agile methodology is applied to the software projects that are vulnerable to emergent changes (Time&Material). Its principles focus on delivery of working software iterations in short periods of time. Each iteration is regarded as an entire software project, including planning, requirements analysis, design, coding, testing, and documentation. Improvement or addition of new functionality takes place within next iteration.

Agile methods emphasize face-to-face communication over written documents. Our Agile team members are located in the same office, which promotes prompt knowledge sharing and better understanding of urgent issues. Each team may include software engineers, product managers, business analysts, QA members, interaction designers, technical writers, and other specialists as per project scope.

3.4 Risk Management For an outsourcing project, any condition or situation that occurs unpredictably or is likely to occur and which threatens success of the project is considered as a risk. Already at the beginning of a new project, EffectiveSoft thoroughly examines real and possible weak points in the project, which may adversely affect the project, its scope, timeframes, budget, and product quality.

3.4.1 Risk Categories We approach risk management activities throughout the entire project life cycle considering the following risk categories:

Technical, quality, performance risks. These are related to the introduction/application of new/ complex technology or development methods, unrealistic performance goals, unclear product vision, ineffective requirements change management, lack of technical equipment.

Project-management risks. These are related to poor allocation of time and resources, inadequate project planning and task identification, unclear project ownership and decision making, poor communication.




Organizational risks. These are related to resource conflict with other projects in the company, inadequate business decision making, poorly documented tasks and processes.

External risks. These are related to legal or regulatory environment, labor issues, customer’s unrealistic requirements or expectations, language barriers.

3.4.2 Risk Management Workflow To identify and analyze the materialization probability of the risks, set their priority, and work out corresponding mitigation strategies, if the risk exists, we go through the following consequent steps:

Figure. Risk Management System

1. Risk assessment is the process of examining the project and identifying the areas of a potential

risk. For risk identification, we use a checklist of common risks from previous similar projects, review of prior project plans combined with assumption analysis of project managers, brainstorming, and interviewing of the subject-matter experts. After we reveal risk symptoms, we move forward to risk analysis. Each identified risk is scored upon an assessment of likelihood and its impact upon project objectives, including its cost, schedule, scope, and quality. See the examples of ranking the risks in Table 1 and Table 2. By multiplying the values of likelihood and impact, we arrive at risk score (risk factor) that shows the degree of risk danger upon the project. The higher the score, the more high-risk issue. If one and the same risk event affects several project objectives, we make the estimation as for several risks. Once all the identified risks are rated, we make a list of risk prioritization, in which the risks with high score are placed first in order to be handled immediately.

2. Risk control is the process of addressing the identified risks with adequate actions so that the risk is either eliminated or decreased as a result. It starts with risk management planning. For each identified risk we assign a suitable mitigation step, a responsible person and timelines. Risk resolution and risk monitoring are continuously executed side by side throughout the project life cycle to ensure that encountered risks do not threaten project objectives.

Table 1. Evaluating impact of a risk upon major project objectives




Project

objective/Rate

Very low

1-2

Low

3-4

Moderate

5-6

High

7-8

Very high

9-10

Cost Insignificant cost

increase

<5% cost increase 5-10% cost increase 10-20% cost

increase

>20% cost

increase

Schedule Insignificant

schedule slippage

<5% schedule

slippage

5-10% overall project

slippage

10-20% overall

project slippage

>20% project

slippage

Scope Scope decrease

barely noticeable

Minor areas of scope

are affected

Major areas of scope

are affected

Scope reduction

unacceptable to

the customer

Project end item

is effectively

useless

Quality Quality degradation

barely noticeable

Only very demanding

applications/applicatio

n components are

affected

Quality reduction

requires customer’s

decision making

Quality reduction

unacceptable to

the customer

Project end item

is effectively

unusable

*Rating is conventional

Table 2. Likelihood of risk occurring

Probability Rate

Low 1,5

Moderate 3

High 4

*Rating is conventional

Example of risk analysis

by “Impact x Likelihood=Risk Factor”

The development plan overlaps with a number of national holidays. This means

that some days are to be unproductive. It is a risk for project schedule. Its impact

can be rated to 2. However, the likelihood is high, rated to 5. The risk factor rating

is 10.

The mitigation process might include a number of various steps as agreed upon

with the customer, for example, project plan revision, its possible extension,

submitting task reports on the holiday eve in order to gain the time while the

customer prepares a feedback, even if it is a short-time iteration report; and some

other risk response actions.




3.4.3 Top Risk Factors and Mitigation Steps It should be noted that projects of a common or recurrent type tend to have predictable character of risk events and their consequences, while projects of first-of-its-kind character tend to have more uncertainty. Thus, the application of the mitigation strategies depends upon the project scope and the nature of the risk encountered.

Following are the top risk factors and the actions needed to minimize the risk consequences. We accumulated these based upon our experience from the previous projects.

Risk Factor Risk Mitigation Steps

Unclear/ambiguous requirements to the service to be provided

Development/ provision of a detailed technical specification

Prototyping development, revision by the customer

Product delivery over defined milestones to ensure that the product meets bespoken requirements

Unclear/ambiguous requirements to the tasks of project participants

Development/ provision of a detailed technical specification to be able to fearlessly assign resources with tasks to the project

Project plan development

Assurance that the task is clear for each project player

Too many requirements changes Definition of the procedure to handle the requirements

Request for sign-off for the initial requirements specification from the customer

Payment on actual effort

Unachievable performance requirements Transparent specification of the performance criteria, revision by the customer

Definition of the standards to be followed to meet the performance criteria

Prototyping of critical performance transactions

Execution of stress tests where possible

Communication gap Development of the communication management plan

Daily/Weekly Status reporting

Conference calls, open meetings

Remote access to project-related documentation, product codes, if acceptable

New technology In-house training in the new technology

Onsite training, knowledge exchange

Phased delivery, starting with the delivery of the critical modules (application parts)

Wrong project cost estimation (either over- or underestimation)

Development/ provision of a detailed technical specification

Assurance that all customer requirements are covered

Request for sign-off for the specification from the customer

Estimation by several project candidates

Schedule troubles Development/ provision of a detailed technical specification

Project plan development

Task tracking and reporting

Daily/Weekly Status meetings

Definition of the process and approaches of how to handle changing requirements, enhancements, etc., if the project is likely to incur them




3.5 Release Management EffectiveSoft documents all decisions and requirements related to the product release in the functional specification and project plan. If required, the configuration management plan is created, which defines specific terminology and criteria applied for the evaluation of the project status.

3.6 Change Management Any additional changes related to the product requirements, project schedule or budget caused by external or internal circumstances are always discussed and agreed upon with the customer.

In the course of the project, Project manager is responsible for all the decisions related to any changes. The Project manager monitors all the processes, coordinates them with R&D team and with customers.

If the project is based upon the Time&Material business model, the customer is responsible for all the decisions related to the changes in the product functionality and schedules.

3.7 Quality Management To ensure the consistency and quality of all the processes involved into the project, as well as the product quality, EffectiveSoft applies the Quality Management System mechanism. It is based on ISO 9001-2000 requirements and ISO/IEC 12207-99 recommendations.

The company’s quality policy is described in “EffectiveSoft Quality Management System” manual, which presents the organizational structure of the Quality Management System, defines company management goals and liability concerning the quality, states authorities and responsibilities of the staff within the system. The Quality Management System is applied for all the stages of the project life cycle:

Figure. Quality Management System




* For more information, we refer you to the “EffectiveSoft Quality Management System” manual.

3.8 Communication Management A great part of the project success significantly depends upon the volume, credibility, and response time of information being exchanged between the project stakeholders. To efficiently and timely manage the information turn round both inside the company and with customers, EffectiveSoft practices internal and external communication management. The application of methods and techniques depends upon information needs and available resources to meet those needs.

3.8.1 Internal Communication The objective of the internal communication management is to provide means and conditions for the employees of the company to access, trace, be aware of and transfer necessary data effectively and at the proper time. The table below outlines the target audience and methods of managing communications in house.




Audience Communication objective Approaches Technology

Company

members

To be informed about the latest

company news, upcoming

events, and newly introduced

or modified internal norms and

regulations.

Weekly company meetings

Newsfeeds

Company policies

“Face-to-face”

Corporate and service-

dedicated web sites

Microsoft VSS

Project members To be informed about product

requirements and project

status, nascent events,

dynamic changes.

Technical documentation

Project plan

Daily&weekly status meetings

Daily&weekly status reports

Ad hoc conversations/meetings

SVN

Microsoft Office Project

“Face-to-face”

Microsoft Project Server

“Face-to-face”, IM systems, e-

mails

Team members To be informed about assigned

tasks, latest project status,

team task status, nascent

events, dynamic changes.

Technical documentation

Project plan

Ad hoc conversations/meetings


SVN

Microsoft Office Project

“Face-to-face”, IM systems, e-

mails

Microsoft Project Server

Language: Russian for internal policies, English for project-related documentation, emailing and messaging.

Communication frequency: Formal communication procedures are on a regular basis as defined by company policies. Urgent and risk issues are communicated as high-priority.

3.8.2 External Communication The objective of the external communication management is to provide open communication channels between the customer and the company, public audience and the company.

Audience Communication objective Approach Technology

EffectiveSoft

team

vs.

Customer

To agree upon cooperation

and product development

terms, jointly trace the project

life cycle and timely exchange

project-related issues.

Kick-off meeting

Security and confidentiality


Access to project-related

source codes and

documentation

Ad hoc meetings, online

Phone/Skype VOIP

NDA, Development Agreement

Via e-mail

Via web or VPN

IM systems (icq, MSN, Yahoo,

Skype), e-mails, GoTo Meeting

tool




conferences

Onsite trainings

Business trips

EffectiveSoft

vs.

Public Audience

To present corporate identity

online by publishing and

advertising relevant info about

the company, its services and

research works.

To establish a win-to-win

partnership relations.

Company profile and

presentations

White papers

Newsfeeds

Service-dedicated demo

shows

Participation in inland and

international exhibitions and

fairs.

PPT, PDF, WORD

documentation, corporate web

site

PDF documentation

Corporate and service-

dedicated web sites

Flash/Flex

Multimedia presentations and

printed marketing materials.

Language: English for project-related documentation, emailing and messaging. Other languages for communication are German, French, and Italian.

Communication schedule: 24x7 (hoursxdays) responsiveness. Working hours of the development team are adjusted to business hours of the customer from other time zone. Prompt notification upon any delayed issue or decision-making.

Communication frequency: Formal communication procedures are on a regular basis as defined by company policies and project plan. Urgent and risk issues are communicated as high-priority.

3.9 Confidentiality and Security EffectiveSoft is committed to safeguarding each outsourcing project from internal and external circumstances, which may cause harm to customers’ interests, services and secret information. To ensure project success and its privacy, we apply the policies of Confidentiality and Security both within the company and in business relationship with our partners, clients and service providers.

3.9.1 Confidentiality If the confidentiality of the project and business relationship is important for the customer, EffectiveSoft signs a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). The company guarantees that the source codes, trade secrets, patents and any other information involved into the project is not exposed to disclosure to a third party. This allows us to build a long-term partnership with our customers based upon mutual trust and ongoing understanding.

3.9.2 Security EffectiveSoft is responsible for the legal security of project-related information, including documentation, source codes, reports, and product results from unauthorized access. For this purpose, the company undertakes the following measures:

At the customers’ request, a NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) is signed, where EffectiveSoft is obliged to non-disclosure of customer’s trade secrets, copyrights, and other project-related information to a third party.

EffectiveSoft launches cooperation only with reputable and reliable clients, partners and service vendors.




Each company employee signs a separate NDA with EffectiveSoft.

While hiring the personnel, the company screens the candidate for criminal background, education and experience; and takes into account the references about the candidate from the previous employer.

EffectiveSoft works out and applies the technical policies to server security, access control, anti-virus system, and private network.

Figure. Data migration and location topology

Data Security

For a company centralized data management, security, and back-up, EffectiveSoft uses the Veritas BackUp Exec Family Technology.

The advantages of this technology for the company are as follows:

Available Back-Up Agents, which support different platforms.

Data management simplicity due to Single-Instance-Storage functionality.

Secure and reliable data storage. Any platform- and supplier information and back-up copies are easily identified, catalogued and restored.

We provide the security of all the data types that are related to any project and company processes in general, including applications, platforms, and locations:

Domain Directory Service data – Active Directory state.

Mail-server data and related IIS metadata.

Data related to and resulting from the product development, including source codes, documentation, bug tracking and testing data.

Microsoft SQL Server databases

Web and FTP content

EffectiveSoft exercises the back-up policy as follows:




Full data back-up: every Saturday to the local safe storage and a later move to the remote general safe data storage.

Differential data back-up: every day to the local safe storage and a later move to the remote general safe data storage

Full data shot back-up: every first day of the month to local safe storage and a later move to the remote general safe data storage.

Snapshot Back-Up and Data saving on DVD media: every month.




4 Contact Us If you need some information that is not described in this document, please contact us.

Phone:

+375 17 2846000

+375 29 6558117

E-mail:

[email protected]

Address:

EffectiveSoft, Ltd.

3, Ya. Kolasa Str.

220002, Minsk, Belarus.

To learn more about our services and company, we invite you to visit the following our web-sites:

Our corporate identity online

Information about the company, offered services, applied technologies, examples of our work with customers’ testimonials, and some more.

http://www.effectivesoft.com/

Our offshore development department

Information about the community, how to engage and work with “Softvelopers”, work examples with customers’ testimonials, and some more.

http://www.softvelopers.com/

Semantics-related services

Information about applied semantic technologies for the development of SDK and custom solutions, online demos and free downloads of some of our solutions.

http://www.intellexer.com/

Proprietary semantic solution – Document Comparator

Information about the software features, use case and online demo, request for quote form.

http://comparator.intellexer.com/

Proprietary semantic solution – Document Summarizer

Information about the software features, including SDK and a software personal edition; use case and online demo, free download of a Document Summarizer personal edition, request for quote form.

http://summarizer.intellexer.com/

Proprietary semantic solution – Spellchecker new

Information about the solution features, use case, online demo and examples, request for quote form.

http://spellchecker.intellexer.com/

Our dedicated consulting group

Information about outsourced services, including domain- and technology-related consulting, development of knowledge bases and computer-based training systems, online demos, examples, request for quote form.

http://consulting.effectivesoft.com/

Our design team

Information about offered design services, including development of multimedia solutions and corporate identity package, technical artworks, web design, and some more.

http://design.effectivesoft.com/




5 Appendix

IT experience, in years

Know-How Persons

Totally 1+ 3+ 5+

ASP.NET 53 12 23 18

Delphi 5 5

JAVA SCRIPT 31 7 10 14

PERL 5 3 1 1

PHP 29 5 8 16

FLEX 15 9 6

Web Technology

ACTIONSCRIPT 43 8 18 17

MS SERVER 2000/XP/2003

240 122 73

Linux 13 4 4 5

Operating Systems

MAC OSX 11 5 3 3

MS COMMERCE SERVER

1 1

ORACLE APP SERVER

8 3 2 3

WEBLOGIC 3 3

Application Servers

WEBSPHERE 3 3

DB2 8 8

MS SQL SERVER 21 3 8 10

MYSQL 52 10 13 29

Database

ORACLE / ORACLE DBA

8 2 5 1

iPhone 14 14

Windows Mobile 17 6 4 7

Symbian 9 1 2 6

Mobile Computing

Blackberry 4 1 3

ATL 32 17 15

COM/COM+ 20 4 12 4

J2EE 40 10 17 13

JAVA BEANS 40 8 16 16

JAVA SPACES 36 8 14 14

JMS 38 8 16 14

Component Technology

J2SE 4 4

C++ 44 5 19 20 Languages / Development

VC++ 36 6 24 6




IT experience, in years

Know-How Persons

Totally 1+ 3+ 5+

C 20 8 12

C # 74 20 36 18

JAVA 46 15 17 14

MFC 36 6 24 6

ORACLE 9i JDEVELOPER

8 1 3 4

VB 4 4

VB.NET 7 1 3 5

Tools

Powerbuilder 12 4 8

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP

24 8 16

DIRECTOR 12 8 4

DREAM WEAVER 14 2 7 5

FIRE WORKS 9 2 7

FLASH 29 9 14 6

ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR

12 2 5 5

ADOBE PREMIER 10 5 5

Multimedia & Graphics

ADOBE FRAME MAKER

8 4 4

Effective soft. company overview & it competence

Business

Transcript of Effective soft. company overview & it competence