Widely referenced in the technology industry, Gartner’s Magic Quadrant “provides a graphical competitive positioning of four types of technology providers in fast-growing markets: Leaders, Visionaries, Niche Players and Challengers.” Ultimately, the report helps educate about technology providers and their ability to deliver to users today and in the future. Identified as a “Leader” means that RedHat and Oracle are currently executing on their current vision and are positioned well moving forward.

We firmly believe that open source is a fully viable alternative to traditional software products, and the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform in particular has been proven for use in enterprise environments. We’ve been hugely successful in developing and deploying applications for a range of mid-size and enterprise clients on the JBoss EAP platform, and we’re keenly anticipating the arrival of JBoss EAP 6 later this year.

For organizations that have adopted a closed-source strategy, Oracle’s WebLogic Suite is a mature product supporting most technology standards, third-party solutions, in-memory data grids, and mobile devices. We’ve implemented dozens of applications on the WebLogic stack, primarily for larger telecommunications clients.

TORONTO, Ontario (April 24, 2012) – Ottawa-based industry analyst Branham Group Inc. announced today that Architech is the fourth fastest growing Information & Communications Technology (ICT) company in Canada, and achieved 187th place out of 250 ranked Canadian ICT companies. Architech’s recognition came as a part of the results from the 2012 Edition of the Branham300 – the definitive listing of Canadian ICT industry leaders – as ranked by revenues.

According to the Branham300 findings, Canada’s ICT industry got back on track in 2011 as cumulative revenues for the Top 250 Canadian ICT companies combined to set a new Branham300 revenue record in 2011, increasing sales by 11.75% to $82.62B, surpassing the high of $75.97B achieved in 2008.

“This is a momentous announcement for our team,” says David Suydam, President, Architech. “The tech scene in Canada is hugely competitive and some of the best firms in the world have their roots here. To be recognized at this level among the ‘Who’s Who’ of the Canadian ICT industry is unbelievably rewarding.”

For nearly 20 years, the Branham300 has highlighted the top Canadian and Multinational ICT companies operating in Canada, as ranked by revenues. It illustrates the depth and breadth of innovative technologies developed in Canada and is widely considered to be a leading source of intelligence on Canada’s ICT industry.

“Our growth has really been a result of a combination of things, but the bottom line is that we have always delivered,” says Suydam.  “We’ve built a reputation with many of our clients over a long period of time, and now they’re coming to us to lead them. We’re fortunate that we’ve been able to reinvest much of this success into the business, positioning us to be even stronger going forward, so we’re looking at some great years ahead.”

• Listen to the Branham Group’s interview with David Suydam
• Read about Architech’s new approach in the software development market
• View Architech’s profile in the Branham300 Company Spotlight
• Learn more about the full 2012 Branham300 results in Backbone Magazine

About Architech
Architech is a custom software design and engineering company based in Toronto. We create great-looking web, mobile and business applications integrated with backend systems that drive organizations forward. We offer our clients the end-to-end services required to make applications successful including strategy, interface design, prototyping, systems integration, software engineering, product rollout and coaching. Since inception in 2004, our 100+ projects have been successful through small team deployments that follow an Agile process emphasizing collaboration, software engineering best practices, and incremental software delivery. www.architech.ca

For more information contact
David Suydam
President
+1 (416) 607-5618
ds@architech.ca

TORONTO, Ontario (March 27, 2012) – Service Performance Insight (SPI) today announced that Toronto-based Architech achieved seventh place of the ‘Top 10’ firms in SPI’s 2012 Professional Services Maturity™ Benchmark.

Of the 216 participating organizations, Architech was the only Canadian firm to achieve ‘Top 10’ status, significantly outperforming the benchmark average in all five of the study’s service performance dimensions: Leadership, Client Relationships, Human Capital Alignment, Service Execution, and Finance and Operations.

“We’re ecstatic to be recognized as ‘Best-of-the-Best’ among our peers,” says David Suydam, President, Architech. “We knew our team exceeded our goals in 2011 and we were already grateful for that success. But it’s even more rewarding to see the publically defined metrics indicating how well we’re doing in a broad range of critical service areas.”

Standardizing on the Agile methodology has allowed Architech to define internal best practices for client engagement, delivery excellence, staff development, and financial management. Processes now exist to reward excellence, ensure quality, and share knowledge within the firm.

“Architech is proving that it’s one of the top Agile firms in Canada,” says Mark Brion, Senior VP, Professional Services, Architech. “Building software teams that work together project after project has resulted in a highly tuned and coordinated team with a mindset for building great applications. Overall, this mean our projects are executed with better and more predictable results, yielding happier clients, happier staff, and more software joy.”

About Architech
Architech is a custom software design and engineering company based in Toronto. We create great-looking web, mobile and business applications integrated with backend systems that drive organizations forward. We offer our clients the end-to-end services required to make applications successful including strategy, interface design, prototyping, systems integration, software engineering, product rollout and coaching. Since inception in 2004, our 100+ projects have been successful through small team deployments that follow an Agile process emphasizing collaboration, software engineering best practices, and incremental software delivery.www.architech.ca

For more information contact
David Suydam
President
+1 (416) 607-5618
ds@architech.ca

It can be as simple as a bookmarking solution, or a cloud file storage program, or something as spectacular as Google Maps. It’s software that’s just so well done you might’ve wondered what you did before.

But building great software is more than just writing code that doesn’t crash. It’s more than making a good user interface and experience that doesn’t get in the way and makes everything simple and easy to find. Building great software is about making sure you’re building the right software and solving the real problem. These elements coming together are what make great software.

So that’s what we aim to do for our customers when we build software. We’re trying to create an experience that inspires someone to say, “Wow, that’s pretty great.” That’s software joy.

If the answer is “yes”, then there are several advantages to creating separate stories. Remember, a team’s capacity is measured in story points, not number of stories. This means that breaking stories up doesn’t mean you’re increasing scope, you’re just allowing for more granular prioritization, which ultimately means delivering more value in the time/budget you have available.

If you think of a user story as an encapsulation of business objectives, which are described by acceptance criteria, then there are at least three characteristics you can examine to help decide whether or not those objectives can (or must) be delivered separately:

1. Dependencies. Do the objectives of a story share common dependencies? Will the dependencies be available at the same time? If different aspects of the story depend on different outside resources, and those resources may not become available at the same time then the story should be broken into pieces by common dependencies. This way, smaller portions of the original story can be worked on independently of the rest, which may not be unblocked until a future iteration.
2. Priority. Are there different priorities represented within the story? If one aspect of a story is a must have, and another part you could do without, break it up so that the two stories can be sized and committed to separately. This is extremely important because any time spent delivering functionality which is not of the highest priority at that time means that in a given time window you will not get the most possible value delivered.
3. Size. Is the story too large to be described in detail? Does it have a clear, cohesive set of objectives? Assuming all the elements of a story have common dependencies and priority, take a look at the size of the story. The larger a story is, the less accurate the estimate is likely to be. This is because large stories rarely have the same level of detail as smaller stories, which makes them harder for a development team to estimate, as there are more unknowns. Break the story up into smaller pieces and focus on providing as much detail as possible for the smaller pieces, highest priority pieces.

Ultimately, there’s very little to lose by breaking a story into smaller pieces, and potentially, a lot to gain. If you’re asking yourself if a story should be divided, it highly likely you already know the answer to be yes.

Sure, Agile is a really good development philosophy—as far as we know, it’s the best one—but it’s no silver bullet. In fact, when it comes to software projects, there’s no such thing.

On the bright side, silver bullets do work (as advertised) on werewolves, so you still have a chance of surviving a werewolf apocalypse. But what about your software project?

If you want your software project to be a success, you’ll need to be vigilant. Here are some warning signs that your development team might be infiltrated by werewolves:

1. Productivity drops off when there’s a full moon and several members of the team suddenly disappear. Remaining team members pick their teeth a lot. Coincidence? Maybe. Did you thoroughly check the firm’s references?
2. There are unexplained scratch marks on the project board. Could be werewolves—or a sign of frustration from an inexperienced Agile development team. Again, did you check references?
3. Team members all have the same ringtone: a wolf howl. Aah-ooooooooh! Not good…
4. The software doesn’t work but the loading screen has a well-rendered image of a full moon, with the caption “You’re next”. This could indicate werewolves but it could also be a ruse to divert your attention from the poor software. Investigate.
5. Your designated Product Owner complains to you about all the whining, barking, and growling that she hears in team meetings.

Whether you find werewolves on your team, or just developers with bad people skills, tread lightly. Either way, your software is in trouble.

Choose a team of experienced, hardworking professionals to develop your software and save your silver bullets—you’re going to need them. The werewolves are coming…