About Scalable Path
Your Web Development Team
We are a network of software architects, designers and developers headquartered in San Francisco but spread across North and South America (for timezone reasons). Most of our clients hire us as a long-term extension of their team. In a typical engagement, we will form a team based on the client’s needs led by an architect in the U.S. with developers in Latin America. Because we work virtually and the majority of our team are in countries with a lower cost of living, we can offer a highly competitive blended rate. For roughly the same monthly cost as hiring a full-time senior developer in San Francisco, our clients have a team of specialists with a wider array of skills.
Our Process
Like many development shops we are big fans of the agile methodology. Every project has a daily standup meeting that lasts 15-30 minutes where each team member reports on what he did yesterday, what he will accomplish today and any obstacles (if any) are impeding him. It is typically up to the architect on the project (who also acts as the scrum master) to make sure all the developers are working on the right tasks and to remove any obstacles. Meetings typically take place on GoToMeeting so that everyone involved on the project can participate regardless of location. Of course, the process for each project can be tweaked to meet the client’s needs, but a standard procedure is to have a weekly meeting with the client to review the previous week’s accomplishments, get feedback and set goals for the next week. The process just described can work for the initial application build or maintenance mode.
Although we work on an hourly basis, we know that anyone hiring a team to work on a project wants to know up front want the cost of the project is likely to be. If the project is well-enough defined, we will gladly prepare a detailed estimate of the time and money required to complete the project. If the project is not yet sufficiently defined, we can engage in a discovery process whereby we write a requirements document that can be used as the basis for an estimate (by Scalable Path or any other company).
Open and Transparent
We prefer to engage with clients in a way that makes them feel empowered and comfortable. Although we occasionally will completely handle certain services for clients like a Github account, our default stance is that you should be completely in control of your web property and services. We’re happy to help configure domain registration, DNS, source control and hosting, but want our clients to not be locked in to working with Scalable Path.
We have the most detailed time tracking reports in the business so you will know where every dollar went and can be sure time is being spent effectively.
Although we strive to be a long-term partner and continue to help maintain your project, we realize that this model does not work in all situations. Should you reach the point where you decide to take your web team in-house or elsewhere, we will gladly document the project and train your team members and help you with the transition. Most of our new business comes from referrals, so making clients happy is of the utmost importance.
Tempo - Agile Project Management Software
If you are set on using a particular project management software, we will gladly integrate with your existing tools and process. However, we do have an in-house project management tool called Tempo that we like to use if possible. Built with Twitter Bootstrap, Backbone.js, Node.js and Socket.io, it provides a simple real-time interface to tracking project tasks. Since we designed it ourselves, Tempo is opinionated software that meshes very well with our internal development processes.
