Specify

Overview

Unimpressed by available tools, Firestitch set out to create their own development management tool for internal use. The goal was to make the agency run more efficiently and keep all needed information in one place:

A powerful management tool specifically designed for development
A tool which reflected the detail-oriented and philosophy of Firestitch
Improve productivity while also raising overall service quality
Cut down on the number of platforms and tools used in managing development

The problem

Organization is the key to success but after testing many available management tools, Firestitch was not able to find one which perfectly suited their needs. To use the current market offerings, Firestitch would need to bend their current processes and philosophy to existing tools and maintain crucial information across multiple platforms. They were looking for something that suited their demanding (but successful) management philosophy while also reducing their dependence on multiple applications. Their research into other organizations and their processes revealed further key issues that their application must solve. The following three issues were identified as leading reasonsn why projects fail. The new application would have to address them.

Lack of sufficient project management and quality assurance

If you are the one responsible for delivering ambiguous requirements, the answer may lead to scope creep.

Lack of specs, standards and processes

Making several tools work together, at once, is impossible. Each is designed to solve a particular problem, which leaves the problem of integration unsolved.

Lack of clear communication

If you are an app product designer and you haven’t clearly communicated how things work from the start, then every member of your team from project management to development to quality assurance will ask you this question constantly.

The solution

In order to create a more efficient and seamless process, Firestitch developed their own application – Specify.

It is a custom built management platform which easily allows tasks, projects, processes, and information to be documented, communicated, and acted on across all stages of a project. It improves the efficieny of managing development projects and increasesproductivity while maintaining a high level of service and quality.

All information is stored in one place and is easy to find, roles are clearly defined, and it makes starting new projects quick and easy.

Results

Organization across all aspects of development

Specify stores, organizes and references every aspect of our projects. Everything is kept in one place to avoid inefficiencies, miscommunications and forgotten details. Leveraging a single system to track projects from estimates to release, Specify provides the framework and tools Firestitch needs to model and continually optimize during development. Our developers appreciate being able to reference mockups and specifications on one platform which makes changes during development much faster.

Visually design projects as a team

With a built-in collaborative Entity Relationship Diagramming (ERD) tool, Specify allows our entire team to design, communicate and manage data models. It has become much easier to keep our clients and stakeholders informed, and we can respond much faster to obstacles and unforeseen changes during development.

Results by the numbers

Since its implementation, we’ve increased our development team productivity by 500%. The efficiency gained has been passed on to our clients with great success.

I recommend Firestitch to all the tech founders who are serious about building a high quality product and who want the benefits of a full stack team without the overhead.