Upon starting the role it became clear that there was going to be no top-down direction. My team of, well, to begin with, just me (later we expanded to a whopping four individuals) was basically let free to scamper off into the night with little instruction. This wasn't anyone's fault, they were having trouble filling the leadership position above us in the chain.
So, I began to try and build an image for our team. I could try to lead them directly, but there was so little pressure on the team it made motivation near-impossible. So I thought hard about why the company created the role and especially the customer need they were trying to satisfy.
Custom software, that was a huge part of what they expected. I believe they wanted to increase both customer satisfaction and the extent of which our software is embedded into the customer work flow. When friends asked me what I did for a living, I found myself describing it as:
"Meeting with our customers, large law firms, to determine where the software we create is not fulfilling their needs. Then, where appropriate, developing custom software to fill in the gap."I've since increased the accuracy of this vision but I believe the sentiment remains the same.
This blog is about how this vision evolves over time and the methods we've adopted and created to better serve our customers from a technology integration standpoint. Further entries will talk more specifically about the tools, technology, and methods we find useful.
