Technology & process optimization consulting for an ecommerce agency

Architecture consulting

Codebase improvement consulting

Having reviewed system documentation, monitored code execution flow, and identified potential dependencies, our team concluded that the system’s legacy code limited business growth and flexibility, increased maintenance costs and risk of errors, and lowered employee productivity. To modernize the outdated code, we advised on refactoring some parts of it and rewriting selected modules to ensure smooth system operation and ease of maintenance. We also recommended the following best practices:

• Gradually write new code for each system component
• Refactor the code to improve its readability, maintainability, and performance
• Write unit tests for critical functionality to verify that changes don’t introduce new bugs or regressions, ensure that the code behaves as expected, and reduce the risk of unexpected failures
• Make incremental changes to the codebase instead of attempting to overhaul it to prevent accidental issues and make the process more manageable
• Document changes to streamline future development efforts and make it easier for other developers to understand the codebase

Tech stack optimization consulting

QA consulting

Our team suggested that the customer should use the Split-Testing approach of sales funnels on apps with different content and written using different technologies, such as Angular (SPA), WordPress, and pure HTML. Test results could be then used to build marketing strategies. Our QA specialists proposed conducting performance and functionality testing as well as covering all new code with unit tests, suggesting the following toolset:

• Jest for unit tests, selected for simplicity and ease of use, fast execution, built-in mocking and test doubles, and snapshot testing
• BrowserStack for cross-browser testing, testing on various devices and OS versions, chosen due to its extensive device and browser library, and AI-powered testing capabilities
• Postman used for REST API testing, selected for its capabilities for intuitive API development, efficient API debugging and testing, and team collaboration

Process optimization

To improve productivity and team satisfaction, the customer needed to simplify their project workflows, clearly define project roles, and establish effective team management.

We suggested Kanban since the customer’s priorities would often change and they almost had no strict deadlines for new tasks. Within the framework, the product vision would be formed by the key stakeholders on the customer’s side and the technical director of marketing together with other business departments. They would also determine the project roadmap and basic high-level requirements and create and prioritize new feature development tickets for in-house and third-party developers. In the meantime, the customer’s developer team creates a pool of tickets, prioritizes tasks, and implements them. Developers are encouraged to hold refinement sessions with the customer, demo new functionality upon completion, and have quarterly internal retrospectives. PMs and technical leads should also carry out project health checks on an ongoing basis.

To ensure transparent and fluent collaboration, we suggested creating a knowledge base and developed a framework that includes a concept library and communication flow to avoid misunderstandings. The knowledge base contains guidelines for standardizing ticket creation and resolution, step-by-step instructions on various aspects of project management, team descriptions, team member roles and responsibilities charts, etc. To make sure all team members are on the same page, our BAs also wrote a common concept library to describe new ideas and synchronize internal communication. The process map serves as a single point of truth, updated when teams, tasks, and project flows change. Additionally, the knowledge base is used for newcomer onboarding.

Optimizing the development of new feature ideas

We analyzed the process of generating new backend and frontend feature improvement ideas and discovered it suffered from two main issues.

The first one was the uneven load on the client development team that complicated planning. Developers were overloaded during peak sales periods and holidays, while slower periods left them idle.

Another issue was unclear feature specifications leading to undefined project goals and complicated task allocation. Also, too many innovative ideas for new feature development from various stakeholders increased the need to carefully prioritize features approved for development.

We advised the customer on a more efficient new feature development approach based on the best practices such as WSJF prioritization, a strict protocol for project requirements and clear specifications gathering, refining and iterating features post-development, and subsequent monitoring, maintenance, and support. Our team also suggested using strategies such as modular design, clear documentation, standardized coding practices, automated testing, version control, and feedback loops to develop easily maintainable new features.