Progress OpenEdge isn’t just any piece of software. It is an enterprise application development platform that many of the world’s top companies have relied upon for decades for mission critical business operations.
As such, enterprise customers need to know that their OpenEdge databases and applications are in capable hands. While most companies have a large list of goals, database and application needs often rise to the top:
- OpenEdge Modernization, and
- Reducing the Backlog
Teams that want to supplement their existing talent or add additional OpenEdge talent to their organization know that the Progress Professional Services team has an option that offers instant, proven expertise on a near on-demand basis through the Staff Augmentation service.
Progress’ Services experts can support your application though a number of high priority projects, including:
- ABL Development
- Architectural Review
- Web Development
- UI/UX
- Application Maintenance
- Version Upgrades
- Platform Migration
- Help Desk
- Code Reviews
- Testing and Debugging
Get Hip to OpenEdge Modernization
Our OpenEdge experts can help you move to the latest OpenEdge technologies.
Many things distinguish a modern application development platform. But for OpenEdge, one item really stands out.
“The core part of a modern OpenEdge application is having an API-first strategy. Once you've implemented that API-first strategy, all the doors open for you in terms of what the user experience could be. Mobile integrations are wide open to you, as is integrating with other applications in your enterprise or applications outside your enterprise,” said Christopher Longo, consulting delivery manager for OpenEdge. “But until you take that first step of API first, you're basically in a silo and locked down. You're never going to modernize.”
Modernization has innumerable benefits: implementing new features that return revenue, enhancing competitive advantage and allowing end users to do things that they were not previously able to do. In short, taking full advantage of what OpenEdge software can do.
However, if you don’t have appropriate staff to tackle modernization, Progress OpenEdge experts are there to help.
Dive into Staff Augmentation
The economics of OpenEdge Staff Augmentation are beyond compelling. First, you get proven expertise quickly. You can get a full-time equivalent (FTE) without the need for training. If you don’t need a 40 hour per week person, you can opt for a more project-based approach with fewer hours.
And when the job is done, you can free up your budget for the next pressing project.
“Typically, staff augmentation is a situation where we find an expert that plugs into the customers’ team. The customer will have a project, or they'll have a backlog of tasks that need to be accomplished, and our resource will plug in and be managed by their project management or team leads,” Longo explained.
Staff Augmentation is a consulting engagement from the very start. “The first part is discovery. It is critical to listen to the customer, understand the needs and start to figure out the kind of resource that's necessary. It's not one size fits all. It depends on the customer and where they're at with their projects and their development,” Longo continued.
Customers may need high level architectural expertise and user interface gurus, or modernization masters.
“The discovery process is based on a technical interview with the customer to identify the need and define the skills shortage,” explained Progress OpenEdge services expert David Best.
So, who shows up to save the day? A fully vetted OpenEdge expert, or a few—that’s who.
Working with the Best
OpenEdge has a strong base of consultants with plenty of passion and years under their belts. “Many of our OpenEdge resources have 15 to 20 years of experience with the platform, developing all different kinds of applications such as character-base and GUI,” Best said. “We have experts in all kinds of things: API development, third party integrations, consultants that are user interface oriented, web development folks and JavaScript experts.
“One of the advantages for a customer for staff augmentation is we can help them very quickly scale up for a project or for a backlog of issues or tasks. They don't have to go through the hiring process,” Best said. “These are not full-time resources. They're temporary. They can use as they need for 12 months, 18 months, six months, whatever.”
One large, well-known financial company had a talent shortage, one that didn’t call for a bevy of new full-time employees. They got 20 or so resources from OpenEdge Staff Augmentation and quickly scaled to solve their issues. By solving application development problems with staff augmentation from Progress Professional Services, this enterprise reaped the economic benefits of having a knowledgeable team ready to go to deliver a great application.
The Downside of Headhunters and Staffing Agencies
Task weary IT departments commonly turn to headhunters, staffing agencies and placement services to fill skills gaps. They may find a developer or database administrator, but that person may not be fully trained on OpenEdge.
These new hires are likely not OpenEdge experts. With Staff Augmentation, OpenEdge experts come in, can be immediately productive, see things in your organization that you don't already see and might have expertise that the other OpenEdge professionals within the enterprise don't have—very specific expertise the shop couldn't get otherwise.
Watch Your Backlog
IT workers’ tasks seemingly never end, and when it comes to application development and management, much of this is due to the backlog. When the backlog grows, bugs don’t get fixed, systems aren’t updated, integrations never happen and new features left undone. All this impacts the business.
The backlog for an enterprise application development platform is many-faceted and requires an array of skill sets, which are sometimes in short supply. The most vexing backlog items are the ones for which your shop has no skills.
When the backlog grows, so do the troubles. IT is not meeting management, stakeholder and end user expectations, which affects the efficiency of the business. End user satisfaction and productivity both suffer.
Perfect Your OpenEdge Environment with Staff Augmentation
Don’t get caught without the extra, capable hands your business needs to reduce your backlog and modernize your OpenEdge applications. Learn how Progress OpenEdge Staff Augmentation can bring your enterprise application development platform to new heights at our Staff Augmentation Services page.
Doug Barney
Doug Barney was the founding editor of Redmond Magazine, Redmond Channel Partner, Redmond Developer News and Virtualization Review. Doug also served as Executive Editor of Network World, Editor in Chief of AmigaWorld, and Editor in Chief of Network Computing.