Would you hire a company to design (or build) a skyscraper, on a billable-hours basis, on the strength of their claim that they have 100 engineers (or bricklayers) who just happen to be available and out of work? What do you think will happen at the end of the day?
Unique among system architects and system engineers, TechLabs has a business model which less resembles the conventional IT "system integrator" than the highly successful process and organization used by architects and engineers world-wide to manage multi-million dollar projects--often with penalties for lateness.
Having operated a classical "system integration" business for over 20 years we observed that in today's business environment results are what count for the client -- not billable hours.
Nowadays managers rarely boast that "this program has 1,000,000 lines of code", or "One hundred professionals labored for four years to get this software working." -- Real cases. That was valid when information technology was 80% research and 20% application. Nowadays it's 95% application.
Computers have become a commodity. Communications has become a commodity. Software is nearly there.
Modern business has learned to distinguish between sweat and results.
Managing software, hardware and system integration businesses, we learned that the business model used in the A&E (architecture and engineering) world is entirely applicable to the systems business.
1. Plan, design, manage, test, train and deliver:
Do this as consultant or principal.
2. Do this with a very small team of exceptional people, managed by Partners who both...
Have direct general management experience.
Have direct, current technical expertise.
3. Work with subcontractors or associated teams who provide the specialist skills.
Keep their feet to the fire.
Don't stockpile technical specialists. You'll have to bill them out somewhere...
4. Institute a testing and documentation program at the beginning, not the end.
5. Where possible plan spiral evolution.
Plan--Build--Test--Deliver--Plan--Build--Test--Deliver......
We prefer not to use traditional "waterfall" methodology which has led to countless overruns.
Assign the nice-to-haves to later cycles of evolution.
6. Test, test, test, test, at every stage.
7. Measure results, not billable hours.
That is TechLabs' Business Model.