Adattivo: An All-agile Approach to Software Development and Training

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Steve Jovanelly, CEO/CTO, AdattivoSteve Jovanelly, CEO/CTO
In the wake of an ever-increasing emphasis on Agile prophecies, Colorado-based Adattivo not only leverages Agile methodologies to help in their clients’ product/software development process but also conducts programs to train the future generation software developers and help them keep up with emerging technologies.

In an interview with CIOApplications, Steve Jovanelly, CEO/CTO of Adattivo, shares how the company helps its clients build a useful software product along while helping young software developers keep up with the latest technological trends.

What were some of the factors that spurred the conception of Adattivo?

I have been doing technical start-ups for the last ten years, as co-founder and CTO. As my previous start-up started to wind down, I tried to think about what to do next. I wanted to do two things: One; I wished to contribute to not just one company but help many companies with the 30 years of experience that I have. Second, I serve as a mentor at the University of Colorado Boulder, a local code school, and various other organizations. I wanted to start a company where I could hire, give jobs and career growth opportunities for students who recently graduated from a university or code school. I have a lot of experience in hiring folks at the start of their careers and putting processes and mentoring in place to help them quickly grow and become successful professional developers. That is what I am trying to scale Adattivo.

What are some of the challenges that your clients have at present, and how does Adattivo mitigate them?

Most of our clients are small to mid-size organizations. They usually need help in one of two areas: One, they need a talented team to build a new product or subsystem and want to hand it off to us completely. We manage the projects and build Agile processes for them. Second, some clients have Agile processes and teams already in place and need a few reliable developers to increase their team velocity or get them through a particular milestone. So, I think the unique problem that they are facing right now is the quickly evolving technology, and they find it challenging to keep up with that. We have experience in different technology stacks and can provide their teams with developers that are subject matter experts.

You have varied clients with different kinds of needs. How do you cater to those needs methodology to provide precisely what they’re looking for?

We start by doing a full inspection of the needs our clients may have over some time and look at any information from a project management standpoint. If needed, we can bring in product managers/product owners on staff to help them fill out all the user requirements and even help them identify or build out things they didn’t know they needed.

Some clients may only have a word document with a list of points that they need. We require more than that to start designing a product. So, we help identify and define those requirements. We then talk them through the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) process to start gathering information and work with them on the steps they may need.

All our developers are trained internally through our Talent Accelerator Program Process that makes sure they are up to speed with the latest technologies and continuously learning. They write the software to the same standards as our client’s staff would

Sometimes, we help them build a clickable demo first to get customer feedback. Based on that, we’ll start to fill out what the MVP will look like. The building process begins from there, right from their UI designs or clickable demos. We have designers and product owners that can help our clients build the initial phase of the MVP process. Once we are confident and know where we need to be from a building standpoint, we help them build the product with the latest technologies.

How do you help your clients get the right kind of people to fulfill the software design objectives that they have?

We have an experienced development lead for all our projects. We bring a lot of experience in various technologies, languages, frameworks, prototyping tools, etc. The lead helps our clients by filling the architect’s role to make sure the MVP is precisely what they need and build it using the tools they selected and later, takes point for them in building the project. We can then create teams to their need with developers of various levels of experience. All our developers are trained internally through an internal accelerator program that makes sure they are up to speed with the latest technologies. They write the software as a developer on the client’s staff would.

How do you ensure that the team you’ve selected for your client is always at par with the latest Agile trends?

One thing that differentiates us from our competitors is that we have a Talent Accelerator Program. We match our junior and mid-level employees with a senior developer as a regular mentor. They work with each other to work in areas where each of them is less experienced. For example, a new JavaScript framework named Vue.js has emerged in the market to building UIs and single-page applications, and it is gaining popularity in the software space. We’ll have our mentors and mentees learn and come up to speed with Vue.js by having them go through online courses and pair programming. Both the mentor and their mentees go through a competency review where they do some prototyping in Vue.js. The Talent Accelerator Program is a continuous learning process that helps developers quickly come up to speed with the current technological trends by assisting them in learning the latest technologies in short periods.

Can you elaborate on the Agile development and user-driven design and the lean product management that you deliver to your clients?

We first make sure that all our product leads are Scrum Product Owner certified. Our product owners have a good knowledge of all flavors of Agile, thereby making us very flexible to the client’s requirements. We use pieces of the Agile methodologies that work for our customers. If they have standard tools and processes in place, we use them to fulfill their needs. If they don’t, then we start by leading with our agile process.

If the project is short (less than 2-3 months), we will build a Kanban board and provide releases per customer needs. If the project is more prolonged, we will start with a more standard Scrum process utilizing two-week sprints. We use tools from Atlassian to track our backlog and build the sprints. We bring clients in for regular demos and grooming meetings. We do retrospectives where we ask the customer for feedback about our process and any change they would like to see. This method, in turn, helps us to make the final product better for them.

Where do you envision the organization moving ahead in the next 12-18 months?

With the advent of COVID-19, we’ve seen a significant shift in the way our current and potential clients do business. All of them have expressed the need to accelerate their plans to bring their processes and assets online. Many companies won’t have development teams or technical experts in-house. So, people like me can play the role of fractional CTO to help them move online quickly to serve their customers faster.

Another near-term driver for technologies is the roll out of 5G. When the major mobile manufacturers release their new phones this year, they will all support the new technology. That’s where you will see the substantial 5G push. We have talented people who can build mobile applications that take advantage of all of the benefits that 5G has to offer including faster network speeds and low latency.

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