Bootstrap business value quickly
Radial Theory believes that early demonstration of value is the fuel that drives energy and momentum in any client engagement. It ultimately doesn’t matter how good an idea looks ‘on paper’ if people can’t see and touch meaningful results. This is why our engagements focus on bootstrapping tools and environments up-front and work to get functioning software running that starts to address a meaningful problem within days, not months.
Attack current pain points first
Pragmatism is the cornerstone of our partnerships with clients. Though we always strive to implement the most elegant and well designed solution in the long run, we understand and respect the fact that near-term pain and problems should be addressed in the most effective manner, and therefore tactical workarounds must be pursued in the name of expediency. We team with our clients to make these decisions in an open and informed way, with a plan to address any technical debt that may result from the tactical path taken. The bottom line is, first and foremost, to always consider the business value of any decision.
Build incrementally
In alignment with established agile practices across the technology field, Radial Theory believes strongly in incremental delivery of solutions in the form of running software in our clients’ hands that starts to solve problems. By establishing a steady rhythm of incremental improvement, a tight feedback loop is created that enables course correction as learning and changing priorities dictate. This approach also fosters a clear understanding of the operational life of an evolving software solution early in the process, where it can begin to be ingrained into the management and operational culture of our clients’ teams.
Engage with lean teams of experienced engineers
Radial Theory’s engagement teams are lean by design, and tuned for velocity. We bring experienced senior engineers to the table, who not only code but understand how to work with clients and communicate ideas and solutions. Our team members intentionally wear multiple hats on a given engagement, and this enables us to streamline process and communication and optimize the delivery of value.
Align fee schedules with sprint milestones
We understand that incremental, agile software development requires trust between Radial Theory and our clients. It’s an inherent and important “feature” of agile development that the delivered software cannot be specified in detail up-front. Because we are confident in the quality of our solutions and the business value they bring, we structure our engagement fees so that clients can validate that they are getting the value they expect over time.
Bake knowledge transfer into every sprint
Though we certainly welcome long-term relationships with our clients, Radial Theory recognizes that in some cases clients engage with us as an accelerant and bridge to get them to a future state of technology stability and self-sufficiency. This is why knowledge transfer, documentation and collaborative engineering are baked in to every body of work we undertake. We want all our clients to thrive whether we are actively engaged with them or not, and we take pride in handing over solutions that are primed for future growth through the efforts of others.
Support the production life of what we build
Radial Theory engineers our solutions for the long-term, and we incorporate instrumentation and tooling frameworks that enable effective and affordable support processes. In this way, we are able to offer production support offerings and SLAs geared to our clients’ needs, ranging from tier 1 (help desk) through tier 3 (senior engineering).