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Operating Model

Team Structure

The Technical Solutions team is unique in the sense that it federates a very wide range of skills and expertise (inherent complexity of building software). Due to our team’s size, some domains of expertise are led by a single person, resulting in one-person teams. We see this as a temporary situation but find it necessary to formalize these teams as the services they provide are essential to our collective success.

The Technical Solutions team is composed of 2 types of teams:

  • Mission Teams - They execute the core operational goals of Akvo, i.e. build software for impact.

  • Support Teams - They provide centralized domain expertise that is required for the Mission teams to achieve their goals.

  • Hybrid Teams - They execute the mission and provides support capacity to the organization

Each team is described in a table with the following attributes:

  • Mandate - A summary of what the team does at/for Akvo

  • Offers - The services that the team offers

  • Needs - The information, tools and services needed for that team to deliver its function

  • KPIs - The KPIs that will be used to measure the performance and success of the team. In some instances, we’ve also described a number of metrics that reflect the volume of work.

  • Lead - The person accountable for the team

  • Coordination - The frequency with which the coordination meeting is held.

  • Task Tracking - The place where work is tracked and coordinated (Asana).

Mission Teams

TC Team

Tech Consultancy Team

Mandate

  • Support the BD team in developing and closing deals

  • Deliver high quality and on budget custom software solutions

Offers

BD

  • Explore partnership collaboration

  • ToR evaluation (Go, No Go)

  • Technical proposal writing (Budgets, Timelines)

  • Tech PoC for concepts provided by sector leads


Delivery

  • Custom software solutions

  • Software handover activities

  • Maintenance and support

Needs

Information

  • BD - ToR, context

  • Delivery - ToR, context, user requirements


Tools

  • Capacity Planner

  • PMT

  • Task Manager

  • Code hosting: Github

  • CI/CD Pipeline: Semaphore, CircleCI

  • Unit testing: coveralls


Services

  • Hosting

  • Design

  • Testing

  • User support

KPIs

Execution Efficiency

  • Definition: Ability to execute the scope within the allocated budget

  • Source: PMT

  • Target: 100%


Team Utilization

  • Definition: Ratio between allocated work days and available days to work

  • Source: Capacity Planner

  • Target: 90%


Team Billability

  • Definition: Ratio between allocated work days on client projects and available days to work

  • Source: Capacity Planner

  • Target: 75%


Unit Test Coverage

  • Definition: % of the code covered by unit tests

  • Source: Coveralls

  • Target: 80%


Integration Test Coverage

  • Definition: 

  • Source: Integration testing software

  • Target: 


User reported bugs

  • Definition: number of bugs reported by users after the software went into productions (by severity)

  • Source: Freshdesk

  • Target: less than 5% critical bugs

Lead

Joy Ghosh

Coordination

  • Project issue board on GH

  • 3 times a week tasks status / adhoc as required

  • Bi-weekly team status check

Task Tracking

Each project has its own Asana Team or Project

Product Teams

Product Teams

Mandate
  • Build, maintain and provide user support of current Akvo products (FLOW, RSR).
  • Develop new products based on market needs.

Offers

  • Product development

  • Product management

Needs

Information

  • Market data

  • User feedback


Tools

  • Capacity Planner

  • PMT

  • Task Manager

  • Code hosting: Github

  • CI/CD Pipeline: Semaphore, CircleCI

  • Unit testing: coveralls


Services

  • Hosting

  • Design

  • Testing

  • User support

KPIs

Bug Reports

  • Definition: number of bugs reported by clients

  • Source: Freshdesk

  • Target: less than 5% critical bugs


User Engagement

  • Definition: This metric measures how often users are using the product and how engaged they are with it.

  • Source: TDB

  • Target: TBD


Revenue

  • Definition: This metric tracks the amount of money generated by the product

  • Source: Contracts

  • Target:


Customer Satisfaction

  • Definition: This metric measures how satisfied users are with the product.

  • Source: Satisfaction questionnaires

  • Target: 4/5 in average

Lead

Guillaume Deflaux

Coordination

Every 2 weeks - Guillaume Deflaux Zuhdil Kurnia

Task Tracking

RSR Project in Asana

FLOW Project in Asana

Support Teams

DevOps Team

DevOps Team

Mandate

  • Secure internal and external systems

  • Provide best-in-class infrastructure for the services Akvo offers

Offers

Security for internal and external systems (Company-wide)

  • Implement security best practices for our internal tools (email, password management, etc…) and server deployments.


Infrastructure (TC Platforms / Products)

  • Design

  • Deployment

  • Support & Monitoring

  • Costing


Knowledge Management & Company Culture

  • Updated technical documentation (wiki) covering the above topics (SOPs, best practices, …)

  • Provide DevOps & Security trainings internally

  • Promote a DevOps & Security culture

  • Domain technical watch (best practices, tools, …)

Needs

Information

  • Product/project software architecture plan (before development started)

  • Product/project software architecture documentation

  • Product/project system requirements and quickstart documentation

  • Infrastructure budget allocation plan from product, project or BD team


Tools

  • Hosting provider (Google Cloud, Contabo, Siteground)

  • Code Version Control (Github)

  • CI/CD Tools (SemaphoreCI, CircleCI, Github Action)

  • Documentation tools

  • Infrastructure orchestration and configuration management tools (Terraform, Ansible)

  • Secret management tools (Hashicorp Vault, Vaultwarden)

  • Maling tools (Mailjet)

  • Workflow automation (N8N)


Services

  • Testing

KPIs

Average Service Availability

  • Definition: The client facing service are available

  • Target: 99.9% over a quarter

  • Source: Uptime checks


Change Success Rate

  • Definition: Changes made by the DevOps team do not result in any downtime or other issues.

  • Target: 90% over a quarter

  • Source: uptime checks, CI/CD

  • Note: downtime caused by deployments are not taken into account


Cost

  • Definition: Amount that we spend on cloud services (mostly GCP)

  • Target: Yearly targets based usage of services (COGS, cost per project…). Still TBD


Team Satisfaction

  • Definition: The DevOps team should aim for a high level of satisfaction among internal teams who rely on DevOps support.

  • Target: Score at least 8 out of 10 on average

  • Source: Quarterly survey

Lead

Anjar Fiandriato

Coordination

Every 2 weeks - Guillaume Deflaux Anjar Fiandriato

Task Tracking

DevOps Project in Asana

Design Team

Design Team

Mandate

  • Support TC and product teams in delivering designed-for-purpose applications

Offers

Requirements Gathering

  • Conduct user research

  • Collaborate with product managers, developers, and subject matter experts to define and prioritise user stories and product requirements


Wireframing & UI Design

  • Create wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity mockups that effectively communicate design concepts and interactions

  • Create and maintain design style guides and design systems that support consistent and efficient design

  • Provide corresponding HTML/CSS templates


User Feedback

  • Continuously iterate on designs based on user feedback, stakeholder input, and usability testing


Knowledge Management & Company Culture

  • Updated technical documentation (wiki) covering the above topics (best practices, tools, …)

  • Domain technical watch (best practices, tools, design trends, …)

Needs

  • User Research Tools

  • Design and Prototyping Tools 

  • Collaboration Tools

  • Design Systems and Style Guides

  • Feedback and Iteration Tools

  • Training and Professional Development

KPIs

 Process Indicators

Projects use Design Process Checklist

  • Target: 80%
  • Source: Design Process Checklists

Output Indicators

% Completion of Design Process Checklist

  • Target: 100%
  • Source: Design Process Checklists

% Successful Task Completion (prototypes)

  • Target: 80%
  • Source: Maze

User Perceived Experience (prototypes)

  • Target: 4/5
  • Source: Maze

Lead

Ouma Odhiambo

Coordination

Every 2 weeks - Guillaume Deflaux Ouma Odhiambo

Task Tracking

Design Project in Asana

User Support & Quality Team

User Support & Quality Team

Mandate

  • Be the first point of contact of our end-users and help them make the most of our platforms and products.

  • Support the TC and products teams in delivering well tested software applications.

Offers

All the services are provided to Products and TC Platforms alike.


L1 Support

  • First point of contact with users

  • Triage issues and escalate if necessary

  • Resolve issues that are related to the usage of the software (anything that is not a bug or a server issue)


User Trainings

  • Create training curriculums

  • Deliver trainings to end-users (remote/onsite)


Functional Testing

  • Write test plans

  • Execute test plans (automated or not)

  • Document issues and create test reports


User Documentation

  • Create and update user documentation inline with software release cycles.


Knowledge Management & Company Culture

  • Updated technical documentation (wiki) covering the above topics (best practices, tools, …)

  • Domain technical watch (best practices, tools, …)

Needs

Information

  • Platform/Product onboarding from the development teams

  • Functional requirements documents

  • User stories and personas

  • Release schedules

  • Test data

  • Test environment


Tools

  • Helpdesk (Freshdesk)

  • Documentation/Wiki (Freshdesk, Bookstack)

  • Automated Testing (Selenium, Appium)

  • Test Management (TestRail, TestLodge, Zephyr, Zebrunner)

  • Bug Tracking(Github, Asana)

  • Load Testing (Gatling, Locust, LoadRunner)

  • User Feedback (Piwik, HotJar, ProductBoard)

KPIs

L1 Support

  • KPI

    • Definition: Number and % of tickets that breached the SLAs

    • Source: Freshdesk

    • Target: 0(%)

    • Definition: Level of satisfaction of users after the handling of their tickets

    • Source: Freshdesk

    • Target: 4/5 or higher

    • SLA breaches

    • Average User satisfaction Level

  • Work Volume

    • Number of tickets received (Freshdesk)

    • Number / % of escalated tickets (L2+) (Freshdesk)

    • Average first response time (Freshdesk)

    • Average resolution time (Freshdesk)


User Trainings

  • KPI

    • Definition: Declared level of satisfaction of trainees after a training on one of our platforms or products

    • Source: Post training questionnaire

    • Target: 4/5 or higher

    • Average trainee satisfaction Level

  • Work Volume

    • Number of trainings delivered

    • Number of created training curriculums

    • Number of updated training curriculums


Functional Testing

  • KPI

    • TBD

  • Work Volume

    • Number of test plans written

    • Number of test plans executed

    • Number of test reports written


User Documentation

  • KPI

    • Definition: The % of documentation sites that have content that cover 100% of the user facing features of platforms and products

    • Source: Documentation sites + platform / product release notes

    • Target: 100%

    • Definition: Level of helpfulness of documentation pages

    • Source: MkDocs

    • Target: 4/5 or higher

    • % of up-to-date documentation sites

    • User Satisfaction Level

  • Work Volume

    • Number of updated articles (MkDocs)

    • Number of visits to the help sites (Piwik)


Knowledge Management & Company Culture

  • KPI

    • Definition: % of TC Platforms/Products using the documentation site and testing tools.

    • Source: Documentation sites + testing tools

    • Target: 100%

    • Adoption

  • Work Volume

    • Number of significant updates to the wiki (Wiki)

Lead

Jonah Kisioh

Coordination

Every 2 weeks - Guillaume Deflaux Jonah Kisioh

Task Tracking

Support & Quality Project in Asana

Hybrid Teams

Technical Solutions Management

Technical Solutions Management

Mandate

  • Align objectives of the Tech Solutions Team with the objectives of the rest of the company

  • Improve the efficiency of the entire Tech Solutions Team

Offers

Strategic and technical orientations to sub teams, including tie-breaking based on suggestions. Internal initiatives to focus on:

  • Resourcing

  • Team / HR

  • Tech Stack

  • Methodology

  • Tooling

  • Quality Standards

  • OKRs

Needs

Information

  • Company strategy and objectives

  • Feedback from sub teams

KPIs

Objective alignment

  • Definition: The fact that the Technical Solutions sub team objectives are aligned with larger company objectives.

Team Efficiency

  • Definition: The fact that the Technical Solutions sub team objectives create efficiencies that affect the entire team.

Lead

Guillaume Deflaux

Coordination

Monthly - Guillaume Deflaux Joy Ghosh Deden Bangkit

Task Tracking

Internal Project in Asana

Coordination Mechanisms

Team coordination plays a big part in creating the right environment for our team to deliver great work and to create a positive dynamic. The team coordination approach described below aims to foster team building while boosting our collective efficiency, i.e. provide enough context for everyone to properly execute their work while doing so in a friendly, respectful and engaging manner.

This approach is purposely built for our current team. We should expect it to change should our team size and structure evolve.

1-to-1s Guillaume / Team Leads

In most instances these meetings are used both for people management and team coordination purposes.

Frequency

Every week

Duration

30 min

Purpose

  • Ensure that there is a space to discuss your life at Akvo.

  • Coordinate the definition and the execution of team roadmaps

  • Ensure coherence of team specific initiatives within the larger Tech Solutions Team

Structure

Manager-Direct 1-to-1

  • Workplate & Projects

  • Growth

  • Performance


Team Specific Discussion

  • Services

  • Initiatives

  • Roadmap

  • Performance

Tech Solutions All Hands

Frequency

Every 2 weeks

Duration

1h

Purpose

  • Make sure that we can have a bit of “face time” all together in order to break the silos created by our day-to-day

  • Create a space for direct communications with the entire team (email remains the official channel for team wide announcements)

  • Create an experience sharing space to foster ideation and innovation within the Tech Team

Structure

Think Tank Thursdays (30 min)

  • A rotating presentation by someone from the team.

  • Any topic that is (vaguely) related to our work

  • Any format allowed as long as there’s at least 10 min for questions. The more interactive the better.


All Hands (30 min)

  • Team wide announcements

  • Project / Product updates

  • Team Specific Updates

  • Updates from MC
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