Acumen Techie is an expert in development, customization and integration of complex enterprise-level solutions offering a well-balanced blend of technology skills, domain knowledge, hands-on experience, effective methodology and passion for IT.
Acumen Techie is an expert in development, customization and integration of complex enterprise-level solutions offering a well-balanced blend of technology skills, domain knowledge, hands-on experience, effective methodology and passion for IT.
We aim at delivering services which open new possibilities for our customers and allow them to work effectively and creatively.
General Strengths
Company Value and Strategy
Project Life Cycle Activities
People
We believe that the most valuable resource we possess is our people. Acumen Techie is not just a gathering of highly skilled individuals, but a team. It is built not only on someone's exceptional skills, but rather on collaboration and teamwork.
Throughout our growth, owing to investments into training, scrupulous selection procedures, competitive benefits and appealing career possibilities, we managed to assemble a mosaic of motivated, loyal and highly skilled IT professionals. The effective work of Acumen Techie resides on collaboration and teamwork between all its members, each one perfectly doing his own job.
Customers
Acumen Techie is dedicated to its customers and partners. We believe that the most important factor of our success is the success of our clients and provide them with tools that help their business growth.
Acumen Techie, both in idea and realization, is a client-oriented company. By supplying our customers with top resources and skills, we fulfill our main goal - add value to their businesses through knowledgeable application of information technologies. Because we work closely with and for our customers, we are successful only when our clients succeed.
Quality
We pay special attention to the quality assurance of the products and services we deliver. We believe that this is the best way to make products work as effectively as possible. Our clients can rely on our products working stably and as designed because we put an emphasis on quality assurance as a key factor in project success.
Commitment to Quality
Being a customer-oriented company, we do our best to make our processes as clear and transparent for you as possible. We adhere to the best industry practices and always commit to deliver a predictable high quality result that you expect from your vendor. We place the major focus on delivering secure, reliable solutions of long-term value that enable our customers to concentrate on their core business objectives.
Development Process
We usually suggest splitting the development process into several iterations (stages). Our most common iterative approach includes
Transparency
Acumen Techie project management policy is aimed to provide maximum transparency to the key project activities and commitments, budgeting, workload planning, and metrics used in the process. We elaborate and communicate a detailed activity plan to every person involved in the project, which will;
Our Customers receive comprehensive reports that allow evaluating the progress made, and where required, promptly optimizing processes and resources.
Quality Management System
We realize the paramount importance of quality assurance processes. That is why we engage our independent QA team in product development very early - right after the initial project requirements have been studied.
Flexible Engagement Models
Depending on project-specific characteristics, we propose 3 major engagement models:
| Engagement Models | Project Specific Characteristics | Budgeting |
|---|---|---|
|
Fixed Price |
Project specification, requirements for development processes, deadlines and resources are clearly defined, technical documentation is already available or properly planned. |
Fixed budget and deadline. Acumen Techie covers all project risks. |
|
Time & Materials |
Project specification either has insufficient level of detail or does not exist, development processes and deadlines are not yet clear, documentation is unavailable or incomplete. |
Project budget is formed on the basis of man hours actually worked, and can be flexibly adjusted to the changing needs for time and resources. |
|
Dedicated Team |
Only general idea and requirements to the project are available. Project specification, requirements for development processes, deadlines and resources are still to be estimated, discussed and negotiated. |
You assemble your team of professionals of required qualification, taking full control over project progress and budget scheme. |
Our engagement models are very flexible: as your project objectives change, you can easily switch to another model of cooperation, or choose a hybrid model by combining features of all engagement models, which match your needs best.
Communication with the Customer
The customer resolves all issues through the assigned Project Manager responsible for work planning, overall management and progress tracking. For more efficient communication the customer assigns a responsible contact person, e.g. Project Coordinator, to address all possible issues from Acumen Techie team. The communication is carried out by email, instant messengers, phone and personal meetings.
Planning and Reporting
A detailed plan is created at the beginning of each phase and is updated by Project Manager weekly or more frequently if necessary. This allows transparent tracking of the project status and provides a clear vision of the project costs at every stage.
Requirements Management
From experience we know that creation of a visual prototype of the future solution (GUI, look and feel, real controls and navigation) at the requirements gathering stage is an effective practice. Its purpose is to let the customer "feel" the future solution and probably adjust the requirements at the very beginning.
Change Management
All requests are sent to the change requests pool accessible to both the customer and Acumen Techie managers. The pool serves as a base for planning of the future iterations scopes. This approach allows the customer to easily control the timeline and budget of the project.
Risk Management
To make offshore engagements as low-risk as possible multiple factors should be taken into account. Our experience of efficient risk management and an advanced risk mitigation policy ensure safe, predictable relationships and allow avoiding the pitfalls and delivering the project on time and on budget.
Competence Transfer
Competence transfer involves both documentation and knowledge transfer, including specifications, design, test, release, guideline documents and user manuals and end-user or administrator trainings.
Cultural Collaboration
We are experienced in bridging the gaps between different cultures and business traditions. We work with our customers on the basis of respect for their local approaches and business practices while employing the advantages of globalization.
Smart Communication
You will not feel any time difference even if you are located on the other side of the globe. Depending on your requirements, complete project and progress information can be available around the clock.
Ingenuity and Professionalism
Although we base our solutions on sophisticated principles and technologies, they are still easy to use and understand. We know how to make complicated things simple and useful.
All communication with a customer starting from early request for proposal goes through minimum points of contact required to identify core tasks and understand your ideas, project vision and requirements. You will never have to explain anything twice.
To protect your private information and intellectual property keeping them safe and secure, we will sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) before you deliver any sensitive information.
Our typical proposal describes project vision, WBS, project budget estimations and suggestions on architecture and technologies, development process and contractual scheme details.
In most cases (depending on initial documentation completeness and detail level, time frames and other factors) we prepare detailed project plan containing schedule, efforts estimations and quotes
Our software-development and QA specialists can apply a full battery of tests to software throughout the full cycle of product development as part of the Quality Control and Quality Assurance processes. These tests include: