We’re developing ALDA – an AI-powered e-learning app that helps US colleges and universities create study curricula.

Here’s our interview with Michael, ALDA’s CEO. We asked him about his expectations of working with Fora Soft, the development progress, and the challenges that might arise during software development. Enjoy!

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Valeria: Hi, Michael. Thank you for joining me today. Before we start the interview, could you please introduce yourself and tell me a few words about your project?

Michael: It's my pleasure to be here today, Valeria. My name is Michael Feldstein. I run a company called E-literate. We work primarily in the United States, primarily with colleges and universities, helping them use technology to improve education. I have a long background in educational technology. I've worked at the third-largest textbook publisher in the country, helping them develop their flagship software for teaching that serves millions of students every year. I worked for Oracle, and I co-founded a startup. So I have a fair bit of experience developing educational technology.

Valeria: That sounds amazing. Your project, as far as I understand, is an AI-powered tool to improve the way university curricula are created, right?

Michael: Yes, this is very important. We’re working with a group of colleges and universities, many of which serve underserved students, first-time college students, and students in poor urban environments. It's a mix of colleges and universities that serve a total of about half a million students. As you would imagine, in an environment like that where skills are changing, AI is changing, and jobs are just changing, it’s very important to develop new courses for these students that serve their needs and their background. This is very difficult for colleges and universities of all sizes. So we're testing through a project working with these institutions. We're going through a six-month year design-build workshop series in which we're going to build an AI application together to test to see whether artificial intelligence can help them develop courses that will serve the needs of these students more quickly and economically.

Valeria: That sounds as really cool and really important project. We're very happy that we can assist you in developing it. And now, returning to the very beginning of your project, could you please describe your experience with the first interactions with the Fora Soft team? What were your first impressions of the team?

Michael: Yes, so my first impressions with the business conversations before we got started were very, very positive. I interviewed a few different firms ranging from a large firm that I work with frequently in the United States that is very good, but costly to individual contributors to a couple of firms roughly the Fora Soft size. I was impressed from the beginning with the professionalism of your organization, the way in which your leader helped define the project, explain expectations, help me navigate the software that we needed to begin the engagement and outline, what is a very familiar professional process for me. 

«I was impressed from the beginning with the professionalism of your organization, the way in which your leader helped define the project, explain expectations, help me navigate the software that we needed to begin the engagement and outline, what is a very familiar professional process for me».

Valeria: Thank you for your words. Over the time of us working together, what do you think about the progress of your project so far?

Michael: I'm very pleased with the first release, which we are testing right now. It's almost ready for my customers to see in a few weeks, and I think we've made great progress. We've already started working in parallel on the second release. The team has done a great job of staying close to budget and schedule, keeping me informed, adjusting with me as we learn new things and get new ideas, and suggesting new ideas about how to make the project better.

Valeria: Wow! You mentioned just these three right factors to evaluate any development team. But have there been any notable differences between your expectations before the development and the actual progress of the work?

Michael: This is actually remarkable. I would say that my expectations were pretty close to what I got. Usually, you're disappointed. If anything, I'd say that the work has progressed more rapidly than I expected. I tend to be conservative because software development is hard and it usually runs into problems that you can't anticipate, but the Fora Soft team has kept us a little bit ahead of schedule, I would say.

Valeria: Great, good to know! In these sense, what do you think we’re especially good at? Maybe flexibility, professionalism, tech skills – anything like that?

Michael: So there's a whole set of practices that go under the umbrella of agile software development, and people think about it differently. But if you put all the pieces together, what it comes down to is communicating well so that you can stay on time, on budget, and respond to new ideas together as a team. There’s just a whole set of practices that come together. If you do enough software development, you begin to recognize the hallmarks of a team that knows how all of those different practices fit together in the way they interact with you. So it's not just one thing. I would say that my experience with Fora Soft has been that it works as a very accomplished agile software development shop, which is exactly what I needed.

«I would say that my experience with Fora Soft has been that it works as a very accomplished agile software development shop, which is exactly what I needed».

Valeria: Right. And speaking about your background and educational software projects. How has that knowledge helped you in working with us? I mean, how well do we communicate all these tech details and specific development stuff to the clients, in your opinion?

Michael: Yeah, that's a great question because the quality of communication that the client brings to the engagement makes a big difference. In my case, I have to make sure that I am telling the developers enough about why certain features are needed by the customers so that they can bring their creativity and say, “Well, we can't build it that way, but if you want that, we can do it a better way.” But at the same time, I need to avoid overspecifying. I'm not telling them I need a purple button that goes exactly here and does exactly this, so that they're a professionals and can bring their skills to the table. I also need to be able to communicate priorities, interact with suggestions, and make it clear what's important to do first, second, and third, and why, so that as the project continues and we are working together, our collaboration improves. That's exactly what I found has happened with Fora Soft.

Valeria: Thank you. On the other hand, is there anything that you wish that Fora Soft would improve, maybe?

Michael: Not really, they very much met expectations for me. Every company has a sweet spot and a fit for a particular type of work. I was looking—since this is a minimum viable product and I was getting a lot of feedback from customers – for a company that can strike a balance between good project management practices and not being too heavy-weight and process-bound, and Fora Soft has been perfect for me for that.

Valeria: Yeah, and speaking about tech part of the development, have there been any tricky challenges during the development?

Michael: Oh, it's not fun unless there are tricky challenges. We know, of course, AI is inherently tricky. It's software; it’s designed to be a little unpredictable. And it evolves all the time, and we don't exactly know how it will behave when we do certain things with it. In fact, there have been changes, I think, twice just since we started developing the first iteration of our project where ChatGPT has changed in ways that actually helped us. That might have gone the other way, but we've been lucky both times so far. So this again is also why agile is important and working with a shop that understands agile is important. There are always challenges. If you do the project right, then those challenges become opportunities.

Valeria: And do you feel we’re doing the project right? So how well have we handled these challenges?

Michael: As I said, I'm very happy with the first iteration and very pleased with our progress towards the second iteration. So I would say Fora Soft is doing very well.

Valeria: In more numerical terms, on a scale of one to five, how would you rate our performance, including professionalism, engagement, and communication?

Michael: Five.

Valeria: Thank you for a kind words. Is there anything else that is important to you in a project like this? Any other factors that you consider important?

Michael: I’d say it's very important to me that I work with a firm where the people I'm dealing with are concerned about me as the customer and are honest with me about things that are going well and things that are not going well. It's very easy in this world of contract software development to get a vendor who just treats you like, “Here's the code – Give us a paycheck.” And I've been very pleased with every single Fora Soft employee that I've interacted with. I felt cared for, listened to, and responded to, and that's unusual.

«I've been very pleased with every single Fora Soft employee that I've interacted with. I felt cared for, listened to, and responded to, and that's unusual».

Valeria: And considering all of these, would you collaborate with Fora Soft on future projects? Or would you recommend us to others?

Michael: Yes, and yes.

Valeria: Thank you! Anything else you'd like to share about your experience with Fora Soft.

Michael: I recommend the company. I think you deliver good software practices and creative collaborative work at a good price. So I really can't think of anything negative to say.

«I recommend the company. I think you deliver good software practices and creative collaborative work at a good price».

Valeria: Thank you for your words. And I think that's it for the interview. So thank you for joining me today and for your participation. I wish you all the best for your project. It was nice to meet you. Have a great day. Bye.

Michael: Thank you. Bye.

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Watch the interview on our YouTube channel.

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