Is this You? - Who We Work With

We work exclusively with high-tech product development companies

This page describes the types of clients we work with and the types of situations in which we specialize.

Our clients are technology companies developing software and/or hardware marketed to business, government and military both domestically and internationally. They have expertise in their vertical market and develop products specifically targeted for that niche.

Some clients are in the initial stages of new product development, often with a young team and they want a solid start with senior guidance experienced with product development. They want someone who has done this before and can create specifications that will ensure successful development of their product.

Other clients already developing and selling their product are looking for ways to reduce development costs and improve product quality.

Typical Challenges

Client sizes range from small start-ups to large multi-nationals and they all have some of the following challenges.

Which of the following situations sounds like your company and product?

  • Excessive Post-Release Defect Fixing. - "We spend a lot of time and money fixing defects discovered by our customers. So much so that it's been difficult to make product improvements or deliver new releases. It's frustrating and somewhat embarrassing. We look incompetent to our customers." Industry data suggests up to 50% of product defects and perhaps 80% of rework effort on a project can be traced to requirements defects."1
  • Excessive Support Costs - "Our customers seem to need too much support. We have user documentation but they say it doesn't match the product. So they contact us too often to find out how to do something. Also, because of product defects they call looking for answers or fixes."
  • Inefficient Use of Programmer Resources - "Our programmers always seem busy but product development progress seems slow. They often get side tracked fixing an urgent defect discovered by an important customer. Also, they're frequently interrupted to deal with testing issues or user documentation issues."
  • Ineffective Testing - "We have people testing the product but our customers always seem to find defects. It's especially frustrating when something which worked in a previous release doesn't work in the latest release. Some of our customers really get upset when that happens."
  • Failure To Deliver On Time or with Planned/Promised Functionality - "It's been a real challenge to deliver product releases as promised. We often have to tell an important customer the release won't be ready when we said it would. It's frustrating when we have to tell them that repeatedly because we keep missing subsequent promised delivery times. It's frustrating and embarrassing when we finally deliver but not all the promised functionality is included. Our customers are probably getting worried that they ever decided to go with us."
  • Customer Dissatisfaction - "We're concerned customer dissatisfaction is getting to the point where they'll stop using our product - or worse spread the word to other potential customers. Customers in the market niche we target are a community. They are aware of each other and talk about what they are going through. Bad commentary about our company and product would spread quickly and could be disastrous." An InformationWeek2 survey found that 82% of companies decide not to buy software from a vendor because it had a reputation for poor quality."
  • Employee Moral or Attrition Due to Stress or Job Dissatisfaction - "Lately, some of our product developers have been leaving the company. Others have often been "sick" or not very enthusiastic about their work, even saying negative things about our product or our company. The loss of some senior people has been quite difficult. They have so much knowledge about our product, how it works and how it's built that we hurt on many levels when they go.

If several of these describe your situation then ProSoft Solutions can help.

What many high-tech companies do not realize is software development costs and even revenues are directly affected by the quality of requirement specifications and product development process. An InformationWeek survey found nearly 50% of companies say software bugs or errors have led to higher costs and more than 1/3 say these bugs have lead to both higher costs and lost revenues.2 All of these situations are affected by the quality of your requirement specifications.

It doesn't matter if you develop wireless data products, point-of-sale products or enterprise solution products. It doesn't matter if your company is a small start-up or a very large technology company. A critical component to the success of your product and possibly your company are the requirement specifications. Not just any requirement specifications but specifications that make the difference - created by developers for developers.

Our clients are determined to improve how they develop software. They are committed to their customers and willing to make an investment to improve their bottom line.

If this sounds like your company and you would like to learn more please contact us.

Click here to learn How We Work.

  1. Inspecting Requirements, Karl Weigers, 2001
  2. InformationWeek - Quest For Quality, May 2003