Christmas greetings from the Ducks

This year, as we approach the festive season, the old joke about ducks on the pond comes to mind. You know, the one about how they look calm as they glide across the pond, but their webbed feet are working frantically under the surface. That has pretty much been the scene at All the Ducks (AtD) over 2022.

In addition to our signature product, Grade Matter, the Ducks take on bespoke projects that typically involve helping customers develop solutions to support their digital transformation.

This year, we have taken on our biggest project ever. In short, it is a bespoke system that is required to replace a legacy system that will be out of support in early 2023. The university requiring the work has migrated from the Blackboard LMS to the Canvas LMS in recent times. The system being developed consolidates, in a very attractive and modern user interface, a broad range of functions undertaken by the team who (among other things) set up and manage courses prior to them being released to academic staff for teaching. The new system interacts with the Canvas LMS and various other university systems to present a single point of management.

When the university was advised that the legacy system would no longer be supported they began the search for a replacement. Such systems are not available off the shelf, needing to be written for the institution's specific requirements, pedagogical policies and technology environment. At this point the Ducks were approached for assistance. At first it was a straightforward request to consider a 'like for like' replacement. Closer examination by the two principal developers at AtD revealed that the situation provided an opportunity to scope a much more interesting solution than a straight replacement.

The long and short was that the Ducks were engaged to undertake a detailed analysis and recommend a way forward. This resulted in All the Ducks being engaged to prepare a detailed technical design for a new system. The technical design was accepted and found its way into a tender document.

Subsequently the Ducks were engaged to produce the final system. At time of writing, the first two of four modules agreed in a MVP (minimum viable product) have been made available for functional testing with a full user acceptance test to be undertaken mid-January. Work will pick up and accelerate early in 2023 to complete the third and fourth modules.

Some learnings

As we anticipate a short break over Christmas, it is interesting to reflect on some of the learnings for a small company that has taken on its biggest project yet.

Communication

We have been very fortunate to be dealing with a great team at the client institution, guided by an outstanding project manager. Fundamental to this relationship is open communication. We at the Ducks have always endeavoured to be open and honest about how work is progressing, even when it involves delivering bad news, such as delays.

Related to this is the development approach that provides the client with access as early as possible to the developing product. Using continuous delivery methodology for code development, the client can see the product evolving pretty much in real time. This ensures that functionality is understood and confirmed by the client as it is implemented. Similarly UI design is openly shared and refined at the outset.

Fundamentally, no-one likes nasty surprises so open communication is vital. Conversely, happy surprises are OK and with Christmas upon us we hope yours are all happy!

Quality

The Ducks maintain a strong focus on quality. From meticulous analysis of a client’s requirements, to development of wireframes to clarify the functionality and features of the solution with the client, to disciplined code development, the Ducks will err on the side of quality. There are multiple ways to achieve an outcome when coding, but not all lend themselves to long term modification and maintenance. You won’t get ‘quick and dirty’ solutions from us. Sometimes there are trade offs on offer but the Ducks won’t trade off quality for quick! This project has confirmed the merit of this approach.

Skills

This project has confirmed the deep skillset of our principal developers. Working with state-of-the-art technologies that exploit cloud-based services and environments they have been on a deep dive into AWS and behind the scenes in Canvas. Their capacity to leverage their existing expertise to implement creative and powerful solutions has been very impressive. We’ve also been fortunate to recruit other experienced, mature and skilled developers to complement our core team as demand requires.

Managing contractors

For this project we have brought three highly skilled part-time developers on board to assist. This has been a significant ongoing learning experience for us all. Managing a disparate team, geographically dispersed, with different coding backgrounds is very interesting, albeit highly beneficial to the project. We will continue to learn and refine our processes as this project moves into its subsequent phases.

Culture

There is a very strong customer focus at All the Ducks. Clients are treated with respect (as they should be) and their input is sought and respected. There is never a sense of “we’re the experts” but rather one of ‘let us understand what you are seeking’ and collaboratively find the best solution.

Confession time!

Admittedly this post may read like a marketing blurb. It was not intended as such. The writer is a relatively new addition to the Duck Pond who has transitioned from a short engagement producing business documentation into a more substantial role in project management. The key factors that lured him out of a comfortable but busy post-work life are touched on above. Above all, the culture within All the Ducks is great. Collaborative, respectful of each other, respectful of clients and good humoured, all underpinned by the desire to produce the best quality products possible.

Sentiments of your season to you

Happy Christmas, Happy Holidays, or whatever greeting is appropriate for you. We wish you a peaceful and affirming time with those you love and who love you.

A joyous big quack to you all.