The backstory
Our client represents a small community of diplomats who are part of a bigger organization. Attending political and social events, they usually have to deal with a lot of information. One of the key elements here was that all of the members are located literally throughout the world, so they rarely get the chance to meet all together.
About the project
The goal was to keep the common knowledge of the organization’s activities, achievements and internal discussions, up to date. Our product meant that we should make the organization feel comfortable in ditching the variety of services they already used to deal with every bit of its needs (i. e. whatsapp messenger for internal discussions and file sharing, facebook for members management, events management and attendance).
Client needs
- Centralise the organisation’s management of projects, activities and achievements
- List all members with detailed contacts, bio, skills and professional history
- Build a platform for discussions
- Build a document repository
- Keep it internal and safe
Technology stack
Challenges
Making things familiar
The client was ready to ditch a bouquet of applications to channel all communication in their organisation. We had to make sure there is no learning curve for the users of the application. This meant gathering best practices and familiar patterns from around the web, to allow the members with limited technical knowledge find their way around.
Elixir
For the best possible outcome we decided to build the application in Elixir language. In the past couple of years it has been an up and coming technology that we believe will become big, thanks to its speed, scalability and reliability. This was the first time we used this language for an application of this scale, but we think it turned out just right. The functional aspect of the language pushed us towards a simple, easy to read code base, that’s highly maintainable.
Success factors
Diverse Team
Every member of the team brought valuable piece of knowledge to the table. Effective communication and daily meetings made the entire workflow transparent and let all team members have their opinion heard about features and functionality.
Team Setup
- 3 Developers
- UI Designer
- Product Manager
- Project Manager
Our Toolkit
We use a selection of applications that help bridge communication between project managers and developers, developers and designers, designers and project managers. If you are interested what these applications are, we are happy to share, just get in touch with us.
Good communication with client
Weekly meetings with the client allowed us to track progress, clarify requirements and manage expectations. Having a client who is dedicated and invested in the project is also very important.
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