SDT User Group Forum – 30 June 2010

SDT will be launching our first SDT User Group on 30 June 2010.

The User Group provides a forum for users of SDT products and services, to exchange information, experiences, best practices and concepts related to the use of SDT products and services, and provide a channel to communicate their feedback to SDT Management.

What do we do in the SDT User Group?

The types of topics that may be discussed within the SDT User Group setting include:

• Sharing of best practices in the use and deployment of SDT products in their organizations

• Supplying innovative approaches to SDT product use

• Product elements such as usability, security, documentation and functionality

• Product enhancements

• Collaboratively engage between the SDT user community and SDT in determining elements for future enhancements and prioritization of such development areasThe primary objective of the SDT User Group is to provide an opportunity for the exchange of ideas and suggest functional enhancements as a collective group to SDT for inclusion into the solutions’ roadmap.

For more information on the SDT User Group, contact: GSFeedback@sdt.co.za.

We have kicked off!

It takes more than kicking a few balls around to realize the meaning of delivering real working solutions. As from 2010, SDT’s kick-off will always be marked by ensuring the immediate delivery of a fully working solution which can be used to form a firm basis for building out client specific solutions, customized to suit unique requirements. We have already utilized this approach, very successfully, in our most recent implementations, proving to result in huge cost savings, quality improvement, shorter delivery cycles and effective change acceptance for our clients.

For the remainder of this year, we will focus on further optimizing and improving our processes of delivering these advantages into our client base, in order to increase the value of solutions, backed by our exceptional human talent and quality software.

We wish all our clients, partners and employees an exhilarating time during the FIFA World Cup, but most importantly sustained opportunity and growth beyond!

How will social networks change life insurance in future?

We are all fascinated by the way social networks have broadened our network and our ability to communicate.

How do you think will social networks change life insurance in the future, especially related to products and technology?

Innovation, a way of life!

Sustainable growth and success can and will not arise from cost reduction and better marketing efforts alone. Innovative thoughts regarding products, processes and services are called for and will be the key to increasing the bottom line.

At SDT, we believe that by establishing a culture of innovation as a way of life, we will ensure sustainable growth and success to both SDT and our clients. Each of us can make a positive difference and be innovative by being curious, courageous and connected!

What does being curious, courageous and connected mean to you and how do you think will it impact on innovation ?

Agile Learnings in Life Insurance

SDT implemented the Agile method of development and from a management perspective we realised the following benefits:

• Quicker time to market with new systems functionality
• Visibility into the software development investment we make, the Waterfall method was perceived as a big black box; we could only see results whether positive or negative after six months
• Clear illustration of the business value of each of the changes we make
• Effective knowledge transfer between developers as they challenge each other
• Improved team work
• Recognition at a personal level for developers through the visibility of what was delivered and the value that gets exposed to the rest of the organisation. People wants to show what they have done!
• Benefits of new functionality are clearly demonstrated to our clients
• Improved quality - work gets broken down into smaller chunks and a deliverable after 2 weeks must always be something that can work
• Opened up the possibility to release code changes on a more frequent basis to clients
• Major improvement in culture towards being more client focussed.
• Improved turnaround time to fix issues

Please share with me your experience on agile development

Hello world!

Welcome to my blog! I hope we can share some interesting conversations. I am CEO of SDT, an IT company that provides Life Insurance Administration Solutions and would like to hear your views.

See more information on SDT Financial Software Solutions at www.sdt.co.za