Prolifogy is a full-time, full-service firm providing both software development and consulting services. Unlike most other consulting firms, we only offer experts in the software field. The difference is that experts create cutting-edge technology, while others just use it. Most other firms offer consultants who are competent at what they do, but who have made no contributions to the state-of-the-art and do not particularly stand out in any other way. Nevertheless, these firms send their staff into the field in large numbers to bill premium rates for only average qualifications.
Our associates have a minimum of ten (10) years experience with advanced post-graduate degrees. All have performed research in the state-of-the-art, made contributions to the field, have authored scholarly publications, and have significant industry experience.
A Typical Scenario
We’ve discovered, rather surprisingly, that even the most business-critical software can be marginalized in company project plans for multiple possible reasons. The necessary funding to realize the software is generally shortchanged in the process. We observe all too often that project resources are appropriated based on emotional factors, such as the skittishness of investors, personal philosophies, notions of importance or non-importance of the software in question, and so on. In actuality, the project should be based on the technology and skills necessary to properly fulfill the stated requirements.
Another source of problems we see concerns the practices that many project planners follow when arriving at time and budget estimates. Rules-of-thumb and guesswork, based on past empirical observations or on financially justifiable and observable behaviors (e.g., writing source code) give rise to mythical estimates, upon which estimates for other areas of the project are based—each guess introducing more error into the project planning than the last. This leads to problems that only seem to occur once enough time and money have been invested in the wrong approach.
The fact of the matter is, companies whose main line of business is not performing in-house software development regularly need to consult with experts before undertaking expensive and time-consuming software projects. Periodically, business requirements call for a major overhaul, a brand new internal software product, or an all-out rewrite of an existing product. These developers must then familiarize themselves with new technologies after many years in absentia from large-scale development.
What is often needed in these situations is guidance in the right direction—but where to get this guidance? Hiring an academic or an industry notable seems like a reasonable first step, but the classical academia vs. industry problems quickly begin to arise: the proposed solutions tend to be impractical and biased, many top people in the field surprisingly don’t have hands-on experience on a real software team, and many more yet simply don’t understand how technology connects with business in real-life settings. A consulting firm, on the other hand, will be happy to suggest that you use dozens of their best developers—with hourly rates to match—and let them handle your entire project. But how can a group of outsiders learn your business in a few months? Even more importantly, how are they possibly going to get everything right?
Prolifogy is Different
Prolifogy associates provide the best of both worlds: leaders in the industry and academia with business-savvy and hands-on experience. Those with enough project management experience know that this is a very difficult combination to find. However, this is the only type of talent Prolifogy sends into the field, so you never need to worry about receiving anything less.