Challenge

The client's licensing program offers volume licensing for small, mid-size and enterprise businesses that wish to purchase and manage licenses for the company's software products. After experiencing unacceptable system performance and encountering numerous software bugs with an outsourced solution in India, the company returned system development and maintenance to headquarters. The company needed a consistent resource for high-quality software developers in the local market.

Action

The client team found an answer to this resource shortage in Velocity Partners. They implemented an Agile execution model with frequent checkpoints to address the system's performance and software defect issues. Velocity Partners responded by producing batches of software code in fast and focused iterative cycles, which resulted in multiple releases to production each month.

The collaborative and transparent development process was a success with the client relying on Velocity Partners to ensure that the required feature sets were completed with each cycle. Velocity Partners recognized the need for standardization in the software development process and created an automation tool that not only saved significant deployment time within for operations but was also reused by other teams.

Results

Before Velocity Partners, system processed 100 license statements per day; today that number has skyrocketed to approximately 100,000. A sustained increase of this magnitude resulted in substantial revenue for the client, generating more than $20 million in costs savings and enabling over $850 million in yearly revenue.

Onsite and nearshore Agile-trained resources provide professional services

Challenge

A subsidiary of Comcast, the client specializes in digital media publishing, advertising and syndication over wireless and broadband networks. The company was looking for a partner who could work as an extension of its team using an Agile project execution methodology. It also wanted to use a distributed team that shared a relatively close geographic proximity, allowing for more efficient project delivery.

Action

Upon finding Velocity Partners, the client recognized the close synergies between the two companies. The Velocity Partners' approach dovetailed with the client's own internal software development methods, enabling the two companies to work in close cooperation to speed the product launch for clients.

To start, Velocity Partners provided an onsite development team for technical consulting using iterative software development cycles.

The client was impressed with the high-caliber of resources employed by Velocity Partners and decided to explore working with the nearshore team in Buenos Aires - a cost-effective option for implementation support solutions.

With only a four-hour time difference, the client was able to actively discuss implementation projects with Velocity Partners' team members in Argentina during regular business hours. This direct interaction eliminated handoffs, making it possible for the project to function as a real-time engagement.

Results

For more than three years, the client has engaged Velocity Partners as an extension of its team.

Currently, a team of 14 from Velocity Partners -seven in Seattle and seven in Argentina - work side by side with the company's staff on various implementation projects. The business relationship has proved to be both productive and cost-effective.

Distributed team supplies high-quality software code at cost-effective price

Challenge

The mission of Vulcan, Inc., the entrepreneurial company owned by Paul Allen with headquarters in Seattle, is to create and advance a variety of world-class endeavors and high impact initiatives that change and improve the way people live, learn, do business and experience the world.1 Vulcan includes companies in a variety of industries, such as telecommunications, real estate, sports, technology, and supplies software development services for mission-critical projects at Microsoft. Like many companies, Vulcan was challenged to attract and retain a consistent supply of high caliber software developers in the local market.

Action

Vulcan asked Velocity Partners to augment staffing on a project to develop additional features and functionality for Microsoft® Windows® Vista.

A team of eight senior developers from Vulcan and Velocity Partners - four onsite and four in Buenos Aires - worked side by side with a Vulcan Scrum master who fulfilled the role of project manager. Given the Agile emphasis on short, iterative development cycles, Velocity Partners and Vulcan coordinated a daily standup meeting to discuss software development progress, plans and obstacles in order to fulfill product requirements. This approach, including the ability to make mid-course corrections through the process, led to a more focused product development life cycle. Velocity Partners staff became fully integrated with the Vulcan staff to form a cohesive project team focused on product delivery. The ability to utilize collaboration tools such as a project wiki and voice/video calling enabled the distributed team members to have full visibility with the problem domain and work collectively toward providing the optimal solution.

Results

By collaborating with Velocity Partners, Vulcan progressed on creating extended functionality to Windows Vista for a future commercial launch. Throughout the process, Vulcan saw first-hand Velocity Partners' ability to provide high quality, flexible software code for a complex and cutting edge technical project. The productivity of the Velocity Partners team was consistently high, while the rates of the nearshore development team allowed a 42 percent savings over what Vulcan would have had to pay local software developers.

Oct, 31 2011

New development center slated to begin in November; focus on open-source technologies

BELLEVUE, Wash. (October 31, 2011) – Velocity Partners, an innovative nearshore software development company, announces plans to build a new development center in Uruguay. In close proximity to Velocity’s existing Argentine centers in Buenos Aires, Rosario and Paraná, the new location will focus on Agile custom software development utilizing open-source technologies.

“We are very excited to be laying the groundwork for a new development center in South America,” said Peter Stroeve, managing partner, Velocity Partners. “Given our current operations in Argentina, expanding into Uruguay makes a great deal of sense and allows us to continue attracting and leveraging the strong technology talent in the region.”

Velocity Partners expects to begin the expansion process in November of 2011 and intends to grow the center by five developers – one Scrum team – per month following that time.

ABOUT VELOCITY PARTNERS
Established in 2004, Velocity Partners strategically aligns with companies to develop software-based business solutions better, faster – and more cost effectively. The company partners with clients to deliver the market’s highest-quality results with the lowest total cost of engagement through nearshore services in South America. Velocity Partners also offers Agile distributed team consulting to customers. Velocity Partners consists of technology and consultancy experts in the areas of software development, digital media, mobile applications and software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions. For more information visit www.velocitypartners.net.

Oct, 31 2011

Fourth annual Latin American conference focused on Agile software development technologies

BELLEVUE, Wash. (October 31, 2011) – Velocity Partners, an innovative nearshore software development company, served as a Gold Sponsor and speaker at Ágiles 2011, the leading Latin American conference centered around agile software development. The conference was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina on October 11-13, 2011.

Barnaby Sheridan, senior partner at Velocity Partners, led two presentations at Ágiles 2011: “Keys to Success in Distributed Agile Software Development” and “Guide to Usage of Agile Project Management Tools.”

The conference, now in its fourth year, brings together more than 500 Agile software development professionals from Latin America and elsewhere in the world. For Ágiles 2011, Velocity Partners joined VersionOne, Rally Software, Global Logic, Microsoft and IBM as a Gold Sponsor.

ABOUT VELOCITY PARTNERS
Established in 2004, Velocity Partners strategically aligns with companies to develop software-based business solutions better, faster – and more cost effectively. The company partners with clients to deliver the market’s highest-quality results with the lowest total cost of engagement through nearshore services in South America. Velocity Partners also offers Agile distributed team consulting to customers. Velocity Partners consists of technology and consultancy experts in the areas of software development, digital media, mobile applications and software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions. For more information visit www.velocitypartners.net.

Sep, 2 2011

Velocity Partners hosts Agile development seminars at South American universities and conferences

BELLEVUE, Wash. (September 2, 2011) – Velocity Partners, an innovative nearshore software development company, is bringing its specialized Agile software development and project management expertise to top IT talent at Argentinian universities and conferences.

Led by Barnaby Sheridan, senior partner at Velocity Partners, and Robert Galen, president and principal consultant at RGalen Consulting Group, the Agile seminar series is targeted at ScrumMasters, software developers, development managers, project managers, software architects and team leads. Seminars are geared toward groups of 150-200 participants and held throughout Argentina including sessions in Buenos Aires, Rosario and Mendoza. Current topics include: “Keys to Success in Distributed Agile Software Development,” “Guide to Usage of Agile Project Management Tools,” “Agile Testing - Beyond the Easy Contexts,” and “Practices of a Great Scrum Product Owner.”

• Keys to Success in Distributed Agile Software Development
Explore the challenges of Agile software development using distributed teams and present real-world solutions for these challenges. Explore why software teams are so often distributed across geographies and introduce the principles, approaches, and practices of Agile software development. Particular attention is paid to the key roles in Agile development: Product Owner, ScrumMaster, and Team Member.

• Guide to Usage of Agile Project Management Tools
Participants discuss their experience with some of the most popular tools that are used to manage backlogs, estimate level of effort, track work and progress, and plan software releases. Share direct experience with tools such as Assembla, Jira, RallyDev, VersionOne, and TFS add-ons such as EpiServer, and explain which tools are best suited for various types of projects and technical environments.

• Agile Testing – Beyond the Easy Contexts
In this session, participants explore contexts where they have to blend traditional testing techniques “towards” Agile; while still maintaining a balance—for example in test planning, execution, and metrics reporting. This session will share common anti-patterns and methods for attacking them.

• Practices of a Great Scrum Product Leader
Product owners inevitably have two masters. One is outwardly facing to their customers and business stakeholders, while the other is inwardly facing towards their teams. Often there is tremendous tension between the two in effectively striking the right balance. In this session participants will explore the necessary focus points on each “side” of the path towards delivering high-value products

Sheridan has over 25 years of experience as a practitioner and manager of software development in a wide variety of technologies and industries. He earned a Master’s degree in Management from M.I.T.’s Sloan School, and spent 12 years at Agilis Solutions as a senior technical architect where he implemented Agile methodologies for a 200-person development team in Vietnam.

Galen has held director, manager and contributor level positions in both software development and quality assurance organizations. For the past 10+ years, he has been leading Agile adoption and teams in a wide variety of methods. In 2009, he published the first book focused towards the challenges of the Scrum Product Owner: Scrum Product Ownership—Balancing Value from the Inside Out.

For more information about the Agile seminar series, or to schedule a session at your university or technology event, contact Velocity Partners at info@velocitypartners.net or 425.454.2686.
ABOUT VELOCITY PARTNERS
Established in 2004, Velocity Partners strategically aligns with companies to develop software-based business solutions better, faster – and more cost effectively. The company partners with clients to deliver the market’s highest-quality results with the lowest total cost of engagement through nearshore services in South America and U.S.-based implementation consultants. Velocity Partners also offers Agile distributed team consulting to customers. Velocity Partners consists of technology and consultancy experts in the areas of software development, digital media, mobile applications and software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions. For more information visit www.velocitypartners.net.

Jun, 30 2011

New downtown location allows company to grow South American staff count, bolster corporate culture

BELLEVUE, Wash. (June 30, 2011) – Velocity Partners, an innovative, nearshore software development company that delivers value through a Lean-Agile model, announces the expansion of its South American presence in Buenos Aires, Argentina. A new, centrally-located, downtown software development center will accommodate Velocity Partners’ fast-paced growth, allowing the company to triple its current Buenos Aires staff count and foster its internal culture.

“Our growth in South America has been both fast and exciting, allowing us the opportunity to construct a new location that will provide our Buenos Aires’ team with the space, tools and support necessary to continue providing world-class software development,” said Peter Stroeve, managing director, Velocity Partners. “In addition to being a state-of-the-art technical center, the new office will also include improved meeting, teambuilding and common areas.”

Construction of the new 436 square-meter (1,430 square-feet) center commenced on June 22, 2011; phase one is expected to be complete on July 31 at which time current Velocity Partners’ employees will relocate into the new space. The second and final phase is scheduled to complete in late 2011.

Located in downtown Buenos Aires at San Martin 439, Velocity Partners’ new center is in close proximity to the city’s subway system, numerous restaurants and hotels and is easily accessed by Buenos Aires Airport.

“The size, location and amenities of the new center will allow Velocity to continue to recruit and retain the best talent available in South America. We are excited to infuse our culture and corporate identity into the new space and with a growing number of Argentinean employees,” said Cristian Gohlke, general manager, Velocity Partners Argentina.