JenniferSoft Development Culture
Prioritize a balance between work and personal life
A developer’s job requires creativity and concentration. A company can’t instruct their employees to increase their creativity and concentration, but can induce them in different ways. To increase creativity in employees, we believe that each individual not only must be able to fulfill his or her role in the workplace, but also must feel happy in his or her own life. This is why we always tell our personnel: ‘The most important thing is to achieve a balance between personal life and work.’
What is important is that the company facilitates a virtuous cycle of life and work. If the work is difficult, your life after work may feel tough; if your personal life is tough, you will be headed for your office with heavy feet. On the other hand, if you enjoy being in your office, your personal life or life with your family will be happy and peaceful, which will in turn enhance your creativity and concentration. JENNIFER’s widely-known welfare initiatives operate as a stimulus to such virtuous cycle, which is helpful not only to individual staff members but to the entire company.
In addition, as creativity and concentration must come from a free environment, JENNIFER believes in giving personnel the maximum possible freedom while they are at work. As a part of this policy, our employees are free to choose their own working hours according to their preferences rather than having fixed operating hours in order to enhance their concentration while on the job. Of course, there are many concerns over the possible side effects of this kind of freedom, but any negative effects should be resolved through a mutual agreement among the personnel rather than through rules and regulations provided by management. To enable this, we have strived to eliminate the concept of seniority, whether express or implied, among employees. JENNIFER emphasizes equality among company members not because “equality” is some kind of buzzword, but because we have strategic confidence that equality will produce better outcomes.
Introduce processes that ensure the maximum use of liberty, undeterred by development methodologies
Processes can adversely affect liberty. For this reason, JENNIFER avoids generating processes whenever possible, except for matters related to preventing errors and mistakes.
What we consider most when introducing processes is how much a process is needed in the applicable team. No matter how good a process is, it is useless if people who have to utilize the process don’t want to use it.
What we think is the second most important thing is that the subject who introduces the process needs to announce the process and perform ongoing indoctrination. Generally, in the early stage of introducing a process, it feels as uncomfortable and inappropriate as wearing new clothes, which might make you avoid using the process. For this reason, it is necessary and important for someone who understands the process well to keep explaining the process and demonstrating its utilization.
Maximize the value of your 7 hours at work!
As JENNIFER has over 1200 customers, each individual developer on the R&D team needs to engage in development and respond to a number of requests in a day. Such a heavy workload may involve a lot of task switching, and consequently deteriorate one’s concentration. To handle this heavy workload in an efficient way, JENNIFER is actively utilizing its issue management system to facilitate necessary communications. In effect, the head of a development team reviews all issues as well as arrangements and communication, and individual employees handle jobs according to the priority.
To ensure the maximum utilization of the working hours, all staff members must determine their own tasks and measure the time taken to accomplish the task. The intent in this process is not to evaluate one’s failure to achieve a goal, but to help employees become familiar with determining whether a goal is accomplishable when developing a plan. Through this practice, each individual employee can set a goal that can be accomplished within the working hours, and ensure that they are able to enjoy their personal life after leaving the office.
Software Development Philosophy
Develop the functions that are needed by customers
We develop things that can be universally used by every customer rather than what individual customers want. Especially in Korea, the requirements for software functions will vary slightly depending on the customer. Of course, although what an individual customer requires often reflects what is really needed, in most cases it doesn’t. JENNIFER does not develop a function simply because a large or important customer requests it, or because a request is too strong to refuse. In other words, we don’t develop software case by case in an SI form. We make decisions regarding the development of a function after sufficient discussion about whether customer requirements are consistent with the development direction, and whether such function is necessary for JENNIFER’s other customers.
Review sufficiently before proceeding to development
We perform a careful review on development-related issues such as targets, specifications, design, etc. in a phased manner prior to development.
Design – Prototype Functions/Design Review – Design Draft – Function and Design Review – Development
When launching a development project, it takes too much time for correction and improvement. For this reason, we carefully perform a thorough review of all processes from design to development with the actual developer in order to take into account matters that can be considered in advance as much as possible. Through these review activities, we minimize the need for revisions and enhance product quality.
Commit sufficient time to developing an attractive interface that is easy for customers to use
With the company motto “Develop functions that are easy to use and can monitor the system intuitively,” we design and develop UI/UX according to JenniferSoft’s VI (Visual Identity), which is defined as simple, detailed, dynamic and cutting edge.
We do not design our product in a direction that facilitates the development of functions. We take into account the customer’s actual needs and situation, and constantly modify our designs until a satisfactory outcome is achieved. We proceed to the development stage after the final draft is confirmed. For example, it took 2 to 3 months to determine the design concept for JENNIFER 5.
Think globally, even at the development stage
We ensure that all communication related to the product, including screen messages and the user’s manual, is available in multiple languages. Our product provides an environment in which the same functions are available around the world, regardless of the location and language.
