An Engineering Mindset for the Software Lifecycle
We help our clients to create applications and IT systems that not only deliver great features to their customers but that also fit within their general IT- and business strategy. For this we look at the complete lifecycle of infrastructure and software (from inception, implementation and delivery to operations and eventually phase-out) and aim for decisions that benefit a broader strategy.
"We at écociel like to help our clients make informed infrastructure and software decisions that not just follow the latest hot trend, but are truly aligned with their overall business strategy."
Jan Algermissen
Founder, écociel AG
Who we are
écociel was founded in 2022 by Jan Algermissen to combine a trusted core technical team with his experience as a software developer and architect at the center of large Digital Transformation initiatives. Inspired by the work on principled design by Perry & Wolf, Garlan & Shaw and later Roy Fielding he has shaped approaches to help the problems that arise when IT systems are created or changed by hundreds of development teams.
In addition of the core team, écociel is working with a select number of trusted freelancers to complement our service offering to the business and hardware level.
What drives us
We are infrastructure- and software engineers. We aim to look carefully at the core principles that are at the heart of any given requirement. We believe that it is important to consider all phases of the lifecycle of any system. In short: we like to deliver solutions that fit and stand out over time.
We understand the financial, organisational, and political forces that can act on IT systems, especially in the context of change and in an environment of a multitude of consultants, providers, and external partners. What drives us in such environments is to help our clients stay ‘in the driver seat’ by laying out well defined strategic convictions that can be effectively communicated to all parties involved.
Strategy
We believe organisations that engage in Digital Transformation should formulate a precise strategy that acts as a guiding path through the overall change process. When you own the strategy you can effectively compare actual with planned progress and correct course. You will be able to score, steer, and evaluate any third party suppliers using your strategy - in our experience it happens too often that organisations instead find themselves integrating somehow the many strategies of their many suppliers.
We have turned what we learned in over a decade at the IT center of Transformations into a framework that enables our clients to clearly express Transformation IT strategies and reach shared understanding of business and IT.
Engineering
IT systems are increasingly being created by development teams with a wide variety of skills and preferences and often under significant pressure to deliver results quickly. In addition, infrastructure has become very flexible and databases and other supporting products are readily available. In our experience, this too often leads to ad-hoc (“pragmatic”) decision making without consideration for the long term effects.
We like to approach the construction of IT systems with an engineering mindset: Decisions must be rationalized and the whole IT system lifecycle must be considered - especially, how technology decisions affect cost structure, operations requirements and overall complexity of the IT landscape.
Operations
The primary goal of Digital Transformation efforts is often to reduce significantly the time it takes from a feature idea to making it available to customers. The major reason for the traditionally slow release cycles (often months) is the central organisation of operations and the accountability handover from development to operations team. Several approaches exist to overcome this challenge but they are often not easy to implement given existing organisational structures and available skill set.
We help our clients to define a scenario that is suitable for them and to incrementally perform the rollout into the organisation. If needed, we can also join the teams and temporarily fill the gaps (including 24x7 on-call).