The Gear Stream Cloud Factory Model Continued (Again)

Posted in Agile Management Tagged as cloud, cloud factory, cloudsourcing, outsourcing

I’ve been discussing the Gear Stream cloud factory model that establishes a pattern for software development characterized by high velocity, high reliability, high dependability, and high predictability-from start to finish. Here are the final three key components of the model:

Acceptance: In the Gear Stream model, acceptance is effectively guaranteed by the time the software reaches the customer’s sandbox. The customer won’t find any functional defects because the scrutiny to which the code has been subjected ensures that it does exactly what it’s supposed to do. In short, Gear Stream delivers software that meets its quality and customer obligations. While delivering software with speed, quality, and predictability is important, we recognize that things often evolve once your customer starts working directly with newly developed software. While the new software features may satisfy the original requirements, customers often discover the need for new capabilities. In such cases the development cycle starts a new leveraging the reusable code of the project’s first iteration.

Software Value and Size, Not Hours: While companies are accustomed to paying by the hour for contract developers, Gear Stream rejects hourly billing models. The hourly billing model does little to foster delivery innovation and quality and often results in inflated costs. Instead, the Gear Stream model employs functional sizing a mature software discipline for creating repeatable software development processes. Normalized sizing enables standardized software pricing independent of other volatile factors.
In practice, Gear Stream customers don’t pay for the hours spent developing software. They pay for the software itself. By decoupling the development cost per hour from the price of the completed software, GearStream clients are able to evaluate the true cost of delivered software features: something which is difficult, if not impossible, with legacy outsourcing models.

Deployment: Finally, software is installed via automated processes. Rather than have an operations team collecting scripts, binaries, and other components needed to deploy software, Gear Stream relies on systems and tooling to that streamline the process and eliminate human error that can creep into important yet tedious and mundane tasks.

Companies want cost-effective software acquisition models that deliver with high velocity, high reliability, high predictability and high quality from start to finish. The business and delivery models of legacy outsourcing are not designed to deliver on these expectations and worse, often pit in-house teams against contracted developers.

Gear Stream brings that future to life with its highly automated cloud factory and elastic, curated teams of top-tier developers. Aligned with its customers’ interests, Gear Stream works with customers to improve their development skills and systems. We introduce an evolutionary change that yields improvements in the cost-effectiveness, quality, predictability, and velocity of software development. See for yourself! Contact Gear Stream today and find out how our talented teams and the Gear Stream on-demand cloud factory can cure your outsourcing ills and improve your in-house development skills.