Problem solving speaks all languages

As regular readers of our blogs are likely aware, Maptek has offices all around the world with software development teams in several locations. One of the largest is in our Chile office, which I visited in October to share my knowledge, learn from colleagues, and work alongside their development team.

I am currently the Evolution Team Leader, overseeing software development of our mine scheduling solution, but given my background working in other Maptek solutions teams, I took the opportunity to demonstrate some of the latest BlastLogic drill & blast features to the group. Language barriers aside, the presentation started conversations that fuelled further discussions and demonstrations at people’s computers. There’s a lot of value in live demonstrations, whether it be during the development process, training, or as part of a purchase decision.

It was great to put faces to the names of tech services and sales people in our Viña del Mar office, with whom I have been conversing via email for more than a year. Some of our best innovations at Maptek have arisen from development teams learning from each other. This is why we regularly get together in person, for brief visits and longer secondments, such as Ignacio Garcia’s stint earlier this year in the Perth office.

During my stay, I worked closely with Washington Segura, a software engineer on the Innovation team. Alongside Ignacio, Washington has been implementing a core feature on our scheduling development roadmap for Evolution – Phase Optimisation.

Much of the time was spent discussing why implementation decisions were made, and agreeing on the best way to integrate features into an existing product. The focus of these conversations was to ensure that we understood – in depth – the customer needs we were addressing and the benefits for mine sites. This context is critical for continuing to provide innovative and robust solutions, and is also extremely motivating for developers. (Aside – an apt alternative job title for software developer could easily be ‘problem-solver’ – we love challenges, small ones, big ones, and incredibly complex ones!)

The way our development, technical services and sales staff around the globe share their knowledge and experience strengthens our solutions, and I look forward to continuing to work with Washington and the wider Maptek development community in 2019.

Read Will’s previous blog, Microsoft to Maptek – a software journey