Your Developer Is Fine for Fixes but Cannot Take On a Large Project

You scale up by bringing in a larger team for the large project, and you do not have to drop the developer who knows your system. A full project needs business analysis, database design, several developers working in parallel, testing and project management. Your current developer can carry on with day-to-day support and take part in the project, while the team supplies the capacity and the disciplines one person cannot.

Signs this is your problem

• The big project has been discussed for more than a year and has not started.
• Your developer says yes to it but never has the time.
• An estimate came back that seemed far too small, or far too vague.
• The project would need skills nobody on hand has used before.
• You cannot afford for the daily fixes to stop while it is built.

Why maintenance and big projects are different jobs

Keeping a system running and building a new one take different skills and a different amount of time. Someone who is quick and reliable with fixes may never have:

• Gathered requirements from five departments that disagree.
• Designed a database meant to last fifteen years.
• Planned a data migration with no room for loss.
• Coordinated several developers working on the same code.
• Run a project to a schedule while the old system stays in use.

And even if they have, they still have only one pair of hands, and your everyday fixes do not stop while the project runs.

What tends to happen when a small team stretches

The project starts well, then the urgent fixes return and the project gets the leftover hours. Months pass. The design made at the start is never revisited, because there is no one whose job is to question it. Testing is done by the person who wrote the code. The result is late and fragile, which is how many of the projects we are asked to rescue began.

Ways to scale up

Add a team alongside your developer. They keep the existing system running and act as the expert on how it works. We build the new one. This is usually the smoothest arrangement.

Hand over the whole thing. One team takes responsibility for both support and the new project.

Strengthen your in-house team. If you have IT staff, we supply the specialists they lack for the length of the project. See when your IT team is maxed out.

How Keene Systems handles it

1. We listen to what the project has to achieve. And where it stands today.
2. We do the business analysis. So the size of the job is known before anyone commits to it.
3. We agree who does what. Including the part your current developer plays.
4. We build in stages with working software at each one. So progress is visible throughout.

The next step is a short, no-pressure conversation. Book a call with Lance Keene or use the form on this page.