March Edition 

Do you ever feel like there is just too much going on? I’m getting ready for a series of virtual and in-person events over the next few months and it is already beginning to stretch my schedule. I love to write and speak – but there is always a moment of “panic” before I slip into the groove and start to put things in order.

I can’t complain about the weather though – in Morelia we’re experiencing moderately warm days and cool evenings. I know a lot of our friends in the US haven’t had a good time of it this year, but honestly the best I can do is say I’ve been there and I know what many of you have been through this year.

So, I’m feeling optimistic about the coming months, even though it is going to mean balancing a lot of things while I travel and prepare for events. I hope you’re also in a positive frame of mind – looking forward to new challenges and opportunities. It is nice to come out of last year with an upbeat vibe. If you’re not there yet – hopefully we can share something this month that will put some spring back in you step. I hope so!

Best Wishes!

(If you don’t wish to receive our newsletter in the future, please accept our apology for cluttering up your inbox and click on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this email.)

Haut Tech: SaaS Insights from Scio Consulting

Lean Software Product Development in 4 Phases

We’ve been advocating a focused, Agile-based, nearshore product development pattern for quite a while, but this month we’ve been more forward about our vision of Lean product development, starting with this article on our basic software product development model.

Of course, because our focus is SaaS and related service automation initiatives – we go a step further and propose a larger picture for the development of suites of products on the same core. With a strategic product vision and the right supporting tools and technologies – you can turn out a set of products you can offer to different market segments or a complementary suite to the same market on the same core, incrementally. This brings out a feature of Internet-based products you may not have considered. With tools like SaaSGrid you can bundle features that can be marketed as separate products by leveraging the SaaS operational tools included in the application server. This greatly lowers the total development effort and allows you to focus on delivering the business value of your service.

To further emphasize the thoughts that underpin the “Lean Start-Up” concept and the development model we use – we followed up this month with:

SaaS: Get a Realistic Roadmap

In this article I linked back to some of the key thought-leaders in the field of “Lean Start-Ups.” Not coincidentally, these folks are experienced founders and CXOs in the industry and many of them have moved on to venture capital firms. The point of this article was to transition from a focus on the development model to the ideas behind a Lean product roadmap. It is a significant shift both in traditional thinking about business plans and software product development. But, it has a lot of value and leverages the Internet-based delivery model quite effectively. It also delivers on the promise of a cost-effective development lifecycle that brings products to market faster and with more focus on end-user value.

This is a lot to absorb, but the key is – we’re doing the heavy lifting for our clients by aligning our engagement model and the tools we use with best practices in the field. We can’t replace our client’s own expertise in their own industry, but we can bring refined approaches to software product development specific to SaaS and service automation projects.

To round out this month’s newsletter – here’s two important announcements: 

We’re going to be repeating our SaaS Workshop at Softletter’s SaaS University July 20-21. Our Charting Your Course to SaaS Workshop will be on July 22. This workshop has been well received and we’re updating it with our experience and insight over the past months. It is a very valuable addition to the conference fo anyone considering a SaaS product.

We are also going to be giving a workshop following the SIIA/OpSource SaaS Summit 2010 in San Francisco, May 10-12. For this event, we are partnering with Jim Geisman of Software Pricing Partners to bring both workshops to San Francisco. But, we would like your help deciding on how we configure the workshops to ensure they are available to as many people as would like to attend.

So – if you think you would be interested in attending workshop(s) for SaaS Pricing and Charting Your Course to SaaS following the SaaS Summit in San Francisco – would you please take our survey and let us know what configuration would be best for your organization? We would really like to hear your thoughts.

I’m really looking forward to meeting many of you in the next couple of months. Please don’t hesitate to reach out and let me know if you are attending either of these events whether you attend the workshops or not. I would be glad to hear of your experiences in the SaaS/Cloud world in general.