Category: system

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cloud design hacks innovation startup strategy system tools

Tech Stack for Launch

So you are ready to launch an MVP or ‘open-to-all’ service? Scary, right? Preparing for launch it’s never easy. Bear in mind that no one has many users to start. However, if you have keen investors or an active board, the pressure is on. A good start tech stack is depicted in the diagram. The big difference is analytics and tools the business needs to make a success out of the launch. So a lot of new tools are added to facilitate timely and accurate product usage tracking. Finally, marketing and support tools will make or break the business so overinvest in figuring what works for you. Challenge arguments based on people’s previous experiences. (We used MailChimp at X). Also, remember to constantly review your technology stack to continuously remove legacy.

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cloud code decisions design system

Tech Stack for Early Startup

When you start to build your business it’s often hard to work out what you need in the first 3-6months. A good start is depicted in the diagram. I think in terms of what makes teams productive so Tech Stack is divided between Ops, Product & tech and Sales & Marketing. If you operate in a highly regulated market you could have for example regulatory reporting in the compliance vertical. I constantly aim to review our technology stack to continuously remove legacy.

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decisions design hacks leadership other system

What actually matters

MVP, happy path, test coverage, Devops… In practice everything is in a spectrum. Focus on building value as the primary goal.

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cloud other system

Building Asset Management Platform

Don’t build one platform. Build many interlinked apps. This will let you create a solution that is faster to change, easier to test and cheaper to build.

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design other system

Useable software

Making software useable makes it harder to be used while making it easy to be used makes it less usable (across other software).

Search for The Learning CTO, a friend’s blog covering enterprise architecture.

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other security system

Security Policy

Most IS best-practices advocate a separation of concerns between management and direction. The IS team are responsible for managing and auditing compliance with IS policy. The Risk Committee are responsible for providing direction to the management of information risk within the business. While the Head of Information Security, heads and owns all IS related policies/tasks reporting into the CTO. The CTO is ultimately responsible for the information security.

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innovation other process system

Shadow IT

As we move to micro SaaS apps and best tools for the job, the shadow IT grows, being a source of innovation and prototyping for future IT solutions.

However the new tools need to be considered in the context of customer data protection, security and impact to the processes.

Record apps costs and revisit usage to avoid paying for tools you stopped using.

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design innovation other system

Two-speed IT

Makes sense to go for “two-speed IT”, in which you separate fast-moving and more innovative IT (data-crunching, say) from more basic services (payroll processing, for instance).

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other system telephony

Telephony Cont’d

How do you create a high-volume telephony solution with database lookup IVR in another country in 2 weeks?

Use Colt as primary and Sonetel as backup.

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other process program system

Decisions

How do you make tech decisions? How do you make them under under pressure? In a stressful project situations? When a deadline is approaching and dev delivery is late?

Develop a set of standards that relate to domains (data architecture, solution design, versoning, dependency management…). When you are faced with a decision think about how it relates to your standards which will help you make better decisions faster and also it will make you aware when you compromised and added to you tech debt – your legacy elephant that you need to drag with you.