When it comes to software, we do not believe the old saying: “There’s Low-cost, Fast and Good. You can only have two.”

We have a long-standing partnership with Amazon Web Services where we are AWS Certified to build cutting edge infrastructures using the serverless , microservice paradigm.

The paradigm means we’re able to build self-healing , secure and highly reliable , durable , scalable and available at a fraction of the cost that traditional architectures would cost.

And because we are Preferred Partners with AWS via the APN program, our costs are even lower.

Furthermore, we leverage a custom version of the Agile Scrum integrated with containerized DevOps with continuous delivery that has proven to complete projects with higher satisfaction, fewer bugs and more quickly than waterfall development.

On top of that, the microservice approach has been proven to reduce the number of bugs and defects that make their way into the production environment, thus saving even more cost.

We also leverage open source technologies whenever possible.

With open source, there are no licensing fees, so the cost is inherently lower, but, on top of that, open source helps quality and speed increase because it opens up an entire community of developers and engineers who provide help and support free of charge.

As a bonus, when you use open source, higher good talent is a lot easier and cheaper, too.

In fact, Gunner is built from the ground up on achieving the highest quality while minimizing costs, which is why we offer all our employees the freedom to work remotely without relocating.

This saves us cost on office space as well as salary.

So when you see our proposal and decide it’s too good to be true. It’s not. You just haven’t worked with a company like Gunner Technology before.

We believe entrepreneurs can use technology to make the world a better place.

We believe government can use technology to reduce waste and better serve our fellow citizens.

We believe every business can use technology to cut costs, increase efficiencies and beat out the competition.

We believe it, because we've seen it and helped do it.

We also believe that solutions aren't always obvious and finding a technology partner can be hard.

This is why we invite all our clients and prospects to kick the tires with us.

Don't think your business can benefit from custom software?

Don't think your idea is possible?

Don't think our promises are deliverable?

We get it and that's why we offer new clients a full month of staff augmentation to try us out.

Let us take a look at your operations and tell you where software can give you an edge.

Let us get started building your idea to show you just how possible it is.

One month. No risk. Let us prove it.

Gunner Technology uses Agile Scrum for project management and we have several Agile and Scrum certified project managers.

Over the years, we have refined the process to make it our own and continuously refine and tweak it on a per client and per project basis to best suit the needs of the situation.

However, we generally approach each project, initially, with the same methodology.

Eliminate the Unknowns

Nearly every project starts with unclear requirements and unknowns.

More so than anything, these can derail a project, so our first priority is to get rid of both.

We do this using research sprints [Appendix B].

Each research sprint lasts one week and they are designed to create user stories and educate the technical team on what has to be done.

If we are integrating with a third party, does that third party have an API? How responsive are they to support requests? Is there API documented?

These are all very important questions that need to get answered in order for us to determine how much effort is required for each feature.

Beyond that, if a feature is unclear (User needs to be able to log in), research sprints are used to firm up those requirements and produce several user stories to accomplish.

Sometimes, we’ll have research sprints in the middle of a project if new requirements are added or change significantly.

Find our Velocity

In scrum, Velocity is how many effort points your entire team can knock out in a single sprint or iteration (in our case, usually one week).

Each feature or task is assigned a certain amount of estimated effort points prior to work starting on it (at Gunner, that’s 0, 1, 2, 4, 8 or 16. Bugs get 0 and anything over 16 has to be broken into smaller stories).

We keep an overall average velocity for the company based on team size.

For example, on average, a two-person team at Gunner has a velocity of 50 points.

We estimate how long a project will take based on the summation of all effort points at the beginning of the project.

For example, after creating the user stories, a project may have a total of 5,000 effort points.

Using simple math, we can estimate that will take us 100 iterations (usually weeks) to complete.

However, each project is different so the team of two with an average velocity of 50 might trend higher or lower on a given project.

We seek that average as quickly as possible.

Augment if needed

Specifically because if we determine we are off track, we have to add resources to the technical team to get the project back on schedule.

Using the above example, if the velocity of the team is 40, we know we are going to miss that 100 week estimation, so we need to add resources.

We can also use this score and method to alert the project stakeholder if a new feature they want is going to jeopardize the timeline and/or cost of the project.

Reject Technical Debt

As we said, bugs get 0 points. So if we are sprints are filled with bugs, our velocity is going to suffer significantly and we will have to add significant resources to get the project back on track.

Good Old Scrum

From there, our process is pretty standard.

We generally have three environments set up.

Production for the live site

Staging for the stable test site

QA where the latest features are tested by humans.

Each step of the way includes automated testing upon each deployment, which occurs at the end of each iteration, prior to our planning meeting.

What’s on QA gets deployed to Staging. What’s on Staging gets deployed to Production.

Gunner Technology focuses on results for itself and its clients above all else.

The best way to be successful is to set smart goals and then achieve those goals.

That's what Gunner does for itself and helps clients do the same.

Internally, Gunner runs a meritocracy where promotions, bonuses and pay are tied directly toward goals such as meeting deadlines and achieving a minimum net promoter score.

This focus has propelled Gunner to the top of our industry and attracted clients from across industries.