It was a sharp learning curve deciding that I was going to build my own software for somebody that wasn’t very good at programming the sky remote. As well as the motivation to solve the problem my training business was having with Scale and Quality,
the factors that helped me take the step were:

• Encouragement from my expertise in the sector
• Technical help from the Waterford Institute of Technology TSSG who are award winning software developers of Feed Henry.
• Financial support for design in the form of an innovation voucher from Enterprise Ireland

I mapped out what I was looking for by listing all the processes that needed addressing with TSSG. Then, their advice was that  it was simply a matter of putting my money where my mouth was by recruiting and paying a programmer. My first meeting with a programmer came via the programming outsourcing elance site.
My choice was an Irish programmer with similar project work. We had maybe 2 online meetings after which we met at the beginning and the end of the timeline, two virtual meetings in between and hey presto there was a system that worked.
Definitely at the beginning there was a little bit of glitchiness. We used it, we tried it and we weren’t sure that everything was the way it should be. My programmer was helpful and after a little bit of ironing out we were quite happy to start using it. Roll on three months later with a dozen programmes in the system, half a dozen tutors and administrators using it. It was saving us time and money and ensuring happier learners with timely communications and evaluations.
So now on my Linked In Profile I could add “software development project management” to my skillset, but the best was yet to come. Sales!
A surprise and a spur for a new business venture… for the next post I think.