Setup a software engineering cluster in a British coffee shop chain.

Challenge

This company was not a tech organization and therefore relied on a outsourced model to produce their digital products, namely their mobile application. This resulted in unreliable products that were not up to par with the company's expectations and performed poorly. Thus the company decided to setup and hire its own tech team to develop its mobile app in house. This posed a number of challenges

• Lack of IT infrastructure for software development and deployment
• Reduced interest to attract engineering talent
• Lack of know-how to run a mobile app development operation

Solution

We took an iterative approach with initiatives in the several aspects of setting up a software development operation:

• Establish a model of cross functional teams rooted on Engineering, UX and Product
• Shape an exciting challenge to attract talent
• Design an interview and vetting process
• Plan a product development cycle based on Lean and Human Centered Design Approaches
• Heavy use of prototyping and usability testing
• Setup CI/CD infrastructure and deployment workflow adapted to mobile development needs.

Results

• Rapid development and launch of fully validated and tested mobile app - 9 months
• Over 1 Million App installs on each platform
• 80% automated test coverage
• Infrastructure that allows quick time to market and A/B testing in multiple regions