As we approach the end of another year, I once again find myself pondering all that has transpired over the last 12 months with a sense of both pride for all we accomplished and anticipation for what's yet to be done. I think when we look back on 2023 a few years down the road, we'll see that it was an important turning point for Far Reach because it was a year in which we prioritized the future over the present to set a solid foundation for the company’s longevity.
We came into the year with two primary themes we felt would best position us for future success: transparency and business continuity.
Transparency has always been important to us (#Open&Honest #FRCV3), but we realized that to take our purpose—empowering others to make a positive difference—to the next level, we would have to be even more intentional about our transparency with all our stakeholders. From our team members to our project teams to our clients, our goal is to make sure the information and context needed for them to make informed decisions is readily available when, where, and how they need it. While it may sound straightforward, make no mistake, it's a big effort!
Business continuity to us this year meant more than just ensuring our business would carry on in the face of disruption or disaster. Our focus has been on increasing our flexibility and effectiveness by ensuring our team is structured in a way that minimizes bottlenecks and maximizes coverage. It's about how we plan work, how we prepare for and do work, and how we grow ourselves and our services so we can maximize the value we bring to clients for many years to come.
Some of the things we accomplished this year include:
- Continuing to migrate client systems to the cloud.
- Migrating our projects to a new, more industry-standard project management platform (Jira) that will better support our agile processes and our transparency efforts now and in the future.
- Implementing a support ticketing system (Zendesk) to increase transparency and streamline the reporting of and communication about support issues.
- Creating a new role—Project Portfolio Manager—to manage the scheduling of projects and ensure the right team members are assigned to the right projects, reducing friction and maximizing project coverage.
- Officially bringing back the role of Scrum Master. After sharing Scrum Master duties among several team members for the last couple of years, we decided to combine this role with the Project Portfolio Manager position to streamline those responsibilities and ensure those very important duties are being given the focus they deserve. Again, the goal here is to give the team the information and support they need and to help them work as effectively as they can.
- Dedicating someone to serve as a full-time QA (Quality Assurance) Engineer. This role was primarily being shared by a part-time QA Analyst and our Product Owners. To ensure greater efficiency and coverage, going forward, quality assurance will have a dedicated leader who is responsible for ensuring the quality of software we deliver across projects.
- Dedicating someone to serve as a full-time support engineer. This will further streamline our support efforts and free up other developers to focus on building new systems and features. We expect this to be a win-win for our clients and our team.
- Investing in more proactive business development so we can grow the impact of living our purpose, making a positive difference for new clients in addition to those we continue to serve.
- And other internal initiatives intended to increase transparency to help team members learn and grow in ways that will help Far Reach better serve its clients and ensure team members find fulfillment in their work.
Some of these initiatives are just getting off the ground and we're excited to see the positive difference these and other efforts make for our team and our clients in 2024. Stay tuned for more exciting news to come on this front!
Wishing you and yours a wonderful holiday season and a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2024!
Kate