This is the first post of a series about the values we live by at SISU.
SISU is not a software factory
We don’t “manufacture” digital products as if working on an assembly line. Each client and project is unique, with different goals and challenges.
As a team, our goal is to generate value and impact with the products we develop and each project is an opportunity to achieve this. To us, doing great work in a project means much more than just getting things done—it means seeing our clients achieve their vision.
To help our clients succeed, there is more to do than just code. We need to understand their goals and the motivations behind them. Instead of just asking, “What do you need to develop?,” we want to know, “What problem are we solving?”
If we want to make products that are worth doing, we need to understand why we are creating them and that’s why we value asking “Why?” so much.
“People do their best work and inspire others when they know why they’re doing what they’re doing.”
Simon Sinek, Start with Why
Ask Why?
Asking “Why?” is the key to generating long-lasting value. It gives us a broader vision and enables us to work towards the project’s ultimate goals.
Asking “Why?” leads us to design and create better products and have impactful results.
Asking “Why?” helps us get to the bottom of things. It enables us to get to the root of the problem beyond temporary, quick fixes.
Asking “Why?” compels us to find better ways of working; questioning ourselves leads to improvement. On several occasions, clients came to us with projects that had previously failed, despite investing significant resources on their development efforts.
After seeing this pattern, we asked ourselves “Why?” and realized that those projects lacked an understanding of the problem to be solved, as well as a clear vision of the outcomes they intended to get. The traditional software factory approach was not serving these clients and this kickstarted a journey that ended up changing our way of approaching projects and we even developed a new service: The Vision Sprint.
As our experience shows, asking “Why?” is key in generating impact and value, both for ourselves and for our clients.
Continue reading this series on our values: