Every company has a narrative. This is Critical Masses’ story:
Critical Masses Technology, Inc. (CMTI) was founded on the principles of pragmatic technology service. There are several maxims in technology that CMTI believes in that are worth repeating to fully understand our perspective:
- The ability to “sling code” pales in comparison to the ability to communicate successfully with the client or intended user base. Understanding what the users want, need and what they think they want is part skill and part talent. CMTI strives for the perfect balance of these skills.
- The vast wealth of technology innovation “in the wild” provide extraordinary context for solutions building and cannot be ignored. Be wary of the technology purveyor who wants to lock on to a particular, often pricey, technology without fully investigating the true cost of such a decision. Strive for interoperability and exchangeability as much as possible to avoid painting your client or yourself into a box.
- Messaging (as in e-mail, not message queue services) is a commodity, and -except for some notable exceptions- should thus not require a lot of institutional attention. If it does, something in the process of managing the messaging resource may very well need re-evaluating.
Additionally, CMTI’s strong position on the importance of proximity to its clientele has been reinforced by practical experience:
- The order of magnitude decrease in developer cost per hour for offshoring arrangements are greatly mitigated by the order of magnitude increase in hands-on attention required due to cultural differences and physical separation (yes, it DOES matter.)
- The tendency to “black-box” an entire development process because of its outsourced nature often leads to moments of clarity wherein the realization that the approach taken needs to be reexamined occurring much later (potentially disastrously later) in the development timeline. This, obviously, is not a good thing. Any developer will recognize that mistakes occur and the best developers recognize and correct their mistakes early on.
- The risk of remote development should be factored and budgeted for.
Our core 4 point philosophy is:
- Bigger isn’t always better
- Distance does matter
- Capitalize undervalued or under appreciated existing assets first
- Avoid open-ended engagements
Above all. Critical Masses’ passion for the tapestry of services, solutions and advice it provides is evident and effective. Learn more about our services and contact CMTI today.