Gladiators

It was a real pleasure to host Alejandro during his US visit last week.  He was here to do some great work with The Gladiators Team.  This group of world-class developers are doing some amazing things with jPOS.  Alejandro gives a very nice summary of the meeting and his impressions.  I'd like to add some thoughts here about what I learned and some resulting thoughts on the management of payment systems projects.

1. Strategy Matters.  The guy who heads up this group is, without a doubt, the foremost strategic thinker in today's retail payment systems world.  This guy's office alone is an amazing experience: knowledge literally seeps off the walls.  It's awash in  diagrams, process flows, architecture concepts and - most notably - assessment grids listing every conceivable strategic choice (vendor products, open source frameworks, buy vs. build, etc.), associated pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses.  It really says a lot that after this extraordinarily thorough review (and a significant amount of 'test driving'), the chosen strategic direction is anchored around jPOS and q2.
2. Architecture Matters.   Alejandro makes specific reference to the team's lead architect.  I'll second the opinion here:  He's a very sharp individual with a deep well of payment experience to draw upon.  He and the team have done the "begin with the end in mind" thing very well: they envisioned and constructed a system architecture capable of comfortably meeting some very sizable processing objectives.  At the end of our week together, the team mentioned they had performed a test in which they had run their q2 implementation at 900 TPS for 12 hours, with no degradation or stress.
3. Development Style Matters.  The Gladiators sit together in a war room-like setting - the project manager, core developers, QA, and business analysts together in the same space.  The resulting productivity and teamwork is off-the-charts.  It was really amazing to watch:  we'd discuss a concept; the project manager would ask the perfect questions, engage the right people, come to a quick decision; then, they'd make a decision to implement and we'd watch the core developers team up to code, cross-check and test each other's work.  Some times, we'd be talking about really significant additions or shifts in direction.  The turnaround time from concept to implementation was eye-popping.  Okay, it helps that the core team members are superb individual developers.  But the  development style here is really worth emulating.  As a manager, you ought to consider it.
4. Our Time Matters.  As advisers to the project, Alejandro and I are very appreciative of the team's respect for our time.  Meetings and conference calls start right on time.  All discussions are right on point.  Feedback is immediate and relevant.

I believe that the work the Gladiators team is doing validates jPOS as a 'top of mind' option for any class of retailer.