Throughout the course of our careers in software and web development, we have had the privilege of working with many consultants and contractors. In dealing with them, we have learned that there is an imbalance between the quality of work provided to their clients and the cost of providing that service.

The general nature of complex software and website projects requires a less traditional approach to ensure quality code and standards. As such, Lowry Media aims to reduce the cost to your company through elimination of layers within our company. Therefore, developers are hired with the aim that they are not only extremely proficient at their job and passionate about their work, but that they also are held accountable to the projects they work on. Each developer is responsible for managing his projects, thereby eliminating the implicit cost of company/client contact. By putting developers in charge of projects, there is a single point of contact through which clients can determine the current progress of their project; miscommunication is reduced by talking directly with the project owner.

Since project requirements are an ever-evolving contract, we use Agile methods and practices in creating our work. Essentially, this means that clients will be given a URL to which they may actively view and test the progress of their website at any time. Builds will be done on a weekly basis, so updates can be determined from that time frame. This also means that less time is spent in determining the final product up front, knowing full well that 80% of the time, these original designs are changed and altered anyhow. These savings are passed directly to the client in the form of cheaper software.

To ensure that your project is protected and understood by others in our company (in the event of an emergency), Lowry Media enforces coding standards and guidelines by which all developers are expected to follow. Monthly code reviews ensure that everyone is working in a consistent manner and that any developer within the company can read, understand, and comprehend code from any other developer. These guidelines also ensure a general level of baseline quality, which already exceeds the efforts we have experienced from other companies within this profession.