Blog

Article printed in IT ID Magazine, Lviv, Ukraine on April 28th, 2020

Halyna Shporlyuk, General Manager at Conscensia shares her vision of why being culturally educated is important as well as explains what it actually means. Halyna is Certified CQ Trainer by Living Institute, Denmark. She has 16 years of experience (7 of which are leadership roles) with and within multinational, intercultural diverse teams and customers.

The term “emotional intelligence” has already become a buzzword. I think, Cultural Intelligence or CQ is the next skill to be adopted by Ukrainian businesses, in particular, the tech one. We deal with international clients on a daily basis and to do it well we should understand what lies beyond their words or emails. And does anything lie there at all? Continue reading

If you don’t know how to do something you have limited options:

1. Easiest of all, you simply don’t do it;
2. Next could be to try it out and see what happens;
3. Or, you could ask someone who does know. Continue reading

I often meet the assumption that a sourcing partner is an additional expense that diminishes the economic advantage of outsourcing software development. The thought is in itself not unreasonable:

How can adding a supplier (and their margins) be an economic advantage? Moreover, when is a company better off arranging the outsourcing themselves?

Why are test tasks necessary and how are they estimated? How can one prove effective with their help, especially when competing for a Software Engineer position? Check out the advice from Scrum Master/Senior Software Engineer at Conscensia, Ivan Popovych. Continue reading

I would like to share one very common mistake people make – taking things very personally.

It looks like you put yourself (or in extended version your department) into the center of universe and evaluate everything around from that standpoint.

As always let’s explore my own case. Continue reading

Some of our developers share practical advice for the IT industry in Ukraine.  Check out Conscensia’s developer and project manager Ihor’s article about how a junior grows as a project manager, published at the biggest online media for developers in Ukraine www.dou.ua. Ihor has 21 years of experience in the IT sector.

“Life is interesting and multifaceted, so there are no identical projects and therefore, the roles that are often referred to as PMs are very different. So, if you are not going to become a PM for some particular project, then I’m not even sure where to begin… In fact, it is impossible to put all the advice into a thick book, let alone in a few lines. Continue reading

Whilst being a possible solution to a major headache, going outside your geographic and cultural barriers doesn’t come risk free. Looked at from outside, there are numerous examples of this working well and many of the opposite. Competition amongst suppliers is high and this forces the industry to evolve better and more relevant delivery models.

We at Conscensia have spent 11 years developing a comprehensive solution. We provide the upside of access to an external talent pool with the security of knowing how to navigate new waters without significant risk. Continue reading

Recruiting the right people for your business is essential! We all know that a lot of time and money are wasted, if you make a mistake by recruiting a person, who leaves the company after 6 months – or if the person is disqualified and you need to hire a replacement. 

If you have tried to search for software developers in today’s market – you know that it is not an easy task. The IT sector is booming – and so is the demand and search for software developers. Some companies try to find their next developers in their own country, as they prefer to have the developers in-house. It is very difficult for companies located in large cities – imagine the hassle for IT companies located in rural areas, how do they attract software developers? Continue reading

Some projects from my past are completely forgotten, many I dare say. Some, though, are as clear in my mind as if they had finished yesterday evening.

One such was when our Country Manager called me into the office just before Christmas years ago. I thought he wanted to have a small chat and wish me Merry Christmas but things turned out differently. ‘Could I please step in and salvage a project, make a plan and……. have it ready before New Year.’ I knew a bit about this particular project, the Project Leader was a highly experienced and likeable fellow. However, the concern was that for the last months he had been regularly reporting that 2-3 more days tops and the project would be done. Clearly intolerable for all. Continue reading

When working with a team sitting remote, things stay the same, and at the same time nothing is as it used to be!

You need to build trust – however – your window of opportunity has narrowed down from “all day long” to different touch points throughout the day and week. So how do you become a visible and trustworthy manager towards your remote team? Continue reading