Dunedin's ICT sector is working together to counter hard times the industry in general is experiencing, Enabling Ltd chief executive Gary Taiaroa says.
"High technology companies around the world are responding to the economic downturn by improving their efficiencies and their ability to adapt to rapid change.
"In ICT software circles, the focus is on becoming lean and agile."
ICT organisations in Dunedin needed to do the same in order to remain competitive, he said.
The ICT sector (information and communication technologies) had an active "cluster" of companies which cut across a wide spectrum - from large developers to small start-up shops.
One of the issues the industry had to deal with was talented graduates leaving university and immediately wanting to build something, Mr Taiaroa said.
Graduates with degrees in areas such as engineering, law and accounting would spend three years working in a big team, learning professional skills.
"Ours is the 'accidental industry' where people haven't necessarily been brought up in the industry. They just find their way here. Professional standards might not be best practice."
As a way of helping the many Dunedin ICT companies survive the global economic downturn, the cluster had been working on professional development.
Mr Taiaroa has been appointed project leader for the "Application Life-cycle Management" (ALM) programme being undertaken by seven Dunedin companies, as part of the push to become lean and agile.
They are: Areograph, CRT, Dunedin City Council information technology department, Enabling, Silicon Coach, Silver Fern Farms and Tracplus Global.
ALM took a comprehensive approach to optimising software development by considering all aspects of the process including project management, configuration, quality assurance and customer support, he said.
However, ICT companies were not the only ones to benefit from the project.
Computers played an important role in improving the efficiency of a diverse range of organisations within Dunedin.
The fact participants in the project included the city council, CRT and Silver Fern Farms reflected that, Mr Taiaroa said.
"By improving their software development methods, these IT departments can increase their value to the organisation."
The project team led by Mr Taiaroa chose Martin Danner to conduct the ALM project in Dunedin.
Mr Danner was an experienced methods analyst, project manager, software engineer, coach and trainer in the software and information technology fields.
His recent clients in the United States included Blue Cross, Continental Airlines, Johns Hopkins Medical Institute, Microsoft Corp, National Football League and Southern Nevada Water Authority.
Mr Taiaroa said Mr Danner would conduct before and after surveys, in which staff would be asked to confidentially rate their organisation's current processes and tools in a range of categories.
After the baseline survey was completed, ALM workshops would be run for the project partners.
Following the workshop, Mr Danner would conduct on-site interviews.
The organisations that participated in the project would gain better control of their software development projects, deliver higher quality solutions to their customers in less time and reduce the overall lifecycle cost of those solutions.
"By becoming more lean and agile these organisations will be better positioned to deal with adversity, such as the shrinking markets and tightening budgets resulting from the current economic downturn.
"They will be more adaptive to the rapid changes required by today's economic realities."
