The document discusses key factors for small product companies to achieve success. It emphasizes that success depends on having a good product or technology. It outlines that people, processes, and products are the most important assets of a company. It provides guidance on optimizing processes, empowering people, planning effectively, learning from mistakes, and engineering high quality products and technologies. The overall message is that with the right focus on people, processes, and products, small companies can leverage their strengths to create successful outcomes.

1. Software Engineering for
small Product Companies
Raman Kannan

2. What makes ExultSoft
Product/Technology
Success depends on a
good product or new
technology
People Processes
Most important asset of collaborative and concerned with
the company completing a project as a whole

3. Process
• Must be predictable
• Must be repeatable
• Must be harmonious
• Must be smooth and reliable
• Must be adaptible
• Must be learnable
• Must be simple and documented

4. Optimizing the Process
• Auditing, documenting and improving
• What SDLC model do you follow?
• Do you know which phase consumes
maximum effort vs maximum time?
• How do you optimize – without some
historical statistics how can you leverage
Pareto Rule?
• Do you track lessons learned after
mistakes?
What cannot be measured, cannot be improved!

5. Process visibility
• Do you involve your customers when
appropriate at the earliest time
• Do you see your managers to be enablers or
bureaucrats?
• How do you escalate problems?
• How do you leverage each error that is
identified?
• Process transparency – does management view
the same status you do?

6. People
• Must be self empowered
– Each engineer should be perpetually
optimizing -- improving and learning
– Do you know what errors do you make when
coding?
– Do you know your own SWOT
• Strengths, Weakness
• Opportunities, Threats
Everyone can contribute to marketing – brand ambassador, identifying new clients

7. How to know thyself?
• Gather minimal statistics
– Types of errors you make
– How good is your estimate?
• Do you estimate the size of the product?
• Do you estimate the time it would take?
– Time management techniques
– Planning
– Preparedness
These are not to find fault with you but help you improve by yourself.

8. Planning
• No one plans to fail!
• But most who fail, fail to plan.
• Planning is very important.
• Everyday you should have a plan
• That plan should include a bit of learning,
bit of introspection
• How can I do better? How can I improve
the product or customer experience?

9. Specific things you can do
• Record how long you take to correct a
defect? – develop a statistics
• How many defects do you typically
introduce?
• What type of defects do you introduce?
• Do you document your own engineering?
• Do you document your design process?
• If you do, can someone review and follow?
Again, what cannot be measured cannot be improved.

10. Team
• It is not the individual that counts – it is the
collective
• Do you help others learn new technologies, your
product, your effort?
• Do you learn from others?
• Do you help others excel in what they do?
• Do you help others improve by giving them
appropriate tips?
• Do you hold others accountable when they do
not pull their weight? – this is important
All the wheels have to run at the same speed!

11. Products
• Products includes technology
• How good is your product design?
– Functionally
• Is it useful to a customer or more than one customer
• Engineering right product vs engineering product right
– Structurally
• Is it reliable, easy to maintain and easy to understand
• Easy to modify and improve upon
• Easy to integrate within an external environment
• Architecture is key
Software design is hard, but that is the investment. Do not start writing code.
Design hard. Review your design. Document your design!

12. Mother of all products
• Requirements Document
– Duly signed/dated off by customer
• This should be agreed upon during the
engagement process
• Test Plan/Acceptance Document
– Duly signed/dated off by customer
• This should be agreed upon during the
engagement process
• Design Document

13. Learning from mistake
• Mistakes and tribulations are essential to
grow!
• Do you accept you have made a mistake?
• Failure and mistakes – makes us stronger
• People who do nothing make no mistakes
• Do you use them to grow?
• Making the same mistake more than once
is one too many!

14. Product Engineering
• Is a multi-faceted, collaborative effort
• Small firms depend on good product
• Good products are possible with good
people, processes
• Mind your process/mind the company you
keep
• C or C++ or Java or .Net – they are
incidental to product quality