How we work at TeskaLabs

We understand that our lives are finite so we focus on things that truly matters.
We build the company that builds great products.

The nature of our work revolves around the Agile methodology. Agile methodology is a proven lightweight project management framework focused on a flexibility. Agile originates at the software industry but it is widely deployed to other disciplines with a great success.

We are uncovering better ways of developing software

TeskaLabs is the fully Agile company and our values are defined by The Agile manifesto:

• Individuals and Interactions more than processes and tools
• Working Product more than comprehensive documentation
• Customer Collaboration more than contract negotiation
• Responding to Change more than following a plan

While the secondary concerns are important, the primary concerns are more critical to success.

There are now three teams that successfully implement the Agile concept, each with its own approach that best suits the needs of individual members. The Plum Team, which focuses on software engineering interconnected with data science, implements 14 days sprint with review, retrospective and planning at the end. At the same time, it utilizes the daily standup, where each member briefly answer the questions about what they did the working day before, what they are going to do today and what the obstacles are so they may solve it together, even with scheduling a workshop.

The Green Team, on the other hand, dismisses the daily standup entirely, but its members have common review with the customer every week, far exceeding usual customer synchronization. It is focused on software engineering in the mobile world together with cyber security.

The Blue Team is a sales team with weekly sprints, without daily standups.

We are socially responsible company

Our role in a society is to be innovators and architects of new ways. We believe that it is an important role in a developed economy.

We contribute back to a society by helping other innovators with their ideas and execution. Ales, the founder of TeskaLabs, is a mentor of StartupYard and Techstars London. He also continuously provides mentoring and motivations to startups from Czech Republic and United Kingdom. His vision is to build an ecosystem of early stage innovative companies because of the synergic effect.

TeskaLabs is committed to contribute 1% of the profit as a donation for animal shelters etc. It is because the founder team believes in importance of improvements in terms of a quality of animal life in a modern world.

What tools we use

• JIRA – Trouble Ticketing and Service Desk, Agile/Scrum, project management, product management, architecture
• Slack – Instant messaging, alarming, process automations via bots, tactical coordination
• Microsoft Office365 – office productivity software (Word, Excel, Powerpoint), emails, calendars
• Skype & Webex – tools for instant messaging and teleconferencing among distributed teams and customers
• Standuply – Bot for Agile digital daily scrum standups
• Trello – Product management, Product roadmap, Digital boards
• ElasticSearch & Kibana – KPI measurements, benchmarking, business intelligence
• Docker – Fast and professional software delivery
• InfluxDB, Telegraf & Grafana – operation and security monitoring, alarming and IT operation intelligence
• QuickBooks – accounting software
• PipeDrive – CRM, sales pipeline
• Buffer & Plannable – Content Marketing
• Grammarly – Grammar checker
• Fiverr – Gig sourcing
• OpenVPN – Remote access to internal IT infrastructure
• Microsoft Azure – Cloud provider
• git & GitHub – Version control system for software source code and digital content (web, blog), open-source publishing
• 16personalities.com – team psychology (see MBTI)

How do we build a great software product

A lifecycle of the product starts in R&D or Research and Development.

The initial research phase is very opportunistic and hectic. We embrace the flow, the creativity, the craftsmanship and the intelligence. The result of the research phase is a Minimum Viable Product (MVP).

“I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else.”
― Pablo Picasso

Once a MVP matures into a commercial product, it transits into a development phase. The development is Agile oriented, with Sprints, Product Backlog and so one. We prefer 2-weeks Sprints but occasionally we also do the micro-sprints. The micro-sprint is a few hours long iteration which is inserted in between regular sprints. We use it to compensate TeskaLabs distributed nature, it means that we travel a lot and it is quite rare for us to meet in a same room. Some problems however need a cooperative approach. So we crack them during micro-sprints.

The golden rule is to always validate. Validation (or testing) is what makes a difference between good and great professional. Be clever in ways how you prove to yourself and to the team that your delivery works. It is a personal responsibility of each team member.

How do we run a great software product?

Our operations are extensive, especially from a perspective of relatively small teams, we are now. It means that we have to be smart and cut the bullshit.

The main focus is on communication among not only individual team members, but the company as a whole. Everyone is also in constant communication with the customer, because we want to be always sure we are modelling the customers needs as precisely as possible.

Hack On

That’s about it. Thanks for reading. Now is the time to make our digital world faster, safer and better.

Ales Teska

About the Author

Ales Teska

TeskaLabs’ founder and CEO, Ales Teska, is a driven innovator who proactively builds things and comes up with solutions to solve practical IT problems.