dev_nuvolar, Author at Nuvolar

What are CRM solutions and how can they help improve business efficiency?

Posted on August 18, 2021 by dev_nuvolar

What are CRM solutions and how can they help improve business efficiency?

It is common to associate the term “CRM solutions” with software tools that automate routine sales and customer management tasks. The truth is that experience is showing these resources go beyond this definition. In addition to expanding their competencies and allowing the necessary interaction with other areas of the company, they help to create a new approach to customer communication. All this, thanks to a broader knowledge provided by the data, both of potential and acquired customers.

Next, we will see how CRM solutions transcend their status as informational tools, to help create a strategy and even a philosophy of customer management.

What are CRM solutions?

In essence, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solutions record a wide range of customer data. To begin with, they collect basic contact data: name, email, mobile and landline phone numbers, postal address, website, and social media profiles. Over the course of the relationship, they will add more valuable information derived from interactions. For example, responses to company communications and offers or content shared on social networks and mentions of the brand or competitors. They can also keep track of other vital data, such as purchases, complaints, support requests, and additional customer contacts with the company.

In addition, CRM solutions can gather important information such as recent company activities, legal regulations and internal procedural provisions, among others.

What do CRM solutions do with this data?

CRM software organizes all this information to provide a complete view of people and companies. In this way, it is possible to understand them in greater depth, based on their interactions over the course of the relationship. This comprehensive profile allows brands to improve customer management by personalizing communication, offers, and overall customer service. CRM software helps add value to interactions and strengthens customer loyalty and engagement.

How do CRM solutions help companies?

CRM solutions are traditionally perceived as a sales and marketing tool. However, this kind of software has evolved in such a way that it can cover other areas and aspects equally important to ensuring business profitability, such as customer support, supply chain management, and human talent management.

Here’s a look at how CRM benefits different departments.

Greater understanding of sales processes

With this type of CRM solution, sales managers or sales leaders have access to reliable data on the performance of each member of the sales team and whether or not they are achieving conversion goals. In particular, they can monitor the performance and efficiency of individual salespeople, campaigns, and products.

CRM solutions help the sales team save time by reducing the burden of routine administrative work. At the same time, they gain a detailed knowledge of the customer and a better understanding of their needs and expectations. The advantage is spending more time on sales and less on data entry.

More accurate forecasts to optimize marketing processes

CRM solutions help the marketing team obtain a broad and accurate view of each prospect and sales opportunity. The department can accurately map the buyer journey, as well as forecast and control the customer experience from awareness and research stages to the final purchase. This provides a more complete understanding of ongoing sales processes or future forecasts.

It is also possible to aggregate data related to the SSR activity of prospects and customers acquired. This information is critical to understand preferences, opinions, and experiences with brand products and services.

Omnichannel support and attention

For today’s hyper-connected customers, it is convenient to ask a question or complain on a company’s social media pages, website chat, and more to receive a response quickly.

A CRM solution provides a common platform for all interactions with customers. It is possible to get the most out of each customer interaction and receive feedback instantly from customers.

CRM streamlines HR management

Here’s what CRM software can do for your human resources department as well:

Streamline the hiring process.
Automate the analysis and verification of applicant information.
Identify the requirements of specific profiles and new skills to be acquired by the staff.
Help retain human talent.

More productive supply chain management

With CRM solutions, supply chain management departments can track all interactions with suppliers, formalize and archive requests, schedule process monitoring, and stay on top of subsequent steps.

Many CRM tools can generate reports that make it easier for companies to compare suppliers and manage the entire supply chain more effectively.

Other advantages of CRM solutions

More effective contact management. All calls, messages, inquiries, negotiations, and contact channels with acquired and potential customers are recorded. In addition, all these data are available to the different departments through a centralized management system.
Collaboration. The tool we analyzed Facilitates collaborative work among the members of the different departments, accelerating and improving results even more.
Analyzable information for sales. CRMs provide sales teams with real-time data to analyze the relationship with certain customers, assess business possibilities, and manage help from other departments, if necessary.
Comprehensive and reliable reports. Provide an overview of sales processes in order to identify potential problems and solve them as soon as possible. These reports present the information clearly and help to improve employee productivity.
Increased customer satisfaction and retention. Having a complete, up-to-date, and accessible record of interactions with each customer allows the company to anticipate potential problems and complaints and manage them in a timely and effective manner. As a result, the customer experience will be increasingly positive, since it avoids the hassle of transferring calls or contacts to other departments or channels.
Marketing ROI. Effective monitoring allows organizations to know which marketing activities and campaigns are effective for each type of customer in their database. This facilitates the work of marketing departments and helps them optimize their budgets for better ROI.

CRM can help define the core strategy and management approach

Today, the trend is for companies to focus their management more on the customer than on products. CRM solutions make it easier to connect sales and marketing with supply chain, human resources, administration, and other departments. As a result, all the information gathered and analyzed about customers helps to determine the actions of the entire company and meet their needs and expectations. In short, the performance of each of the company’s departments converges to strengthen the customer experience.

A CRM for any business

To get the most out of Customer Relationship Management solutions, it is essential to “customize” them. That is to say, adapt them to the characteristics and needs of each company. To do this, it is necessary to have a company specialized in the development of web solutions that understands the solution in-depth for a successful implementation.

At Nuvolar, we have more than twelve years of experience in Salesforce application development and customization, the leading CRM in the market. In addition, we are a certified SalesForce partner, and we have developed solutions for all types of businesses.

Apart from customizing Salesforce CRM, we also offer software design services, development and management of product implementation, and we are experts in UX (user experience) and UI (user interface) design criteria

Our staff of multidisciplinary professionals is capable of analyzing the requirements of any type of project to define a solution that perfectly meets your needs. We are the right technological partner that your organization needs.

Challenges when implementing CRM solutions

Posted on August 11, 2021 by dev_nuvolar

Challenges when implementing CRM solutions

Are you implementing a CRM in your company to promote a more agile customer relationship management system? Congratulations! You’re making an excellent decision. This indicates that your focus is set on improving the customer experience and building a stronger, long-term relationship with your customers.

However, if your company is new to CRM or decides to migrate to more advanced software, it is normal to face some challenges. Among them, the resistance to change, the complexity of the system, and the integration of tools. Even the adaptation of the sales team and the employees of other departments linked to the system can present challenges.

Perhaps some or all of the concerns we will address in this article are going through your head. Read on, and you will learn how to resolve these concerns.

Resistance to change is very common when implementing a CRM

When implementing a CRM in very traditional companies or companies with a low level of digitization, reactions are usually diverse. Salespeople with more technical skills and a desire to increase their revenue will see the addition of a CRM as a positive thing. But not all employees react in the same way. Some will assimilate the change favorably, and others will not.

More conservative marketers may not understand why software should be an intermediary between them and customers. Traditional marketers may perceive CRM as a tool that dehumanizes the relationship. They may even be uncomfortable that this solution will allow colleagues from the same department and other areas to view all customer information and sales processes. Worse, they may think that their portfolio is no longer as valuable if anyone can make use of it. Other business professionals with less digital skills may feel that they are not up to the new technology and will likely be afraid.

It is certainly not easy to influence the thinking of those who resist change and want to stay in their comfort zone. Even so, it is advisable to carry out a favorable campaign among employees before incorporating CRM.

On the other hand, it is advisable to let the members of the business team and the sales team know that the solution automates the most routine tasks. This will allow more customers to be served in less time and will help the team to focus on other more productive tasks.

In fact, everyone will have more time to devise new strategies to increase sales and build customer loyalty. Therefore, CRM does not replace personal contact with the customer, but can make it more satisfying for the buyer — and more productive for the company!

Training and education

Although CRM solutions, such as Salesforce are very intuitive, it is always necessary to train the personnel who will have access to them. This will reduce the pressure on less digitized employees and create an environment of trust and proactivity. This also applies to migrations to similar client management suites. Proper training facilitates the process of getting rid of old procedures and acquiring new ones.

It’s important to note that the Salesforce platform offers its users training and adaptation programs through its community of volunteer “Trailblazers” worldwide. In addition, at Nuvolar, we are specialists in Salesforce customization and offer consulting and support after the implementation of the solution.

Data importing: an important concern when implementing any CRM

Undoubtedly, customer data is one of the most valuable assets of companies. When implementing a CRM for the first time, or upgrading to a more advanced solution, being concerned about the integrity of this data is inevitable. During the migration of information to the new tool, there is a risk of loss, disorganization, or duplication. Such incidents involve a lengthy and costly clean-up process.

To reduce user apprehension in this regard, the most prestigious CRMs on the market include effective data import tools with a wide range of accepted formats. Generally, these CRMs have a simple interface and make it easy to avoid or manage data duplication.

Do you have the integrations we need?

Another question that often worries users before implementing a CRM has to do with its compatibility and integration with other platforms. Will it be easy to integrate with my ERP? Will it be compatible with my data sources? Will I be able to connect to applications, such as Google Drive, Gmail, or Microsoft’s Outlook email? Can I access mass mailing platforms or the WordPress CMS that manages my website from the CRM?

Indeed, a CRM is enriched by interconnecting customer management with marketing and allowing access to various data sources, as well as facilitating communication between teams through collaborative tools. Mobility is also key. It’s well-known that there can be increases of up to 50% in the productivity of employees with the use of CRMs that are accessible through mobile devices.

Therefore, the challenge is to define the applications and data sources that your company requires to complement the functionalities of your CRM solution. From there, it is possible to choose, among the various customer management solutions, the one that best meets this condition.

Management questions, customized CRM, and technology partner selection

Most of the time, it is not the sales people or other departments that are resistant to change. A more complicated source of resistance to the implementation of a CRM or other technology can be the management team itself. Some of the arguments that managers may express range from the justification of the investment to the complexity of the process.

There is nothing better in these cases than to support the implementation proposal with convincing figures. For example, according to Forrester Research, CRM can improve sales by 87%. On the other hand, it can increase customer satisfaction by 74%. CRM platforms can even improve business process efficiency by 73%.

In relation to costs, it is important to clarify that, like cloud computing technology, CRM SaaS (software as a service) is scalable. In other words, it is possible to invest in an application with basic functionalities and capabilities at the beginning. As business dynamics demand, it is feasible to incorporate new elements.

Is it possible to implement a customized CRM?

Settling for a generic CRM with limited functionality is a thing of the past. Advanced solutions like Salesforce are customizable to the point of adapting to the characteristics and needs of your business model. In particular, your sales, marketing, and customer support strategies.

For this reason, it is essential to have a certified Salesforce partner with a high level of expertise. This technology partner will apply tools such as Visualforce or Apex for workflows, the proper functionalities, and customized applications that fit the needs of the business.

Choosing a responsible and expert technology partner

Your company has probably had bad experiences with some technology providers. For many companies, it is a challenge to find a professional company that will provide and customize a CRM solution flawlessly and on time.

As mentioned above, CRM tools streamline customer management and, consequently, sales. However, the incorrect and untimely implementation of a CRM can have a negative impact on the achievement of the company’s goals.

Nuvolar is the technology partner you need to implement Salesforce CRM

At Nuvolar, we are able to support you with implementing the best CRM solutions for your company. We are closely linked to SalesForce and have been developing our applications in this environment for more than ten years; in fact, we are a certified Salesforce partner!

We know this customer management solution so well that we can fully customize it to meet your business requirements. We have a multidisciplinary team of professional developers to help understand your needs and objectives and implement a solution on time.

Social Studio, social media management, and Salesforce

Posted on August 3, 2021 by dev_nuvolar

Social Studio, social media management, and Salesforce

Social media management is one of the most important jobs for brands today. In order to connect with potential customers, companies must stay active on their various online profiles. To facilitate the management of social networks, Salesforce Marketing Cloud launched its new Social Studio solution.

Some of the functions included in this Salesforce module are designed to make social media marketing more efficient. In addition, this solution also allows you to obtain valuable social analytics and apply techniques such as social media listening.

In this article, we will take you on a tour of the main advantages of Social Studio in Salesforce Marketing Cloud. In addition, we will also talk about the features of this solution and how it can help you improve your business’ social media management.

Easy and efficient social network management with Social Studio

One of the main advantages of Social Studio is the possibility of managing several profiles in a comprehensive way from a single place. However, what makes it a truly attractive tool is that it includes some advanced features, such as those mentioned below.

Scheduling and publication planning

Social Studio allows you to plan and schedule the content to be uploaded to your company’s social profiles. Undoubtedly, this is one of the most basic needs in any social media marketing strategy. Also, this solution is able to elaborate strategies and perform complete audits. Thanks to this matter, it is much easier to adapt campaigns.

Social media listening and social analytics in one place

This module, developed to be part of the Salesforce Marketing Cloud, helps you know what is being said about your brand on social networks. This technique, known as social media listening, includes monitoring the mentions and conversations generated around your company. However, it also encompasses other practices, such as monitoring competitors’ strategies. Thanks to this practice, it is possible to create campaigns or modify your approach to make them highly effective.

On the other hand, Social Studio is responsible for providing access to another pillar in the world of social media marketing, which is social analytics. The collection of data and its subsequent analysis will allow your business to have a greater amount of information to develop more efficient digital strategies. When it comes to the management of social networks, it is essential to have reliable data and to know how to interpret them. With them, you will have the ability to anticipate your competition when creating campaigns or adapt your business strategy depending on the circumstances.

Taking customer service to the next level

Managing social networks with Social Studio significantly improves customer service. It is no secret that more and more users expect to resolve incidents and doubts through official brand profiles. Most platforms include instant messaging and commenting systems; it is precisely in this kind of environment where users feel comfortable asking questions and receiving an answer.

Social Studio can create incidents based on comments and other social media interactions. In addition, it helps to analyze the extent to which an effective response to requests is given. Also, this solution displays very important statistics such as response time. This makes it easier to take appropriate action if customer service is excessively delayed.

Social Studio brings you closer to trends

Another advantage of Social Studio is that it allows you to search for topics and know their impact at that moment. What does this achieve? Because users’ needs are constantly changing, brands need to be informed about new trends and adapt to them. If there is a topic that has become a trend, your firm should be there. With this information in hand, it is easier to create more relevant campaigns. As the saying goes, information is power, and nothing is more empowering than knowing what your prospects and audience are interested in.

Social Studio’s social media management is cross-platform

Social Studio is completely cross-platform. As is already the case with the Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Social Studio has its own application. Thanks to this, it is possible to carry out important operations from any device. Implementing this type of solution in operating systems such as Android or iOS makes it possible to manage a brand’s profiles from anywhere. These are some of the most outstanding features of Social Studio’s mobile application:

Publication in the different profiles.
Content scheduling.
Visualization of the statistics of each publication.
Approval of content prior to publication.
Quick response to comments.
Interactions in all social networks, such as Like, Favorite, or Quote.
Social media listening.
Trend monitoring.
Keyword search.

These are just some of the features of Social Studio. Undoubtedly, having the full potential of this solution available anywhere will allow you to be aware of what is happening always on social networks and manage your profiles more efficiently.

The importance of knowing the impact of your campaigns

Finally, Social Studio offers a complete section where you can check the impact your marketing campaigns have had on social networks. Why is this section so important? It’s true that the rest of Social Studio’s tools make it easier for you to create better campaigns and help you take better advantage of trends. However, checking what is working and what is not in your publications is vital to managing your social networks in the best possible way.

On the other hand, knowing the interaction of your audience, or engagement, allows you to refine and innovate the content you publish. If you want to improve the response that users give to what you publish, you need the metrics offered by Social Studio.

The other advantage of Social Studio: ease of use

So far, we have focused on the various advantages, functions, and tools included in Social Studio. However, all the benefits of this new solution would be meaningless if it were an unwieldy environment. To simplify things, the Social Studio interface is divided into three main sections:

Publishing. This is where you will find all the functions related to content publishing. It is possible to upload content in real time or schedule it from the publish section. In order to make this last modality work properly, Social Studio provides a publication calendar that allows you to see the schedule for each profile.
Engagement. The engagement section shows the comments, replies, and other interactions that users make on your posts. It is possible to anchor up to 30 tabs with which to add columns. Each of them shows information related to one or more social accounts.
Analysis. In the analyze section, you can find all the metrics related to the management of your social networks. You will see statistics such as visitors’ location, the most popular keywords, or how users interact with your profiles. Clearly, it is a fundamental section to use social media listening and social analytics.

Social Studio for your social media strategy

Salesforce has managed to create a simple and complete social media marketing platform with Social Studio. By taking advantage of its full potential, you will achieve optimal social media management.

Why are agile methodologies key in software development?

Posted on July 22, 2021 by dev_nuvolar

Why are agile methodologies key in software development?

Agile methodologies are some of our favorites, as they are the working models we use at Nuvolar to develop our solutions. Thanks to these frameworks, we can develop high-quality applications faster and with more convenient technical methods. Partly, this is because these procedural frameworks prioritize partial deliveries of the developments, allowing their elaboration through iterative cycles. In this way, continuous feedback helps to improve the application and adapt it to the needs of the client and end users.

Do you want to incorporate solutions and applications to streamline your company’s processes and learn more about agile methodologies? Continue reading to learn all the details.

Software development before agile methodologies

Before the emergence of agile methodologies in 2001, the software development process required a large amount of documentation. This documentation also had to be available before the start of code programming. Often, the technology business analyst would write a document with the requirements and functionality that the customer needed from the application. These business requirements briefings were very extensive and included all the details of the project.

Based on this document, the developers prepared their own technical requirements document. In this report, they defined the application architecture, data structures, object-oriented functional designs, and user interfaces, in addition to other non-functional requirements. This development process — known as waterflow — continued with the coding process. This step was followed by integration and finally testing. The whole sequence could take up to two years before bringing the application to the production phase.

As you can see, this method was not flexible at all. The introduction of changes during the development of the application was complicated and delayed the delivery time. Consequently, when many of these developments were presented to the customer or released to the public, they were already obsolete. The needs of the company and the users could change in two years.

What are agile methodologies and what are their main characteristics?

All this changed in 2001. During this year, a group of renowned software developers found commonalities in the alternative work methodologies to waterflow that they were using. Among the members of this group were Ron Jeffries, Ken Schwaber, Martin Fowler, Kent Beck, and Jeff Sutherland. Together they wrote the Agile Manifesto, a document that brought together their shared proposals on how a contemporary software development process should be structured. To summarize, three of their main premises were:

To rely on collaboration over documentation.
To privilege organization within the team, rather than rigid management practices.
To promote the ability to manage change rather than accept the rigor of waterfall development.

What do these methodologies consist of?

We can define agile methodologies as evolutionary methods based on timely and iterative processes for software development.

In summary, these methods are characterized by:

Focus on collaborative development. Users and stakeholders actively participate in the evolution of the product together.
Minimize unnecessary work and excessive documentation. The less time spent on paperwork, the more time that is available to spend creating the application.
Accept that uncertainty is an intrinsic part of software development and that it is difficult to control changes.

In Agile methodology, work teams are multidisciplinary and composed of diverse professionals. They all possess the necessary skills to execute the work.

Considering that the goal is to develop a working technology solution, the team must ensure the correct functioning of the applications from start to finish. With this goal in mind, the database, business logic, and user interface of the application are developed and demonstrated in parts. In other words, it is not necessary to wait until the entire software is finished to test and present it. To this end, team members must collaborate and frequently meet to ensure that everyone is aligned with the objectives. It also helps l to verify what everyone is doing and how the product is developing.

We can summarize the advantages of these methodologies as follows:

Greater capacity for rapid response and adaptation to change.
No excess of formal processes.
Constant communication between project team members.
The client receives information on the development of the project throughout the process.

How do agile methodologies influence software development?

Implementing an agile procedural framework with the principles and characteristics above results in higher quality applications in less time. It’s also worth mentioning that it allows the use of more suitable technical methods in the development of tools. The methodologies we are discussing emphasize adaptability and flexibility. Therefore, there is no up-front definition of answers, as with the waterfall scheme. Instead, the problem is broken down into rapidly developable modules to test with users.

Under these conditions, it is easy to check if something is wrong or if any details are missing It is also immediately possible to adapt the effort to reinstate the original approach or change it if necessary. In the agile approach, each team member contributes to the solution and takes personal responsibility for their work.

Today, agile methodologies are adaptable to web and application development for almost all purposes. Moreover, agile development frameworks and processes prioritize the delivery of software solutions iteratively and encourage feedback. This ensures that teams tailor applications to users’ needs and expectations.

Another favorable consequence of agile development is that it facilitates a process of continuous improvement. Indeed, the solutions developed require constant updating of their functionalities and support. Therefore, the iterative nature of these methodologies helps to establish a culture of continuous improvement.

What are the most commonly used agile methodologies?

There are many agile methodologies practiced for software development. Each of them allows different levels of flexibility during the process. Below, we will briefly mention some of the most commonly used ones:

Scrum

Scrum is a model suitable for projects whose requirements are constantly changing. It consists of delivery cycles called sprints and structured meetings to:

Plan the sprint and establish sprint priorities.
Engage the team by reviewing a list or backlog of user stories which helps to define the amount of work for the sprint.
Update the development status of the sprint.

The sprints culminate with a meeting demonstrating the functionality of the product to the customer. This demonstration is followed by a retrospective team meeting to discuss achievements and improvement requirements.

Extreme Programming Model (XP)

The success of the Extreme Programming Model (XP) methodology depends largely on the team’s technical expertise and commitment to collaboration. In short, it consists of developing several small versions of the application. This reduces the costs generated by changes in requirements. The work dynamic involves pairs of developers who execute a simple design and whose code is continuously improved by considering user feedback.

At Nuvolar, we use the Lean methodology.

Lastly, we will discuss the Lean methodology. This is the methodology we use at Nuvolar to approach application development for our customers. This scheme of work focuses on creating highly usable and easily manageable software for users. It includes the most beneficial and necessary functionalities according to the purpose of the solution. With this objective in mind, we propose short iterations to design, build, test, and analyze a prototype with minimum requirements.

At the end of each iteration, we present partial deliverables to the client. Then, we restart the process to incorporate new requirements and make improvements, if necessary. The idea is to avoid wasting time and resources. This also allows us to perform customized and quality development within the agreed deadline.

At Nuvolar, we can do it all! We have a great team of multidisciplinary professionals who understand your needs and those of the users of your applications. We are experts in custom software design and development, and highly-experienced in working with UX and UI design criteria. Our services include product development and implementation management, as well as consulting and post-deployment support. Contact us to learn why we are your ideal partner for cloud solutions!

5 benefits and challenges of transitioning from Developer to Product Owner (PO)

Posted on July 12, 2021 by dev_nuvolar

5 benefits and challenges of transitioning from Developer to Product Owner (PO)

by Daniele Baldon

When I first heard about the Product Owner (PO) role, I thought it was not for me. I was a developer on a mission to code and create a product that solved any technical problem, while the PO was the person trying to fit as many tasks as possible into the plan!

However, I took on the role of PO just a few months ago after being a Java developer for seven years. If you are a developer, you are probably asking, “Why did you do that?” The answer is simple: for natural tendency. I was always heading towards this change, even if I didn’t realise it at the beginning. For example, my focus was already more on the product than the mere code itself. Therefore, I saw the PO role as one where I could capitalise on my soft skills more than my development skills. Moreover, I was growing fond of the new product that our team was developing at the time, so I wanted to be more involved in the decision-making process in both the short and long-term lifespan of the product.

The first months of the transition were neither easy nor hard. It was, and still is, rather complex. My daily life changed completely. For example, as a developer, a feature lifespan involves thinking about HOW to implement it, develop it, and solve merge conflicts. As a PO, however, the lifespan of a feature starts much before its birth. The client needs are translated into requirements that help to define WHAT will be the new product feature. It has to be analysed, estimated, and prioritised. It is also necessary to explain extremely well to the development team WHY the feature is needed. Once it is implemented, it needs to be validated against user expectations, and it will likely need a second iteration.

During the transition, I realised that having a developer background was an advantage for me. Let me share the five main ways that having a development background helped me, and the five main changes I had to embrace. If you are a developer wondering if the PO role is for you, I hope it helps you weigh your decision.

Benefits of having a development background

You know the inside of the product. You understand how it works internally, as well as all of the strengths and the weaknesses. This is especially helpful with a backend project with no outside visibility of what is being implemented. For example, if the product is an API, with visibility on the json requests and responses only, then the product decisions are tight with the technical solutions. Having a technical background can help you drive possible feature discussions with clients towards a more favorable terrain.
You’re able to provide a fairer approach to technical tasks. For example, code refactors, which are often marked as a low priority since they offer nothing visible to the user. How often do we hear about how the technical debt of the project hinders implementations, causes trouble, or non reproducible bugs? And then in the plan, there is barely space for those tasks?
Developer gibberish or “tech speak” actually makes sense, and you’re able to understand its implications for the tasks, projects, and planning!
You can help make sure development discussions are thorough and that all details are discussed. You can help guide conversations with development teams with the finest grain of detail. Suppose a developer complains that a task is technically impossible to implement or it has drawbacks that you did not consider. In that case, you can understand the reasons behind them and help to find possible alternatives which still meet the same business requirements.
Your project plan tends to have a bigger buffer, especially for the most technical functionalities, and, therefore, is more realistic. Integration tests, refactors, spikes, and unforeseen technical problems are left out of the plan too often. For example, while implementing a frontend button could take a known standard amount of time, what is the standard for a new CI/CD system? Or for setting up a Kubernetes cluster? There are systems that are very hard to VROM and plan; however, being aware of the complexity of the work can be an advantage in order to not underestimate them.

The changes to embrace

Your responsibility now involves what needs to be implemented, not how. Even if you don’t want to close IntelliJ or Eclipse, which has opened up on your screen by default for so many years, you’re going to realise you don’t have time for both POing and coding. Therefore, you must detach from the code. You cannot control everything. Perhaps you can do some Code Reviews at the beginning if you wish, but soon, the code probably will have changed so much that your code review will not be exhaustive anymore.
Think about your new responsibilities. Are they clear? It may seem like a simple question, but if you have a simple answer, then it is probably not the whole truth. It is important to define clear responsibility between you and the development team. In the beginning, you’ll probably want to participate in technical decisions. “I know the code!” you might think. Sure, for the first month or so, you might; however, code is changing every day, and you cannot control it! Moreover, you have a fantastic development team, so leave the technical decisions for them. It is not up to you anymore to discuss if a strategy pattern is the most appropriate implementation. Remember when you were complaining about POs trying to define database columns names?… Right?!
The decisions are more complex. One of the main changes of mindset I’m still embracing is with the decision drivers. When coding, if the acceptance criteria are well specified, then the final result can only be right or wrong. The unit tests are either green or red. The QA either passes or not. As a PO, answers are never 100% right or 100% wrong, black or white. It’s always a nuance. Experience can help, but experience is precisely what you will lack the most of in the first months! So what should help to drive your decisions are data and user feedback. User feedback is not always easy or fast to get, and sometimes decisions must be taken quickly. Data, instead, might be easier to get. But where is the data coming from? You and your company are likely to have access to tons of data already that no one paid attention to until now. Jira generates lots of data, for example, and there are plugins that help you to interpret them. The product itself can generate the data you might need. And I’m sure the development team would be more than happy to add a microbenchmark or a monitoring or logging system.
Start speaking in business terms, not technical terms. It is not as easy as it might sound, especially if you are used to talking about the same topic with the same team members and just from a different perspective. However, it is very important. When you explain a task from the technical point of view, you focus on the how-to and the details, taking for granted that you already understand what needs to be done. Meanwhile, when you explain a task from a business perspective, you are helping the developers understand what the task is about and why, regardless of the details. There are always several ways to implement the same business feature, while there is usually only one technical solution that solves one specific problem. Focus on the acceptance criteria, on extraordinary cases, how the user will use a feature and why, and try to pass down information the best you can to the development team.
Different achievements. One of the feelings I initially missed the most in my new role was the sense of completion. As a developer, once a task is done, you forget about it and go take on the next one. Once the QA has passed, you could be proud of your implementation. But what is the definition of DONE for a PO? Once the product is in production? Once a new feature receives positive feedback? In my opinion, such a question does not apply to a Product Owner. Instead, you must enjoy every day, every discussion, and every decision. There are no definitions of DONE, and no concept of finish. Once a feature is done, it might need to be modified. And once the product is in production, it is already time to improve it, since in the IT business everything changes fast.

Change is the only thing that is permanent, so enjoy the changes!

Cloud migration: ideas and recommendations for success

Posted on July 7, 2021 by dev_nuvolar

Cloud migration: ideas and recommendations for success

Cloud migration is a practice that is becoming increasingly common in the corporate world. Thanks to its many advantages, a lot of companies are taking the leap and hosting their operations in the cloud. You may have some questions about this term. For example, what exactly is cloud migration, what are the benefits, what is the process, and how can you perform a cloud migration successfully? We’ll answer all of these questions below.

What is cloud migration?

When we talk about cloud migration, we are discussing the process of moving the digital aspects of a company to the cloud; that is, making services, applications, and operations work on remote servers with online access. Obviously, this involves a large amount of resources, such as storage, data processing, and application execution.

Once cloud migration is complete, it means that IT processes are no longer performed on-premises. Rather, they are managed remotely. This, in most cases, represents an improvement in performance and efficiency of several departments in an organization. In other words, it is the direct result of reducing the efforts required to maintain, update, or upgrade one’s own data center.

In short, cloud migration is the transfer of the digital infrastructure within a company from local to remote or the cloud. This term can also refer to the migration between two cloud services; however, the most generalized meaning is the first one.

The phases of cloud migration

Migrating to cloud services is a process with several phases. Below we analyze what they are and what is important to take into account during each of them.

Cloud Migration Requires IT Replication

The first step in cloud migration is to replicate the local IT infrastructure in the cloud. Although it may seem possible to complete this phase quickly, its complexity sometimes prevents that from happening. In fact, IT replication can take years to complete, especially for large enterprises. The most common approach is to migrate the entire corporate infrastructure gradually. However, it’s recommended to establish a timeline so that you start to see the benefits of the migration as soon as possible.

Time to rebuild and automate

The main objective in the second stage of cloud migration is rebuilding and automating processes. This step is essential for cost savings. Developers tend to use too many resources at the beginning of the cloud migration process which, of course, comes at a cost to the company. But as they gain experience and become better adapted to cloud systems, they are able to automate resources and deactivate them when they are no longer needed.

Cloud migration and containers

At this point, the use of containers, such as Docker or Kubernetes, becomes essential. These containers are able to manage workloads and services more efficiently. In addition, they provide automation tools. Many of the containers are relatively easy to extend, which facilitates the scalability of cloud services.

Minimizing the impact on servers with serverless applications

Finally, once the previous steps are complete, it is time to reduce dependency on servers. How? By designing serverless applications, which reduce dependence on containers. This is also known as Functions as a Service or FaaS.

What are the advantages of cloud migration?

Migrating a company to the cloud is not an easy task. However, there are many advantages. Understanding these benefits is the best way to remove any possible doubts prior to cloud migration.

Minimal maintenance. The cloud eliminates many of the IT department’s responsibilities. In fact, it’s possible to outsource most tasks to the provider, who maintains responsibility. As a result, there is a significant reduction in maintenance costs. .
The cloud provides flexibility. Expanding or reducing services in the cloud is much easier. Since additional resources almost instantaneously, companies can deal with peaks in demand or launch in new markets more quickly.
Increased security. Companies that want to offer reliability to their customers and employees must have powerful protection systems in place. By migrating to the cloud, this responsibility is shared between the users and the provider, with the latter providing its customers with powerful security systems.
Cloud migration promotes mobility. Cloud applications are the starting point for telework. Because they are always available and accessible from any device, an employee can attend to his or her responsibilities regardless of time or place.
Reduced costs. All of the advantages above lead to cost savings. Thanks to cloud models, corporations can be more efficient, faster, and more versatile with less investment.

There are many strengths of cloud migration. If you’re ready to get started, here are some important recommendations to make your leap to the cloud a success.

Recommendations to make your cloud migration a success

Although the advantages of cloud migration are diverse and appealing, it can be a painstaking process. However, we have a few ways to help make your migration to the cloud a success.

Design a pre-strategy

Before making the leap to the cloud, it is important to plan the entire cloud migration process. First, it is very important to establish your objectives, deadlines, and identify your specific needs.

Evaluate the offers of different suppliers

Analyzing the different offers currently on the market will help you avoid unnecessary cost overruns. In addition, you will be able to check if each provider offers what your business needs. Getting this right is much easier if you already have a good cloud migration strategy in place.

Examine the terms of the contract carefully

Before contracting a service, you should know what clauses are included in the contract. This will allow you to understand in advance the responsibilities and obligations of each party. In addition, you should not forget that the contract should reflect compliance with other legal provisions, such as data protection regulations, in the area where your company operates.

Take advantage to optimize your company

The cloud migration process has its challenges. After all, getting everything to work together seamlessly is a long and complex journey. However, it could also be a good time to change the way you do things. If your current infrastructure has problems, migrating to the cloud may be the perfect opportunity to solve them.

Remember to consult a professional

The last recommendation we can give you is to seek expert support. In the long run, getting tailored advice will help you minimize errors in the process and waste fewer resources. It is very clear that cloud migration is a trend that is slowly taking hold. But it can be a major task and to complete it successfully it is essential to have the best professionals helping you.

At Nuvolar, we can help make your cloud migration a success.