Odyssey Computing. Inc.

  Odyssey Computing, Inc. is a full service custom enterprise software and mobile app development company based in San Diego, California. Since 1990, Odyssey’s focus has been on providing solid, functional and elegant solutions which incorporate the latest technologies and trends.  

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Project Quality Management: Quality Assurance Vs Quality Control

In Project Management, the terms Quality Assurance and Quality Control are often used as synonyms. However, there are still quite a few differences between both.

In an overview, quality assurance (QA) is a set of activities ensuring the high functionality, productivity, and quality of products by removing any defects that may occur during the development of any custom software application or product. In comparison, quality control (QC) refers to the actions where the final product or software is inspected to ensure the highest quality. And both of these steps are crucially important for the success of any product or software. You can’t launch a faulty product in the market because your brand’s reputation and reliability are always at stake.

Let’s understand QA and QC roles under the umbrella of project quality management in detail.

Project Quality Management

Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control (QC) are both significant components of Project Quality Management and are used in different industries, including software development.

For example, in software development, the main goal of Quality Assurance is to track the performed process and prevent any defects during primary development. On the other hand, Quality Control is there to detect several possible risks associated with the final product.  Both aspects bind together and will improve and ensure the development of successful software.

   QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Quality Assurance           Quality Control

Differences between Quality Assurance and Quality Control

In the software developer environment, quality assurance and quality control play the most crucial role. The purpose for both is the same, however, with different approaches. Let’s understand the role of each in detail and how these both processes work hand in hand in quality management.

Duration

Duration is the first and yet the most critical difference between QA and QC. Quality Assurance is a process that’s implemented throughout the designing and development stage. In contrast, Quality Control is initiated at the completion or final stages when the product or software is ready and fully developed. So, consider QA to be a prerequisite of QC that needs to be completed before reaching quality control.

Focus

Quality Assurance focuses on process-oriented practices, such as how the software is being made, what tools and steps are being taken, how it will be delivered, etc. The QA process is bound to follow specific standards and methods based on software and customer requirements. On the other hand, Quality Control is a product-oriented practice that solely focuses on the final product/software. While testing the product, it also ensures that all the required standards were followed correctly.

Goal

In software app development, the ultimate goal of quality assurance is to avoid and prevent any defects (bugs, etc.), while quality control is accountable for identifying bugs at the final validation of the software. In short, verification should be considered as QA’s goal and validation as QC’s goal.  

Responsibility

In a quality assurance process, apart from a QA engineer or analyst, multiple team members are involved in identifying and preventing defects during the software development process. Thus, the quality assurance team is responsible for the full software development life cycle. On the flip side, the testing team would be responsible for the software testing life cycle in the quality control process.

Final Thoughts

A clear understanding of the aspects of quality assurance and quality control for everyone involved in the project, let it be designers, developers, or stakeholders, can help minimize the defects. It also helps create a useful project and quality management plan, ensure the development of high-quality products and/or software, and ultimately preserve the clients’ trust.

At Odyssey Computing, we take the development of software very seriously, and our quality management team ensures that every standard and requirement is being met during the quality assurance and quality control process to provide defect-free software to our clients.

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How to Maintain Positive Client Relationships

It is a well-known fact that clients are undoubtedly one of the vital pertinent influences, for initiating and retaining a prosperous company, in today’s competitive market. Hence, it is very valuable to have a good, constructive, and positive relationship with current clients because it will result in their trust in you and would increase the chances of repurchase intentions.

Another solid foundation you can create for a long-term client relationship is by asking yourself a few questions; How do you handle your existing or potential clients? Why is having good connections with clients so significant?

If you are catering to them correctly, it will enable your company to be more appealing and trustworthy to potential and existing clients. Additionally, even if your clients do not come back, they can always refer your company to their coworkers or friends.

Let’s dive into these five guidelines to create an everlasting relationship with your clients.

Bracing Your Clients

From a marketing perspective, it is a wise decision to maintain and outgrow your connections with the clients. It will allow you to predict the client needs and the constant changes they may demand, even after the project completion. For instance, sometimes clients are experiencing a technical issue that they cannot resolve.

At this point, you need to be present for them and make them feel listened to. Having solved your client’s problems on time would put you in a more robust state to achieve client loyalty with your services. In such scenarios, most clients take it positively, and acknowledge the fact that you genuinely helped them out, and this can optimistically help you sustain your client-relationships for future projects.

Become an Outstanding Communicator

This is considered the most critical step in maintaining a positive client relationship. Almost every organization, as well as management studies, focuses on this aspect more than anything else. Discussing relationships, you must strengthen the practice of effective communication by responding to client’s emails, calls and queries daily.

For instance, you can maintain daily check-ins, connect through social media, and share product and project planning updates directly with the client. Resultantly, this would make them feel valuable and being listened to. Every customer wants to engage differently. Developing the desired networking channels for them will be a big plus. Some of them will appreciate emails, while others may expect a phone call, or an in-person meeting and so on.

Regularly Exceeding Client Needs

Sometimes you will hear, “This is what I expected from the product,” and these types of comments will give you a feeling that you are going in the right direction. Surpassing client’s expectations is a great way to develop and maintain long-term positive and healthy relationships.

On the other hand, when you get a remark like, “I did not expect this from the product or I had something else in mind”, at this point you need to take immediate action right away. Do not let the dissatisfied clients turn away because this may affect your reputation and would damage future work potentials as well. Hear out their concerns, perform a detailed survey, pinpoint the underlying issues and solve their problems, and retain them for as long as you can.

Positive Attitude

Another way to establish a strong relationship with the customer is to maintain the right attitude. It is the hardest part of the job, but you have to be an encouraging person/company to ease the customer. If you give importance to what the client wants and their perspective about their brand and products, they would not doubt the results produced by you.

Furthermore, usage of comforting words, such as expressing concern for a client’s condition, apologizing for any discomfort, and offering help in stressful circumstances, will adequately motivate the client.

Define and Fulfill Expectations

Lastly, from the beginning, you should proceed by maintaining achievable goals for your client’s work. It gives you a fair idea about your available resources, time for all the upcoming deadlines to meet. Being transparent about what the client should expect, from the beginning till the end. Talk about post project services to maintain a meaningful conversation with the client. You have the authority over your organization, its resources and services. Provide the customer with positive, transparent, and reliable information concerning the procedures and technologies associated with it.

Also, ensure to put trust in your client with a relaxed, composed, and a cheerful attitude. However, if you face any shortcomings, remain truthful with what you promised and cater to the client’s needs beyond expectations.

Final Thoughts

The bottom line is that you must invest into building positive relationships with your clients just as you would want to build positive relationships with other people in your life. Clients are humans, and they prefer to be treated like one before anything else. Focus on building a strong foundation of trust. And the key to building trust is with honest communication, being approachable and reliable, and constantly delivering on your promises.

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How Project Management is Going to Change in the Post Pandemic Time

The pandemic (coronavirus) has changed the world we used to know. Apart from damaging human lives, it has impacted every industry, forcing millions of businesses worldwide to revisit their approach towards handling projects and overall work. Such impacts have tested the capabilities of businesses to run their projects effectively. While many businesses and project managers and their sponsors adapted to the new work home environment effectively and efficiently, many businesses faced substantial delays or even cancellations.

This dynamic shift forced businesses to create new, adaptable, and creative ways to work around. Whether it be employing technological developments, elevating systems, or reconsidering their business’s infrastructure, the project management future – albeit drab and indefinite at times – still looks promising; the new age will likely redefine the industry and project management processes as we know it.

Many enterprises have moved to remote work permanently or for an extended period of time, including Careem, Infosys, Salesforce, Google, and Facebook. With the COVID-19 being still here, a U.S. technology research firm’s recent survey states that the cumulative figure of employees working permanently from home is all set to double in 2021 globally. The percentage of remote workers will increase from 16.4% to 34.4%.

Considering the situation, what type of crucial changes do you expect to see in the forthcoming years? And how are project managers going to bear the cost of it due to the coronavirus pandemic?

Project Managers Will Need to Upgrade Their Skills

Put simply; it will be the survival of the fittest. If you want to keep the boat afloat, then you’d have to keep up with the constant changes and challenges. You will have to optimize the projects and not simply cancel or delay the progress. And to achieve it effectively, you will have to stay motivated to learn and upgrade your skills for yourself and the business’s success and betterment.

Considering the current situation of COVID-19, learning new skills and upgrading the existing ones will become crucially important more than ever, especially now when we find ourselves moving towards the new-normal post-pandemic landscape.

Whether it be polishing soft skills like day-to-day communication with the internal team or clients, upgrading project management skills like creating a contingency plan under a short time span, or enhancing hard skills, such as getting a strong grip over data-driven systems, since most of us are still working from home, project managers have to identify and embrace different levels of expertise.

Flexible Working Hours Will Reign Supreme

If this pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that project management businesses can cope perfectly fine with a home-based setup. And this may likely stay like this even after COVID-19 considering that work from home is workable for most employees and employers.

From improved flexibility to increased productivity levels, COVID-19 has only sped up the implementation of flexible working schedules, forcing the project management industry into an unprecedented shift towards remote work worldwide.

However, it also came with its own challenges. After all, work from home completely changes the traditional workplace dynamics, making it somewhat difficult to handle work-based communication and processes.

In a traditional setting, spontaneous collaborations, meetings, team sessions, brainstorming, and other project management tasks work better as all the team members work under one roof. Hence, moving forward, project managers will have to think about unique and improved methods to incite this same level of teamwork even when they aren’t working in the same room.

Communication Is and Will Be the Key

Project management in these times is not just limited to the team’s surveillance to achieve desired targets. It also allows the whole team to build a trust factor by exploring new ways to get optimal results while working remotely.

To achieve this, while working remotely, one thing is crucial, and that’s communication. To bring the same level of engagement, enthusiasm, and productivity, project managers would need to engage and maintain a high level of communication through various channels: interactive video meetings, virtual gatherings, follow-up emails, or one-to-one calls.

To do so, project managers can use online communication tools, such as Slack, Zoom, or Skype, to maintain a high level of employee involvement. Furthermore, it will become more important than ever to check on employees’ mental health and emotional well-being.

Technology Will Play A Decisive Role

As we go through this pandemic, this is also an ideal time to re-invent and simplify the project management working practices to improve and address the business’s needs. To do so, project managers can increase technology use by simplifying and automating some of the project processes. To put it simply, no one would have thought that working remotely will be a thing and become a new norm in the future, but it did. Technology has revolutionized workplace dealings and processes. Artificial Intelligence is one of the game-changing factors. It is likely to leave a massive impact on how admin-based processes are being run and managed, saving a huge amount of time when scheduling, data management, data analytics, or any other tactical planning-based tasks. As per Gartner’s research in 2019, project management would be majorly replaced by artificial intelligence, automating most decisions instantly without any humans involved.

It will ease up the workload on project managers, allowing them to streamline and automate the processes while focusing on other core areas of project management.

Conclusive Thoughts

This pandemic has left a disastrous effect on the project management industry; however, it has also provided businesses with the opportunity to stop, reflect, and reconsider their project management strategies from now on.

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Trends for UI/UX Designs in 2021 – Explore What’s in Store

It’s not a surprise to see the new UI/UX design trends list every year. That’s the thing about trends – always bringing something new to the table. And the design industry itself is ever-evolving, changing circumstances demand for new and innovative design solutions.

But here is the thing, it is inevitably impossible for designers to follow each and every trend; thus, it becomes crucial for graphic designers to try the trends from time to time to see what’s working and what they can offer to their clientele.

Considering the changing work environments worldwide, we researched and prepared a list of the latest UI/UX trends for 2021. These latest trends will possibly change the design industry – in a good way.

And as said by Mark King, “Design is the body language of your marketing. Don’t slouch.”

So, let’s dig in and explore what’s in the store for designers and brand owners.

Brand Transparency

What makes a good UX is the ability to provide users with an easy-to-navigate interface where users can easily find menus, contact info, and other relevant buttons without needing them to ask. Navigation, nevertheless, is not the only lesson that UX has to impart out there for users. There has been a significant increase in the UX, that is, focused on reflecting the brand’s ethics, storyline, or work culture – showing the users exactly how services or products are being provided and handled.

Such representation of transparent processes makes it easier for users to invest their faith and trust in the brand. This may include social media popups, banners, or overlays that express the brand’s transparent ways of doing work or terms and policies around how website content or user’s data is updated and used.

In 2021, we will see a boost in brand transparency executed through good UX, allowing brands to develop brand trust among users. Because most brands have finally realized that the first interaction visitors want to have on any website is not necessarily a call-to-action button that’s being shoved in their faces; instead are more considerate about the brand’s values.

Advanced Personalization

It has become important more than ever for brands to create customer loyalty with personalization. Personalization in design means showing content and product suggestions based on user preferences such as previous search history, preferences, and buyer journey on the website, age, marital status, order history, etc. All of these components help brands come up with designs that complement the user’s search. To present the users with highly personalized design and content, it is crucial to understand their intent, intention behind the search, where they stand in the buyer journey, whether they seek a solution or merely visiting the web pages for inspiration.

The ultimate goal of personalized design is to make the users feel that the content is specially designed for them. This advanced personalization strategy often helps in increasing the user conversion rate.

Presenting your products and services in a personalized manner is a way to go for brands looking to improve user retention.

Contactless Interactions

In the wake of the pandemic, a new trend has been walking around the corner – touchless interactions. Even when we talk about UX designs, there has been a shift in how users interact with their devices. The intrusion and excessive use of voice control interfaces can be seen.

Even before the advent of the pandemic, voice searches were taking over already. As per Google report, approx. 27% of the population (worldwide) used voice searches in 2020 on mobile devices. And roughly 70% of these voice searches were made using regular conversational language. Considering the rising trend and excessive use of voice search, brands should consider incorporating a voice-search interface within their design modules to expand the web’s reach and usage.

For example, brands can add a voice chatbot to their website that would solely cater to users who prefer to use voice search for communication and searches.

This trend is expected to double in 2021, considering the current situation and voice search usage across the web.

Realistic Textures

“An attempt to drift away from the flat designs” – (pun intended). That’s not the case. In fact, flat design and minimalism still play a major role in shaping modern UI/UX designs among all the new trends. However, most designers or even brands now feel the need to bring something fresh to the table.

One of the trends that will take the design industry in full swing is adding some real-life images of objects/subjects in discussion with their natural and unrendered look and textures. Thus, many visual artists and graphic designers are now reaching out to perceptible aesthetics that give a more authentic feel to the users. Giving an impression and feel to the users that they can almost touch the design screens/products with their hands – thanks to realistic textures.

This is something worth considering as it creates a feeling of connection between users with brands.

Final Thoughts

Lastly, 2021 is the year of UX design trends, and it would definitely bring new opportunities to look forward to. What are your thoughts? Do you have any predictions as well? Do let us know!