Interview with Stefania Trabucchi (Abstract Technology)

Thomas: Estefania, great to have you here.

Stefania: Thomas.

Thomas: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, maybe for starters,

Thomas: and about your company, Abstract Technologies?

Thomas: I always get that wrong.

Stefania: It's one technology. Thank you very much, Thomas, for the invitation to be here

Stefania: at the German UDS campus.

Stefania: And yes, so my name is Estefania Trabucchi, and abstract technology is an educational

Stefania: tech agency specialized in supporting clients who choose Open edX as the LMS.

Stefania: And as a software development company, we offer consulting.

Stefania: We specialize in integration to the ecosystem of our client.

Stefania: So an additional, of course, consulting, maintenance, support,

Stefania: content creation. So everything that offers the optimal performance,

Stefania: basically, on the client's needs.

Stefania: My role in the company is I'm a co-founder of the company.

Stefania: I have managed the company from the administration and from the operational side.

Stefania: That happens when you are a founder and you have the responsibility to do that.

Stefania: But I hope and I know I have good colleagues. So my work is basically as a supervisor

Stefania: and in many cases to be a creative part.

Stefania: I'm good in networking, so which helps, let's say, in the community to networks

Stefania: with many other actors in the field of education.

Stefania: And also I have a group of other SEO where we meet once in a year twice in a

Stefania: year and we discuss also some problem very very open because all of us we share

Stefania: open edX not only open edX but let's.

Stefania: And approach. So basically, we say a company always need a good team and a good

Stefania: atmosphere if you want to run it.

Thomas: Definitely, I fully agree with you. So how do you work with your customers,

Thomas: with us, for example, and others?

Thomas: How do you help them to basically formulate what

Thomas: they actually need i mean i remember that when when i was in a in a opposite

Thomas: role as i'm now um that i often had to to deal with customers that told me they

Thomas: want to have this and that and in the end they needed something completely different it's.

Stefania: A very good question thomas and um so how we deal with that Our approach with

Stefania: the customer is we try to be as much as possible collaborative.

Stefania: So collaborative means that we focus to align the client's need with practical solution.

Stefania: You can have a lot of ideas, but you need a solution at the end.

Stefania: So we begin with the design thinking model to ensure a deep understanding of

Stefania: the client's goals, the expectation, the objective that they have.

Stefania: And so after gathering all, let's say, all available requirements.

Stefania: And indeed they can be very different. A migration project is completely different than a new project.

Stefania: So we have to understand all these requirements and then we conduct first a

Stefania: form of internal analyse.

Stefania: So we collect everything and we discuss internally the technical part we understood

Stefania: and we ask back and forth.

Stefania: So this is the first initial part. The second is to come together.

Stefania: To come together in as many workshops we need, we do it.

Stefania: Basically one, two, three workshops can be needed.

Stefania: It depends from the size of the project.

Stefania: And in this workshop we ask

Stefania: really to redefine in a different way

Stefania: the needs okay and we design this different way if this approach together with

Stefania: the client so in this part we define the work packages and we try to make the

Stefania: first idea of the all the deliverables so.

Stefania: In in in the workshop we always ask not to be only the technician with us we also ask the first,

Stefania: workshop is for us important that the CEO is with us so because we know that

Stefania: change management in the in a company or something new that need to create it

Stefania: should be also approved and understood from the top, so to say.

Stefania: So we always try to run through this iteration between speaking with the client,

Stefania: collaboration, fund idea,

Stefania: define work packages and go back to establish model.

Stefania: The last part of collecting all the requirements is to create a good team.

Stefania: Basically, it's important that if we follow all these steps,

Stefania: we are able with the team and what we have created to start the project.

Stefania: Basically, my suggestion for collecting and do the analysis in the project is

Stefania: really to be very, very communicative,

Stefania: very directly, also with the CEO, also with the other team to ask everything

Stefania: in this situation and never do it later.

Stefania: That's how we start project with the client.

Thomas: So maybe as an extension to the previous question, so how do you determine,

Thomas: you mentioned it a little bit already but how do you

Thomas: determine how you can um align those needs uh so that you are working with the

Thomas: i mean you you said you're working with open addicts so it's not um you're not

Thomas: working on a on a green field it's basically there is something there and you have to,

Thomas: deal with what is there and and basically match that with the needs of the of

Thomas: the customer how do you do that.

Stefania: Well, Tomas, we tend to simplify a process.

Stefania: Clients mostly, when they come to us, they have a big idea.

Stefania: And the big idea is complex. They cannot write it down.

Stefania: They don't need to write it down. They have to explain it. So we need always

Stefania: to chunk, let's say, pieces and find always the minimum viable product.

Stefania: So we always intend to capture small and crucial part of the requirement in a small MVP.

Stefania: Because these always allow us to validate the right direction immediately.

Stefania: So this is the agile process that, of course, we have in place.

Stefania: And then when we have this first MVP, we iterate. So then we are able to tell

Stefania: the client, OK, you want to add something you have had in mind.

Stefania: We know we started in the requirement in the workshop.

Stefania: Let's add it there. But the first part should work, because if we start from

Stefania: a difficult idea from the clients, we will never go ahead.

Stefania: Everybody will be frustrated. We do not have nothing in our hands.

Stefania: The clients start to be asking for when we are ready.

Stefania: So and we really try to prepare

Stefania: these uh minimal viable product product

Stefania: it could be the setup of the of the platform and ready to go you can create

Stefania: your content this help the client to understand what is needed next okay so

Stefania: and um during these uh these uh this uh process i would say which is very modular,

Stefania: it allows us and the client a lot of flexibility in thinking about in the right direction.

Stefania: The other important thing is that we know the software, not the client.

Stefania: The client is coming to us. We know the software. So we have idea how to get there.

Stefania: Sometimes we are really surprised which idea we have. But if it works and the

Stefania: client is happy with that, then we support the idea in the next iteration.

Stefania: So iteration and moving around is important.

Stefania: And simplify the work. because simplify in small

Stefania: pieces is the best way how you can convince the client and how the client is

Stefania: able to collaborate and help you as well so it's a team from we have our team

Stefania: the client have a team up we have to be a team otherwise it will never work yeah so.

Thomas: So yeah i think that's a great approach so um also to show or to see these these

Thomas: small steps as they as they proceed and you

Thomas: are not waiting for months and months and months and then you get like this

Thomas: big blob of something and then it's not what you want to have.

Stefania: That's a monolithic way wait until it's ready and then it will show you with

Stefania: a big bang that the product is there no never do this that's correct is a smaller

Stefania: faster and a lot of iteration that's the best way we we work.

Thomas: So my next question already You might be a little bit obsolete in that direction.

Thomas: I guess you're not using the waterfall approach.

Stefania: Oh, no.

Thomas: Not really. But which software engineering processes do you use?

Thomas: Are you working with Scrum? Are you working with Kanban?

Thomas: Other models, other frameworks? What are you using?

Stefania: A lot of experience is always the basis of this.

Stefania: But of course, methodology helps. methodology and tools help us to support this

Stefania: project so we in abstract we choose the agile methodology as I mentioned before chunks,

Stefania: small pieces, simplify everything and we combine these with Kanban,

Stefania: Kanban is for us the natural fit for our software process engineering because

Stefania: it prompts, let's say, flexibility,

Stefania: continuous improvement and clear visibility on what we are doing.

Stefania: Agile's interactive approach allows us to break down complex projects into management

Stefania: chunks, as I said before, and delivering them incrementally.

Stefania: Kanban boards allow us to have a real-time view of what is happening from the

Stefania: beginning of the project until the end of the project.

Thomas: And not only you, also us as the customers.

Stefania: Exactly, exactly. The client and for us and for our team so each of us have

Stefania: always a clear view about task status comments requests,

Stefania: feedback needed everything is there from the backlog so to say when you create

Stefania: a kanban to new stuff to progress stuff until the competition and then you are

Stefania: ready to archive everything but This is the process we run through.

Stefania: One important thing I need to say in the Agile method is Agile sounds like chaos,

Stefania: but Agile needs a lot of order.

Stefania: So you can work with Agile method, but it's like a bookshelf.

Stefania: If you have a good order bookshelf and in a big space, you know exactly where

Stefania: to go and where to find the book you are searching for. In the Agile or in Kanban

Stefania: board, it's exactly the same.

Stefania: Of course, tools support you, but if you don't know where the information are

Stefania: that you immediately need, then is Kanban maybe not the right solution.

Stefania: So you always have to have the control on the project.

Stefania: This is essential independently from the methodology.

Stefania: Theory is good, but if then you are not applying these in a way that you are

Stefania: able to find everything that can create a lot of struggling moment, frustration,

Stefania: ping pong situation when the client said, I told you and said,

Stefania: no, I never heard about it.

Stefania: So also to put all the information clearly somewhere, what we discuss together,

Stefania: what we define, where we want to go, what is our small deliverables,

Stefania: what is the work package we are working on.

Stefania: This helps all of us to understand better the project and hopefully to do not so many errors.

Stefania: Software also in software project errors are human and errors happens but a

Stefania: good um a good system helps us a lot.

Thomas: And i think.

Stefania: Our client as well.

Thomas: Yeah definitely thank you

Thomas: for confirming this yeah absolutely i mean

Thomas: there's there's nothing worse i i really i i'm

Thomas: a big fan of canman yeah i mean we've been

Thomas: working with uh in uh my former company for

Thomas: example with the scrum as well with the Kanban with

Thomas: different a couple of different approaches uh in

Thomas: the end we mostly came back to Kanban um

Thomas: because uh Scrum in

Thomas: in many cases I mean I really

Thomas: like the idea of Scrum exactly but

Thomas: in uh in the in in in in Praxis

Thomas: um it has

Thomas: so many overheads uh in

Thomas: meetings and and like all that stuff and it's um

Thomas: it's really hard to do that properly

Thomas: and um i had

Thomas: some some scrum training as well but uh so as my my scrum teacher always told

Thomas: us there is no such thing as doing something like scrum either you do scrum

Thomas: or you don't scrum and kanban is uh it's really more flexible it's it's a it's

Thomas: a really very unobtrusive way to to handle that.

Stefania: I have to say that i i agree with your point of view about Scrum. I like Scrum as well.

Stefania: The point why we cannot do that

Stefania: is because we have different clients every day that we have to support,

Stefania: So we have to analyze the priority every morning and change some team's member

Stefania: from one project to the other project.

Stefania: This is very difficult to do in Scrum because you have a clear weekly or two-weekly

Stefania: process. You can never take out someone from there.

Stefania: So that's also the main reason why Scrum, it doesn't fit for us.

Stefania: It's good, but it doesn't fit for us.

Thomas: Yeah, I think it's really a question

Thomas: of the team. It's a question of the tasks that you have to work on.

Thomas: A question of the whole direction of the company you have.

Thomas: It's a difference if you're just working on one project and then building that

Thomas: from start to the end and then start a new project if you're working with different customers.

Stefania: Yes. When you have a big project and only one client, probably you go with Scrum

Stefania: and it's much better because all the team follow the rules of the Scrum.

Stefania: And this is ideally where Scrum comes from.

Stefania: Basically in our company this is

Stefania: not working because of all this flexibility

Stefania: we have to or we want to

Stefania: offer to our client that when they have an important request we stop another

Stefania: project and we help the client and then we will we go back again instead of

Stefania: let's say forcing the client to wait a week until we fix maybe a small thing

Stefania: that is blocking the client as well.

Stefania: So that's the flexibility and the agility that we,

Stefania: um keep um running every day we try we do our best to do that as you mentioned.

Thomas: How how you how are you living this this process this kanban process so are

Thomas: you using particular tools to do that i mean i i like personally.

Stefania: Uh if.

Thomas: I would have the choice to do it i would always prefer the board in the kitchen like.

Stefania: The sticky post but that doesn't work in if.

Thomas: You work with the customer for example and it doesn't work if you um have a remote.

Stefania: Team or remote.

Thomas: Team members and um so so how how are you living this.

Stefania: Yeah well i i

Stefania: think that um one important things uh you do things with person you do things

Stefania: with teams member so the person behind of any process is pretty important how

Stefania: you run a company how you do project for your client so.

Stefania: You always for also for

Stefania: a Kanban you need a project manager that is

Stefania: able to guide everybody to

Stefania: guide the client to guide the requirement and to guide the team and to keep

Stefania: order as I say it should be i have to find everything anytime and sometimes

Stefania: we test it as well so i don't know anything about the project i go to the kanban

Stefania: and i have to understand it so it's a good game to to,

Stefania: help newcomers how to deal with the kanban board so it should be really readable

Stefania: like a book i open a book i understand chapter after chapter what is saying

Stefania: what is it if it's the chapter ready,

Stefania: if it's the chapter on hold, if it's the chapter,

Stefania: if people are working there or not.

Stefania: So this is more a technique and the support of the people, how they do this.

Stefania: Of course, you need tools, tools that track time, track the information,

Stefania: connect the information, information should be connected.

Stefania: So basically, I think that in the daily routine we have in our company,

Stefania: we have three main tools that we use. One is the project management tool.

Stefania: In this case, we use an open source tool, which is called Steiger,

Stefania: but you can use Jira, you can use other solutions.

Stefania: The second is the communication with the team. We are not in the same room.

Stefania: We are more or less a remote company.

Stefania: So for the fast communication, we have a Slack channel so that we really,

Stefania: any times we can ask. And we also have a kind of rule that later,

Stefania: after five minutes, I have to say, I'm coming.

Stefania: And then we have virtual rooms that are open so that we can jump in a room,

Stefania: like coming in your office and asking, hey, Thomas, have you seen my email?

Stefania: Can you help me in that? So we do it in this virtual room. They are open and

Stefania: I can jump in and ask my colleague.

Stefania: So those are the tools we use. We use BiblioButton for that.

Stefania: So Slack, BiblioButton, and Project Management Tool are the most important tool

Stefania: for us. Of course, we have documentation tools.

Stefania: We have minor things that we need, GitLab repository, all the infrastructure,

Stefania: which is also for the software development.

Stefania: I will not make GitLab or GitHub reduce to be only a repository space, because in many cases,

Stefania: the documentation tracked in a repository is much better than in another paper document,

Stefania: digital document, of course, where you ask your developer to put the information there.

Stefania: So those are the tools, basically, we used. And of course, organization,

Stefania: assign the task correctly.

Stefania: So no chaos, assign the task so that everybody have a clear idea what they have

Stefania: to do daily or every hour or for a week or what else.

Thomas: There's nothing worse than being in cc of thousands of emails.

Stefania: No not really not am i supposed.

Thomas: To do something here or not.

Stefania: Yeah exactly but client of course want to use email and in many cases we take

Stefania: the content of the email and we add the content in the in the in our,

Stefania: project management tool so that we are able then to see the history of the communication

Stefania: as well This helps us also to understand,

Stefania: okay, we have the problem, how we solve the problem via email,

Stefania: because maybe the CEO is not in the project management tool.

Stefania: So there is, of course, email communication, if we love it or not.

Stefania: And one other thing I have to say is, so as a key takeaway in this topic is

Stefania: the fact that sometimes you have to reinvent the wheels.

Stefania: So it works well but sometimes also people

Stefania: need changes and then we look to something say okay we are discovering a new

Stefania: better channel than slack let's move on so don't don't stay too long in something

Stefania: uh if your team is complying on it and say oh no it's not good because we

Stefania: not do direct call for example in slack we can um so always try to be flexible

Stefania: also in the tool you are using that's a little bit a philosophy.

Thomas: That we have but don't reinvent the flat tires.

Stefania: Never invented no never invented the will but change sometimes the direction

Stefania: because that's motivate the people sometimes, yes.

Thomas: You already mentioned you're working with remote, or your team is basically,

Thomas: or you have a lot of remote workforce, people working from different places.

Thomas: How do you organize that? How does that work for you?

Stefania: I would say this is a really difficult question. Probably the most difficult one. so,

Stefania: How do we organize the team? Basically, communication, speaking with your team

Stefania: is extremely important.

Stefania: We are a Berlin-based company. We have an office in Berlin, of course.

Stefania: We offer some of our employees to come in the office, to stay in the office.

Stefania: But basically, because our developer, where most of them are not living in Germany,

Stefania: but outside Germany, we can say we are a remote company.

Stefania: So being a remote company, it's need, again, a clear organization.

Stefania: So we have flexibility, for example, in the time how each member can work.

Stefania: But we also have a hard

Stefania: liner way to say

Stefania: between 10 and 5 you have to be

Stefania: reachable because this is the time where we

Stefania: need the communication between us for our

Stefania: client not for for us but

Stefania: for our client we have to be there in that time so

Stefania: we organize the team in a way that every morning

Stefania: we have a very very fast standard the stand-up

Stefania: help us to align each other

Stefania: and to understand the blockers of some for

Stefania: example or newcomers or people who

Stefania: is more resistant to

Stefania: ask when they need some help but

Stefania: in a stand-up it's much easier to

Stefania: welcome them and to say hey how was it yesterday why is not going on these tasks

Stefania: let us know tell us what do you need and we try to help and those stand-ups

Stefania: are of course very strict to the point because uh.

Stefania: Have to take three minutes maximum for

Stefania: each sometime we have the time running on that but on the other side we understand

Stefania: each other we understand the project each of us is working on and if someone

Stefania: is saying i'm i'm struggling with the problem i'm not able to debug something.

Stefania: In most of the case there is or

Stefania: creativity or developers are

Stefania: able then after the stand-up to help

Stefania: the team member so the

Stefania: stand-up is essential to be

Stefania: also a team so it has has to

Stefania: get together as at the coffee machine

Stefania: in a in a building is is a way are

Stefania: we sometimes we spend 10 minutes just talking about the weekend the weather

Stefania: the different times or everything which is coming in our mind because we sometimes

Stefania: we need to break the rules of the three minutes And we are human and we need it.

Stefania: So flexibility for remote working is essential for everybody because we have

Stefania: also different culture and different language behind from India, South Africa,

Stefania: Italy, Venezuela, and many countries.

Stefania: Spain. On the other side, also in this flexibility, you need some rules.

Stefania: Remote working it doesn't mean we work from the bus we work from the airport

Stefania: we work from spaces there are very loud like a restaurant so these rules are

Stefania: clear that this is not the remote working we want to have of course but those are the rules.

Thomas: Okay let's let's come to a completely different topic

Thomas: now so we've been um mentioning or

Thomas: you've been mentioning i've been mentioning um uh that

Thomas: you are working with open edX we are working we

Thomas: are using open edX as the platform so the

Thomas: platform that you listeners are currently watching this

Thomas: video yes um so um open edX is releasing new software versions each year about

Thomas: twice in a year twice in a year even okay so how do you make sure that uh the

Thomas: customized So you do a lot of customization for the customers.

Thomas: How do you make sure that the customized code basically stays updatable?

Thomas: I worked in a company years ago where we didn't do that, and that was a complete

Thomas: disaster. So I know this can be very, very hard.

Stefania: I would say, Thomas, lesson learned over years,

Stefania: I'm sure that if we look back to the beginning of our company in 2015, probably we would say,

Stefania: oh, my God, why we made that?

Stefania: So back experience made the company secure in taking the right decision.

Stefania: So basically, what do we do? We have a, I think also is a philosophy in our company,

Stefania: because we know open source solution, I would say pretty well.

Stefania: And open source solution means

Stefania: that around the world there are thousands

Stefania: of developers that helps

Stefania: to improve one solution like open edX but there is so many open source examples

Stefania: like that and so we know that the work done outside should fit with was it inside

Stefania: which is And the OpenEdge solution,

Stefania: the software, and the software itself is another ecosystem with a lot of other

Stefania: open source pieces inside, like MySQL or anything else.

Stefania: So basically, we learn a lot that we never should fork the solution and go alone with that.

Stefania: Like a snake that it takes another direction.

Stefania: So basically, we try to build around the solution to keep it native as much as possible.

Stefania: If not possible to document the

Stefania: changes very well and then to approach

Stefania: all the changes building plugin around it

Stefania: which is also the philosophy of open edX at

Stefania: the moment maybe in the past it was less they build a big core and now we are

Stefania: chunking out the system so that we have a smaller piece inside and we build

Stefania: around a lot of plugin that you can adjust you can migrate it easily you You

Stefania: can manage it easily, and you can understand it also.

Stefania: If someone else takes over, it can understand it better. So we have this approach.

Stefania: The other approach, of course, is that we looked.

Stefania: So we have one member of our team, which is a member of a working group in the

Stefania: Open edX ecosystem, which is called the build, test and release working group.

Stefania: And in this group we look in

Stefania: advance what is happening with the software so

Stefania: we have an overview if we need to do

Stefania: for example a customization for our client we know in advance if this customization

Stefania: is coming from the community so that we can work with the community or taking

Stefania: from there and communicate this also with the client.

Stefania: And address this information like we can

Stefania: wait we can do it in the same way we

Stefania: contribute with the community so working with the this member there we know

Stefania: in advance a lot of information that help us in the process i would say so to

Stefania: be a core contributors and part of the open source community,

Stefania: we think is important it's a philosophy as well of the company of course but,

Stefania: this helps us a lot as well.

Thomas: And maybe as a follow up question so

Thomas: sometimes you are developing something for a

Thomas: customer that you think that might be interesting not just for our customer

Thomas: that might be a good solution for everybody actually so how do you to promote

Thomas: those custom developments that you do for some customers to the core,

Thomas: to the main project, to the upstream.

Stefania: Yes, yes.

Stefania: I presume, Thomas, we can speak hours about this topic.

Stefania: I try to be short in this,

Stefania: because basically the philosophy of open source is always to share back something that has been done.

Stefania: The problem is that in many cases, the solution for your client is so specific

Stefania: that nobody wants to have it.

Stefania: So, and you have to deal with the very specific things that...

Stefania: Nobody wants to have it and something which

Stefania: is open source but cannot be used how

Stefania: you deal with it the best solution is when you

Stefania: address a customization with your client

Stefania: so your client want to have a specific organization let's say

Stefania: the client want to have a gamification a

Stefania: good gamification integration with

Stefania: the system is a good idea you can

Stefania: share this idea with the community try

Stefania: to find contributors in the community

Stefania: and try to find also founded money for example so that the client and the community

Stefania: outside put also money together and improve the software with something that can be native.

Stefania: This is the ideal solution to do that.

Stefania: So you have to do it in advance, this step, never after that.

Stefania: So bringing stuff upstream is difficult to do it after the project.

Stefania: What we definitely do during the project as a contribution is when we have to fix some bugs.

Stefania: So if there are bugs that we are fixing for the client, we put the bugs issue

Stefania: in the upstream repository and then it will be taken over from the maintenance of the software.

Stefania: This is, of course, I will not say daily routine, but this is mandatory.

Stefania: To do but it's differently I will say the difference is between new functionality

Stefania: idea from something which is missing and bug fixing those are the two directions we always split.

Thomas: Sounds like what you just explained sounds like it's a,

Thomas: process that requires quite a lot of time. And as far as I know,

Thomas: customers normally are super impatient, they want to have them now. Yes, exactly.

Stefania: It's a kind of blocker.

Thomas: Yeah, so that's basically the, I don't know, the guardian knot that you have to solve somehow.

Stefania: The coordination is pretty difficult. It helps a lot if,

Stefania: for example, we spoke at the beginning about workshop deliverables work packages

Stefania: so in a educational project is not like building the website and the website

Stefania: is then ready you launch the website and that's it.

Stefania: Educational projects it's always go over

Stefania: a long period and the client can

Stefania: always start with a good piece

Stefania: of software it runs is productive but

Stefania: then you can add this so if you plan these

Stefania: in advance you can you can have these goals okay because then you can address

Stefania: these in advance in time uh communicate these and in many cases it works it

Stefania: works well university have a lot of this approach, and it works.

Stefania: It works very well to define in advance.

Stefania: Another moment to do this is during a conference.

Stefania: So in the conference, go there, I have this idea, which is coming with me.

Stefania: And indeed, if I may say this in this interview, is that Open edicts is also

Stefania: changing this approach.

Stefania: We recognize that we need a lot of information from outside regarding educational

Stefania: trends or institution needs like you, like your university.

Stefania: What do you need exactly from Open edicts?

Stefania: And knowing this in advance, which tool you are really missing,

Stefania: it helps them to move to the project process development and then start from

Stefania: there to apply your idea.

Stefania: Your goals, your objective in a broader, let's say, audience.

Stefania: And there try to collect feedback from other institutions and not from developers.

Thomas: As I say.

Stefania: So to have another level of definition of the needs.

Stefania: So we recognize that a conference is a good place to be to bring together this kind of actors as well.

Thomas: I guess it's also quite...

Thomas: Hard to keep an overview on what is going on.

Thomas: I mean, you're not the only ones that are working or developing on the Open Addicts platform.

Thomas: There's lots of actors, as you said, all over the world, and,

Thomas: basically not to invent the same stuff in many different places and then have

Thomas: concurring plugins or whatever that I guess is also quite a task to accomplish.

Stefania: It's challenging. And indeed, at the end, for example, to build a small plugin

Stefania: that do something for the clients, let's say it takes two days.

Stefania: You will never go out and ask. You do it. Okay.

Stefania: Probably many other clients will need it, but you do it because it's two days

Stefania: of work and it's done and the client is happy.

Stefania: So this is what happens. But the other way is the freedom of open source.

Stefania: You can manage the project and the client cover the needs in short of the time.

Stefania: So it's a prosequence in both.

Stefania: But ideally, yeah, back to communication.

Stefania: If there is a lot of communication it helps and i think for particular bigger ideas,

Stefania: if the community is participate to to collect this information what is an,

Stefania: let's say approach that we are increasing how to do this it will help a lot

Stefania: the service provider like we are, as the client or the institution like you.

Stefania: Many smaller clients maybe have a completely different approach,

Stefania: but institutions, universities, NGOs, all of them have very,

Stefania: very, very similar needs and we can bring the force together.

Thomas: So, let's come to, again, something completely different, as you know from Monty Parton.

Thomas: What is your abstract position on automated software testing?

Thomas: So, are you working test-driven?

Thomas: Are you writing software tests? Are you saying, well, we don't need that?

Stefania: Oh, no, we need it. We need it.

Stefania: It's mandatory. I would say that Open

Stefania: edX has a range of automated tests integrated with its core core base.

Stefania: That's a very good point.

Stefania: So Open edX delivers to include unit tests, integration tests, end-to-end tests.

Stefania: So to validate features, functionality, stability of that.

Stefania: Of course you can

Stefania: always improve this path always in each

Stefania: open source project there is this problem to

Stefania: increase the test because they are needed what we

Stefania: do from our side we develop

Stefania: using continuous integration so we take a lot of care and time to prepare the

Stefania: continuous integration so that always it runs using the test so that it never

Stefania: pushed without a green check of all the tests that are behind.

Stefania: So these allow us to have, let's say, to do not introduce errors in the code

Stefania: we are delivering or maintaining. Of course.

Stefania: Another well, let's say,

Stefania: established framework that we have in place internally is a JavaScript-based

Stefania: N2S test to help us to test faster the front end, which is also needed.

Stefania: We tend to have the idea of software tests only in the back end,

Stefania: but we realize that a complex software like OpenEdX with a lot of different

Stefania: systems that work together, when we deliver it to the clients or when we change

Stefania: something to the client,

Stefania: something can be broken.

Stefania: So we need also test on the

Stefania: browser side and um so over

Stefania: the years we develop a end-to-end test

Stefania: framework to work uh like that

Stefania: also this you can improve it uh

Stefania: whenever you have time so end-to-end test is is this is the kind of joke in

Stefania: our company because um when we see some someone is maybe blocked 80% for one

Stefania: day and then you say oh 80% okay can you do some end-to-end tests.

Stefania: They are not happy when we ask for but yeah is is important and testing testing

Stefania: testing is really really an issue also manual testing is important we also ask

Stefania: and we do it a lot Just go on the platform,

Stefania: click everywhere, because this is what the user do.

Stefania: And we also need a user perspective in testing it and not only the code quality.

Stefania: Code quality is the basis but on the other side we believe that also the users

Stefania: should not have a bad experience using the.

Thomas: Platform yeah in the end the test framework is not the user of the platform so.

Stefania: Exactly just.

Thomas: Having the the tests right doesn't mean that the user actually is able to work with it exactly.

Stefania: Exactly exactly so you see that in our

Stefania: company company we really try to have also

Stefania: these practical view on things and

Stefania: not only focus on coding coding coding coding but

Stefania: have a practical approach yeah to

Stefania: the user on the other side because the the most

Stefania: happiness we receive is when we know that the users are using the platform they

Stefania: are happy with that they go back to the platform and if they do it our client

Stefania: is happy as well so is is is everything is connected to everything also that.

Thomas: Okay just one final question.

Stefania: Yes are.

Thomas: You hiring or when you're hiring if you're hiring what are you looking for when

Thomas: you're looking for new employees particularly if you're looking for for software

Thomas: developers software engineers in in that area what what are the the skills that

Thomas: they have to bring with them.

Stefania: Empathic people.

Stefania: Well, the most requested skills in our company are Python developers indeed.

Stefania: Not only Python, so ideally Django framework is a Python-based framework.

Stefania: If they have the additional knowledge in Django with Python, this is a good start.

Stefania: The other thing is this is really

Stefania: something basically with open

Stefania: edX open edX we know

Stefania: exactly that for open edX you need 40%

Stefania: of your resources with sysadmin

Stefania: approach and the rest can

Stefania: be poor developer so if you

Stefania: have employees that

Stefania: have both skill is a win situation because

Stefania: they are able to manage the back-end side

Stefania: which is really really is not complex but is

Stefania: particular and if you

Stefania: only have guys that say oh

Stefania: i'm a python developer i don't know

Stefania: what is it kubernetes i don't know how

Stefania: to set up a virtual machine i don't know

Stefania: how to update ubuntu so that they try

Stefania: to separate totally what is

Stefania: connected to deliver the software to

Stefania: our clients that's something a little bit difficult for us so ideally very flexible

Stefania: let's say person that have Python skills but they are not against to.

Stefania: Learn or or they have interest also

Stefania: on the other side which is the administration of

Stefania: it because open edX need a lot of administration as well okay and so this is

Stefania: the ideal solution regarding software software engineering we are very international

Stefania: so we are inclusive we try to be,

Stefania: to welcome.

Stefania: Everybody anybody who it brings the,

Stefania: empathy to work together and the interest to work in the Open Edicts and we

Stefania: always ask we ask about commitments what they think about open source and open

Stefania: source community because we are very committed and if you do not have any idea which works.

Stefania: It takes a little bit of time, but we want to have people that are open to this

Stefania: philosophy and to this approach, even if they do not have the expertise immediately,

Stefania: but they are open to commit.

Stefania: They are not too scary about, oh, how can I push this to this very famous repository?

Stefania: No, you have to do it and everybody will welcome you.

Thomas: Great. Thanks a lot, Stefania. It was great talking to you. It was a real pleasure to have you here.

Thomas: Is there anything that you want to say that I missed to ask?

Stefania: No, Thomas, it was a pleasure for me as well to be here,

Stefania: to work together because I hope that what we are discussing helps others to

Stefania: look a little bit behind the scenes,

Stefania: what happens in a project and if everybody needs information additionally, just ask us,

Stefania: Thomas or ask me. Everybody is welcome.

Thomas: Thank you. I will forward it to you.

Stefania: Yes, exactly. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.