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Delivering a smooth transition of technology partners
A smooth transition to a new technology partner for ListSure
Australian insurance and finance provider, ListSure, approached Equal Experts to help it modernise and accelerate its technology platform. This involved a transition away from its existing supplier without disrupting the business, all while working ‘remote-first.’
Using team members in different locations – including ListSure’s teams in Australia and Equal Experts developers in India – the team delivered a seamless transition, with zero downtime.
The knowledge transfer process, making use of video conferencing, took less than a month. The technology production release cycle went from six+ months to just two weeks, and Equal Experts was able to deliver four new features to ListSure’s platform within the first three months.
“A remote-first engagement helped us move at pace and deliver in a timely and cost-effective manner” – Brad Melman, CEO, ListSure
Outcomes
1 month
to transfer knowledge to ListSure
2 weeks
improving pre-production release cadence from 6 months to 2 weeks
About ListSure
Australian fintech innovator ListSure helps homeowners and real-estate agents reduce the financial barriers when selling a home, by providing a unique insurance and finance offering that covers the marketing costs associated with a sale.
Industry
Finance and insurance
Location
Australia
Length of project
One month
Challenge
Removing financial barriers for sellers
ListSure is a small organisation with a national footprint and limited office space. As such, it chooses to work in a ‘remote-first’ way.
The Australian business approached Equal Experts to become its primary technology partner, to help modernise and accelerate its technology platform, and to achieve business goals of removing the financial barriers for sellers.
Equal Experts had to take over from an existing supplier without losing continuity in service, while using team members in different locations, including ListSure’s team in Sydney, a technical/delivery team in Melbourne, and developers in Bangalore, India.
Solution
Ensuring consistency and continuity with zero disruption for customers
The first part of the process was to do all of the introductions. These were conducted using video conference calls.
All team members were made aware of the broader business context and environment, and not just the technical aspects. ListSure’s CEO, Brad Melman, walked through all aspects of the business, allowing ample Q&A time for the team.
The next part of the process was to get a technical transfer of knowledge from the incumbent consultancy. This happened during several remote whiteboard sessions, with focused conversations.
Meanwhile, time was invested in pairing a developer at the incumbent consultancy with the Equal Experts developers in Bangalore using screen-sharing tools and Zoom. This was to ensure everyone had the appropriate understanding to start developing and delivering software for ListSure. At the same time, the Melbourne-based lead was frequently in touch with the ListSure team members through video conferencing to understand the company’s business model and strategic direction. This ensured that the architectural and business directions were aligned.
The day of the transition saw team members across the globe migrate systems, configurations, and user accounts and test the end-to-end deployment to production. All of this happened with no impact to the ListSure business or its customers.
Results
Remotely reducing release cycles from months, to weeks, to days
ListSure was moving from traditional, sizeable six months or more release cycles to iterative two-week releases – and Equal Experts had a short-term goal of being able to release technology on a daily basis.
This was possible because they adopted a You Build It You Run It approach throughout. The appropriate meetings were established right from the start, with co-ordinated time zones, and team members chose the necessary cloud-based tools. Daily video stand-ups while using a shared Jira board were also helpful.
Working remotely from the start meant that it was commonplace to video call (even before the pandemic). The video calls allowed for sharing screens so that a particular issue could be shown and described visually, not just in words via phone calls or emails.
This only-very-slightly different way of working, became the norm and worked effectively.
Equal Experts has the ability to digitally connect cross-functional teams in a way that encourages divergent thinking to solve complex problems while maintaining a real humanity that imbues everything they do. Fundamentally, it’s not business to business – it’s human to human, regardless of where they are located.
CEO
, Listsure