Cross-Media Software Suite Development
Executive Summary
The client firm was facing resource and cost issues and had never contracted work to any firm locally or globally. Contracting work to another firm and that too in another country was a double-challenge for the client firm.
The Mindfire Solution
Initial discussions with Mindfire included shared development, establishing point of contacts, communication and collaboration plans or arrangements, prior experience and success commitments/guarantees – integrated change management with risk aversion and mitigation plans. We made a plan to:
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Interview and assess the proposed resource – a lead software engineer,
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Engage the engineer an onsite visit – to be placed in Paris for a month long knowledge transfer activity,
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Establish the same engineer as a single-person virtual team in India, and the primary contact to the client firm,
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Assign preliminary work to the engineer allowing him some time to understand the system, and
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Assess progress and appropriately time the extension of the virtual team to 4-8 resources, also extending the lead software engineer’s responsibility as a project manager for the client firm at Mindfire’s end.
Mindfire’s immense experience in publishing software development, Apple Mac OS X development, and Adobe/Quark technologies helped establish the initial trust level with the client firm, subsequently supported by the different business engagement models proposed by Mindfire. Mindfire delivered a full scale, extensible virtual team setup, with experienced resources involved in multiple technologies for client and server applications. Having had years of experience providing virtual teams to numerous clients, Mindfire used its unique remote development methodology based on critical success factors, with a strong understanding of the subtleties of distributed & synchronous/asynchronous collaborative efforts.
Mindfire Solution Details
The virtual team resources continue to work on multiple different versions of the frontline cross-media software suite, which is an integrated collaborative cross-media content management and publishing platform, designed for marketing, communications departments, and press/media. This system allows users to manage, repurpose, script and add value to content on multiple media (paper/web/mobile/e-paper). Primarily, the team has been working out the print publishing solution, which is a native combination with Quark Xpress 7/8 and Adobe InDesign CS3/4 (involving schedule and editorial calendar, profile) based decentralized work effort and planning/follow-ups of publication production items/issues.
Technologies
C/C++, Java, XML, Quark Xpress 7/8 client and server, Adobe InDesign CS3/CS4 client and server, HTTP, TCP, SOAP, POCO C++, Boost C++, gSOAP, Eclipse, RCP, JWS, AWT, SWT, SVN, Trac on Windows, Mac OSX etc.
