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The day we calculated we had 40 days left earlier than chapter, I spotted we weren’t simply fighting gross sales — we had a basic course of drawback that was undermining every part we might constructed.
It was 2014, and our customized software program improvement firm had been working for seven years. We had gifted builders, we delivered high quality code and our purchasers had been usually glad with our technical work. But we remained what I would name a “storage firm” — unable to interrupt by means of to sustainable development regardless of our technical capabilities.
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The technical excellence lure
Like many software program corporations based by builders, we might fallen into a typical lure: believing that technical excellence would naturally translate to enterprise success.
We might spent years perfecting our coding practices, studying new frameworks and delivering stable software program options. Our assumption was that good work would communicate for itself. What we hadn’t realized on the time was that our inner processes had been creating friction that technical talent alone could not overcome.
Key warning indicators we regularly ignored:
- Consumer relationships beginning properly however changing into tense throughout undertaking development
- Working in reactive mode relatively than a proactive communication
- Working laborious however not getting referrals
- Problem predicting timelines regardless of technical competence
Figuring out course of gaps
We began inspecting our processes systematically and found that one in all our massive blind spots on the time was shopper communication throughout improvement. We had been wonderful at understanding technical necessities and delivering options, however we hadn’t developed efficient methods to align with purchasers about progress, setbacks or modifications.
This created a sample the place purchasers felt disconnected from their very own tasks, and sometimes had mistaken expectations. In line with Mission.co’s 2025 survey, 68% of individuals have stopped coping with an organization and moved to a competitor as a result of poor enterprise communication expertise, but we had been optimizing purely for technical outcomes.
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The partnership administration answer
Moderately than implementing customary undertaking administration methodology instantly, we targeted on what we referred to as “partnership administration” — actively managing shopper relationships alongside technical supply.
Our partnership administration technique included assigning devoted relationship managers to every undertaking, implementing proactive communication relatively than reactive updates, translating technical realities into enterprise language and vice versa, specializing in alignment relatively than simply reporting standing and creating templates for widespread situations resembling scope modifications, delays and onboarding.
The affect exceeded our expectations. Shoppers started expressing better confidence in our work, even when tasks encountered technical difficulties.
Making a construction that works
As communication processes improved, we addressed different operational areas that wanted construction. We adopted Scrum methodology however tailored it to incorporate common shopper involvement relatively than treating it as an internal-only framework.
Key areas we improved included standardizing how we onboard new purchasers, creating constant undertaking kickoffs and milestone evaluations, establishing clear processes for dealing with scope modifications and technical points, including common undertaking evaluations that integrated shopper suggestions and monitoring each undertaking supply and the general well being of shopper relationships.
These modifications helped be sure that each engagement began with a transparent framework and continued with structured checkpoints to maintain tasks on monitor.
We additionally started measuring a broader vary of metrics, together with shopper satisfaction, communication frequency and relationship well being. We had been in a position to higher perceive how purchasers skilled our work, establish potential points earlier and strengthen the belief and transparency which are crucial to long-term partnerships.
Overcoming challenges
The transition wasn’t with out difficulties. Some group members initially resisted extra construction, viewing it as forms.
The important thing was exhibiting how the brand new processes truly made their work simpler relatively than tougher. We saved methods versatile whereas sustaining consistency, and once we noticed early enhancements, we made certain to acknowledge them. Coaching everybody on the brand new communication and undertaking administration approaches took a while, however folks progressively noticed the advantages.
What I discovered attention-grabbing was how course of enhancements affected our inner tradition. Having clearer methods diminished day-to-day confusion and freed up psychological house for extra artistic and strategic pondering.
Measuring success
The modifications did not occur in a single day, however we began seeing significant progress that collected over time. Consumer satisfaction improved dramatically, our undertaking timelines turned rather more dependable, and referral enterprise grew considerably. Our group appeared genuinely happier and extra engaged, too.
What began as operational fixes progressively reworked how we labored. By 2018, we might developed from a struggling storage firm into a company that caught the eye of potential acquirers. Our technical expertise had been nonetheless essential, but it surely was the stable operational basis — mixed with different strategic enhancements we might made — that basically made us enticing to potential companions.
Ideas for rising software program corporations
Our expertise means that course of innovation could be as essential as technical innovation, significantly throughout development phases.
Listed here are some beginning factors for related circumstances:
- Audit shopper expertise from their perspective, not simply technical supply
- Establish communication gaps in your present undertaking workflows
- Implement common check-ins and reporting methods to maintain everybody aligned on progress
- Assign relationship administration duties
- Measure shopper satisfaction alongside technical metrics
- Create templates for widespread situations to make sure consistency
Essentially the most worthwhile lesson could also be that constructing sustainable enterprise processes is itself a technical drawback value fixing systematically — it simply requires completely different instruments and approaches than writing software program.
