NEC Digital Studio team

Want to know more about a colleague's role? Take a look below to learn about what we do and how we work best with each other.

A

Academic lead for learning

What is an academic lead for learning?

The academic lead for learning has extensive knowledge and experience of the high education sector, and brings this experience to course development, delivery and training strategy.

They support the design and delivery of our training courses by:

  • making sure they reflect current trends in UCD/ Service Design thinking

  • applying best practice in terms of learning design to the design and delivery of our courses to support a wide range of learning styles.

  • providing a connection between higher education, agency and other organisations

Come to us for 

Expertise in the academics of UCD and service design.

We can help with:

  • The design of training and learning courses and materials

  • The design and delivery of design hacks and sprints.

  • Mentoring services to help UCD and SD thinking, methods and tools into projects.

  • Working on projects, particularly in an advisory role.

How to work with us 

  1. Ask us for input when including training in bids

  2. Ask us to advise on or co-design courses and learning sessions

  3. Ask our opinion from our experience of delivery

  4. Ask us about the latest trends and theory in UCD

  5. Ask us about working with students

  6. Ask us to advise and work on projects

Accessibility specialist

What is an accessibility specialist?

An accessibility specialist provides support, advice and guidance on how to create accessible digital products and services.

They apply their knowledge of accessibility guidelines such as Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and Government Design Principles (GDP) to make sure products and services are accessible to all users regardless of their needs.

They work internally to train and educate colleagues on the importance of accessibility, and make sure we follow accessible practices and documentation is accessible.

Come to us for 

Any accessibility questions you have about to your projects.

We can help with:

  • Accessibility guidance for your products and services - we have an Accessibility Clinic where we can help with any questions you have

  • Evaluating and auditing digital content using assistive technology

  • Delivering training sessions on accessibility principles, tools and techniques

  • Facilitating testing with individuals with access needs

  • Advising on procurement of technology and services

How to work with us 

  1. Try to involve an accessibility specialist at the start of every project – the earlier we are involved, the better

  2. Invite us to kick-off, mid-point review and design crit meetings so that we can guide you on accessibility principles

  3. Request an audit or review of your product or service with assistive technology such as screen readers, voice activated software and keyboards, as well as automated testing tools such as WAVE

  4. Attend Accessibility Clinics or simply contact us to ask any accessibility questions you have

B

Business analyst

What is a business analyst?

A business analyst is focused on understanding and improving business processes and systems to deliver value to users. They gather, analyse, and document business requirements through engaging with stakeholders, users, and subject matter experts.

Business analysts facilitate workshops, conduct interviews, and use various modelling techniques to map out current and future states of business processes. They ensure that solutions align with business objectives and user needs, bridging the gap between user researchers, technical teams and business stakeholders.

Their role is crucial in ensuring that change initiatives are implemented effectively, delivering measurable improvements to services and keeping stakeholder expectations managed through clear and continuous communication.

Come to us for 

  • Defining and documenting business requirements

  • Conducting process modelling and analysis

  • Facilitating stakeholder and user workshops

  • Analysing and mapping existing business processes

  • Identifying improvement opportunities in business operations

  • Gathering and validating user requirements

  • Producing detailed specifications for new systems or enhancements

  • Conducting feasibility studies and impact assessments

  • Ensuring solutions align with business and user needs

  • Bridging communication between User Researchers, business stakeholders and technical teams

How to work with us 

  1. Provide detailed information about your business processes and challenges

  2. Actively participate in workshops and discussions to define requirements

  3. Collaborate on creating and reviewing process models and documentation

  4. Share feedback on proposed solutions and specifications

  5. Keep us informed of any changes or new requirements

C

Client and product support manager

What is a client and product support manager?

The client and product support manager is responsible for the management of the application support teams, monitoring service level agreements (SLAs) and reporting on performance statistics.

They also look for opportunities for improvements and more effective ways of working for the support teams, provide information on the support packages available for bids and work closely with the central CSMs to ensure contractual key performance indicators are met.

Come to us for 

Anything that would require support resources input or anything that affects the second line support teams.

We can help with:

  • Any support related queries, including specific tickets

  • Information about new contracts / applications due to go live that require support

  • Information on upcoming releases

  • Queries about the Ivanti tool and its functionality

  • SLA information

How to work with us

  1. Give us as much notice as possible when new products are in the pipeline – we will have a lot of questions!

  2. If you have any support queries or require support time, we will have questions, pop a meeting in our calendars and we can chat about what’s required

  3. If you’re sending a message on Teams, send us the context of what you’re requesting or want to discuss so we can prioritise your request.

Client service manager

What is a client service manager?

The client services manager (CSM) is responsible for the day-to-day management and delivery of contracted services to specific customer accounts.

This involves working across the organisation to ensure all services are delivered to contractual service level agreements (SLAs), and to act as the single point of contact for all service delivery escalations. This not only covers the business-as-usual aspects but also service enhancements and upgrades, implementation of agreed non-project related plans, service / change management, business continuity plans, disaster recovery plans and client review meetings, along with attendance at audits where necessary.

Come to us for 

Help in understanding how we engage with our customers and how we make sure that the levels of service that we are contracted to provide are delivered to the agreed set of standards.

We can help with:

  • Understanding the contractual obligations, we are committed to delivering for each of our customers

  • Clarifying how and when we communicate with our customers

  • Planning for service / change management, business continuity and disaster recovery

How to work with us 

  1. We sit in the central team, so make sure you keep us informed about the specifics of NEC Digitial Studio

  2. We liaise closely with the clients, so work with us to give them the best service possible

Content designer

What is content design?

Content design is a user-centred way of thinking about the words, pictures and other content in your product or service.

It is more than just writing and editing. It uses the tools of user-centred design to make content:

  • findable

  • useful

  • actionable

  • clear

  • accessible

Come to us for

If you use words, pictures, video or any other content then you can ask a content designer for help.

We can help with:

  • instructions

  • help, advice and support

  • buttons and other microcopy

  • navigation, taxonomy and other information architecture

  • interview scripts and consent forms

  • research reports

  • bids and pitches

How to work with us

  1. Invite us early, during scoping if possible. Don’t wait until you’ve designed your prototype to ask us to ‘just fill in the blanks’.

  2. Don’t worry if we don’t start creating content right away. Just like other designers, we need time to do discovery. Give us time to do research, write user needs and map user journeys before we start designing content.

  3. Talk to us. Not least because humans speak more clearly than they write. We need to you to tell us about your product or service using your speaking words.

  4. Remember that content design is a design discipline, not just an editorial one. The quickest way to upset your content designer is to hand them some writing and ask them if they can ‘quickly jazz this up a bit?’

D

Data analyst

What is a data analyst?

Data analysts use data visualisation tools like Tableau, Power BI, and Amazon Quicksight to create insightful dashboards. They possess expertise in data wrangling, dataset creation, configuring row-level security, and have a solid understanding of cloud technologies and data security principles.

They play a crucial role in gathering and interpreting client requirements to deliver data-driven insights that align with business objectives. Data analysts can also touch on some data science practices to further derive insights and predictive analysis.

Come to us for 

Help making sense of data and providing value and meaning from raw datasets in the form of charts, visuals, or even basic reports.

We can help with:

  • Data consumption and presentation

  • Data wrangling

  • Creating datasets

  • Producing dashboards for data driven insights

  • Making sense of data

  • Forecasting

  • Data discovery and profiling

How to work with us

  1. Provide detailed requirements. This could be in the form of formulas, expressions, calculations and expression written in plain English

  2. Where possible, provide mock-ups to further help the data analyst with building the final product

  3. Provide context and reasons what for the requirements and what value is desired

Data engineer

What is a data engineer?

A data engineer designs, builds, and maintains the systems and infrastructure required for the storage, processing, and analysis of large volumes of data. They work closely with data scientists, analysts, and other stakeholders to understand data requirements and develop solutions that enable efficient data workflows.

Data engineers are proficient in programming languages such as Python, SQL, and Java, and have expertise in data processing frameworks like Apache Hadoop and Apache Spark. They are responsible for ensuring data quality, reliability, and scalability, often leveraging tools and technologies for data integration, ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes, and data pipeline management.

Come to us for 

Questions around data movement, velocity, volume, and variety.

We can help with:

  • Designing and building data pipelines

  • Data ingestion

  • Producing data models for transactional and analytical systems

  • Transform data from one format/structure to another

  • Designing database schemas

How to work with us 

  1. Explain in as much detail as possible how the source data is structured and formatted

  2. Give details on mapping and transformation rules

  3. Remember, diagrams are our favourite language

Data lead

What is a data lead?

The data lead assembles and leads a team of data experts, including data engineers, data scientists, and data analysts. They develop robust data strategies, working closely with the business to ensure that data strategies align with business objectives.

Come to us for 

Advice for any potential projects that require data movement, migration, integration, modelling, visualisation, data analysis, forecasting, machine learning, GenAI, reporting and/or visualisations.

We can help with:

  • Communicating data strategies

  • Brainstorming

  • Setting up a sub-team for project work

  • Specific data challenges like:

  • Presenting data in a dashboard

  • Ingesting data from a different source

  • Extracting data

  • Creating sample data

How to work with us 

  1. When you have a specific data question (like the examples above), contact us to book a short 15-30min meeting. We need to talk through the what, when and why of your request so we are in the best position to help you

  2. Always start with the high-level concept, objectives and goals when you share a request

  3. Communicate the value that would be added by your request

  4. Work with us to agree on scope and further requirements

Data scientist

What is a data scientist?

A data scientist uses scientific methods, algorithms, and systems to extract insights and knowledge from structured and unstructured data. They apply techniques from statistics, machine learning and data analysis to interpret complex data sets, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions.

Come to us for 

Everything to do with insights and data.

We can help with:

  • Programming. We’re proficient in programming languages such as Python, R, and SQL

  • Statistics. We have a solid foundation in statistical methods and hypothesis testing

  • Machine Learning. Ask us about our knowledge of machine learning techniques and frameworks

  • GenAI Expertise. We have experience with generative AI models like GPT, GANs, and VAEs

  • Data Wrangling. We have the ability to handle, clean, and preprocess large data sets

  • Visualization Tools. We are familiar with tools like Tableau, Power BI, and Matplotlib

  • Communication. We can help explain complex data insights in a clear and understandable manner

How to work with us 

  1. Provide full requirements and context

  2. Start with the end in mind, and share that long term goal with us

  3. Provide data and supporting information

  4. Be open to ideas and change

Delivery manager

What is a Delivery Manager?

A delivery manager is responsible for ensuring that the team delivers high-quality products and services effectively and efficiently.

They facilitate the team's work by removing obstacles, coaching team members using agile methodologies, and maintaining a focus on delivering value to users. They work closely with stakeholders to define objectives, track progress, and manage risks, while fostering a collaborative and productive working environment.

Delivery Managers help align team efforts with broader organisational goals, ensuring timelines and budgets are respected, and continually improving processes and practices.

Come to us for 

  • Facilitating communication between team members and stakeholders

  • Removing impediments and obstacles that hinder project progress

  • Ensuring that project timelines and deadlines are met

  • Supporting the organisation and running of agile ceremonies such as stand-ups, retrospectives, and planning sessions

  • Managing project risks and issues and finding solutions

  • Tracking and reporting project progress to stakeholders (NEC and customer)

  • Assisting with resource allocation and workload balancing within the team

  • Providing coaching and guidance on agile practices

  • Overseeing budget management, ensuring efficient use of resources and revenue recognition

  • Ensuring alignment of team objectives with overall organisational priorities.

How to work with us 

  1. Regularly attend and actively participate in scheduled agile ceremonies

  2. Communicate any blockers or challenges you're facing as soon as they arise

  3. Collaborate with us to set realistic goals and timelines

  4. Provide feedback on processes and suggest improvements during retrospectives

  5. Keep us informed of your progress and any changes to your capacity

Delivery operations

What is delivery operations?

The delivery operations team works alongside the different project delivery teams and managers to assist the successful delivery of projects. They ensure we deliver projects on time, to budget and to our customers' satisfaction.

The team assists throughout the entire project lifecycle, supporting with proposal creation, resourcing, commercial guidance and assurance, project setup and support with ongoing project management and reporting.

Come to us for 

Assistance and support with all aspects of project delivery, resourcing and assurance.

We can help with:

  • Customer proposal creation

  • Commerical support - order processing, CCNs, invoicing, etc

  • Kimble project setup and guidance

  • Resourcing requests and assignments

  • Working at risk guidance

  • Project reporting guidance

  • Internal project requests

How to work with us 

  1. Where appropriate, use the forms available through the Life at NEC Digital site to request assistance from the team - Delivery Ops Guides

  2. For other requests, use the ‘Ask Delivery Ops’ Teams channel

  3. Be timely with requests to the team, especially for things like resources, as these may not be straightforward (conflicting requests, contractor lead time, etc.)

  4. Be proactive in letting us know about project and resourcing issues, such as absences, delays, etc.

  5. Be prompt in responding to requests from the team for project updates, and adherence to baseline project financials and timescales

DevOps engineer

What is a DevOps engineer?

Commonly referred to as ‘DevOps engineers’, development operations engineers support the development and operation of software through tools, environments and practices. Their primary goal is to streamline the development, deployment, and operational processes to deliver software more rapidly, reliably, and efficiently. They are responsible for underpinning good development processes including managing tools and testing environments, central code control, maintaining development standards and writing software that automates systems.

Come to us for

If you have a manual development process that is cumbersome and error prone, we can help automate and streamline this to make it more automated and error free. We work with the software developers and scrum teams to help implement the infrastructure and automation to help the solutions run and deploy smoothly.

We can help with:

  • Questions about AWS environments used across NEC Digital Studio

  • Help with deploying code or pipelines in use

  • Troubleshooting issues with public cloud environments

  • Help with application monitoring

  • Automating development and deployment process

  • Developing IaC code to create consistent environments to work with

How to work with us

  1. We have a dedicated DevOps board in Jira that is used across project, please log your requests here.

  2. If you find an issue with any of the processes, please provide as much details as possible to help us troubleshoot the problem.

  3. We are always looking for ways to improve our process of you have any suggestions please let us know

E

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G

H

Head of design school

What is a head of design school?

The Head of Design School oversees all external training and learning activities. They lead the Design School, which delivers user-centred design (UCD) training to the public and bespoke training in house to organisations. Our training is both a product and a service to our customers, and is also accessible for internal staff.

They also head up product training, which delivers training to help our customers use our products.

Come to us for 

All things learning.

We can help with:

  • Writing and delivering UCD training

  • Discussing product training

  • Working up new ideas for courses

  • Advising on best practise for learning

  • Working up ideas that include training, such as workshops, hackathons, mentoring packages etc

  • Contributing to bids that include training

  • Liaising with clients around their training needs

  • Advertising training at external events

How to work with us 

  1. Come with an idea for training (this may be a gap you’ve noticed, or a subject you are passionate about) that we can help you shape and form

  2. Include us – we like learning, and therefore we’re keen to be involved in different areas of the business, to understand it more and work together.

  3. Involve us from the start

  4. Share examples and photos from projects that can be used in training

  5. Come to pilot courses and contribute to their development

  6. Sign up to come along to public courses (and be ready for interactive activities)

I

Interaction designer

What is interaction design?

Interaction design is the practice of designing usable and accessible digital products and services.

It involves defining the structure and behaviour of interactive systems, including:

  • the layout

  • the user

  • the flow

  • the navigation

Interaction designers use principles of usability, psychology, and human-computer interaction to craft interfaces and experiences that are:

  • seamless

  • intuitive

  • functional

  • enjoyable to use.

Come to us for 

Support, help and guidance on creating digital services that meet user needs, and designing user interfaces that are intuitive and accessible to use.

We can help with:

  • turning problems into solutions

  • making ideas come to life quickly through prototyping at various levels of detail, from hand-drawn sketches to fully coded prototypes

  • Design Systems and how to build libraries of user interface elements that help us work more efficiently

  • making online experiences accessible so all users can benefit

  • drawing things, such as flow diagrams and detailed user journeys

How to work with us 

  1. Bring interaction in at the start of a project. We work best if we have a good understanding of the problems you're trying to solve and what you're trying to achieve

  2. Remember we are not here to create pretty graphics, we create designs based on user needs, and sometimes that might look plain and boring!

  3. Give us a style guide or design system to work from if you have one

  4. Design is a team sport, so please invest your time in the design workshops and activities your interaction designer runs with the team

  5. We want to be a part of your team, not just consultants. So, invite us to your stand-ups, agile ceremonies and relevant meetings

J

K

L

M

N

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P

Product manager

What is a Product Manager?

A product manager is responsible for driving the success of their assigned product(s) from ideation to market launch and beyond. They collaborate with cross-functional teams, translate customer needs into innovative solutions, set priorities for the delivery team and contribute to the division's overall product strategy.

They also play a pivotal role in client demos to aid business development efforts.

Come to us for 

Information, advice and guidance on our products.

We can help with:

  • Bid writing for our products

  • Demonstrations of products

  • Understanding the future product strategy

  • Understanding the product roadmap

  • Information on our customers and best way to communicate with them

How to work with us 

  1. Set up meetings, we love to talk about our products and business area. Just check our availability as we may have demonstrations or be travelling to customers.

  2. If you see us in an office and have questions, come over and speak to us.

  3. Provide us with some idea of what you would like to know (we can talk forever about our products), would you like a demo of the product, want to know the business area or not sure but want an overview? It can help us prepare and not overload you with information.

  4. If you would like us to demo a product, give us as much context to the client and potential use cases so we can adapt our demo to suit their requirements.

  5. If you have any actions you need us to complete, send them in an email so they aren’t missed. But also feel free to give us a message on teams with any questions.

Product owner

What is a product owner?

The product owner oversees the ongoing development of our product suite, supporting product managers in defining, planning, and managing the product vision, strategy, and execution.

The product owner works closely with stakeholders, customers, and developers to gather and prioritise product requirements, translating them into actionable user needs and stories. They also act as the main contact for product queries and manage the product backlog based on business value, complexity, and risk.

Come to us for 

A practical, in-depth knowledge of specific customer needs and requirements for the products they use. We act as the subject matter expert for the application and understand both the strategic and tactical direction our products will take. We’re central to application development and should be the first person you call if you have a question about the direction a development project is taking.

We can help with:

  • Prioritising features for the future development of an application to maximise business impact

  • Understanding the short, medium and long-term product roadmap of an application

  • Understanding how to translate business requirements into technical pieces of work

  • How to engage with development teams on a day to day/practical basis

  • Translating technical details into user benefits to be used for marketing and promotion

How to work with us 

  1. Include us during the planning process when trying to understand the impact of certain features on the applications end users

  2. Maintain regular contact throughout the development process to make sure the right features are being developed at the right time to maximise business value

  3. Understand that we will put business value first and may not be aware of technical considerations which may determine feature priority

Product trainer

What is a product trainer?

The product trainer leads, designs, and delivers application training services to customers, enabling them to gain maximum understanding and proficient use of NEC Digital Studio’s software products. They are also responsible for all the training materials and documents.

Come to us for 

Planning and delivery of training on NEC Digital Studio software products.

We can help with:

  • Planning training needs for customers

  • Creating and updating training materials

  • Delivering classroom and online training

  • Providing feedback from training

  • Post-training support

How to work with us 

  1. Keep us informed of potential training needs and when they are required.

  2. Let us know what training the customer is expecting. It is good to know what is expected in terms of content, delivery format and number of days.

  3. Introduce us to the client or customer who is the training contact. The sooner we can build a relationship with them, the easier it is to understand their needs.

  4. Send any actions by email. As we work over multiple products and customers, we are not always available and cannot always provide an instant response. Emails are easiest to track.

  5. Let us know the best channel for feedback from training. This can be feedback about the product or feedback from the client, customer, or user.

Q

Quality assurance analyst

What is quality assurance?

The quality assurance (QA) team defines the quality assurance strategy across the whole of NEC Digital Studio and sets the standards that need to be followed to ensure the quality of development across all our products.

They are responsible for making sure that applications are built and developed according to the documented design and user requirements. These requirements can be of a functional or non-functional nature and may involve both manual and automated testing techniques.

Ultimately, the QA team acts as a gatekeeper ensuring that the quality of the product being developed are of a sufficiently high standard and fit for release into production.

Come to us for 

Understanding the different types of testing that we undertake, including manual, automated and performance testing. We can help guide how the testing process fits into the software development lifecycle and how the QA process embeds quality into the development practice.

We can help with:

  • Creating test scripts for manual test execution activities

  • Planning and implementing QA processes into existing and new development projects, including automated, API, performance, functional, non-functional and manual activities

  • Implementing test automation frameworks to replicate end user activities and to build relevant automated tests

  • To help clarify how issues raised to the support desk by users can be integrated into the development scrum process

How to work with us 

  1. Use the QA lead as an initial point of contact. They will be able to guide you through what options are available and how the QA function can help improve product quality

  2. Get the QA team involved as early as possible. The sooner we’re engaged, the better the quality of the final development product will be

  3. Embed the QA team in both the design and development functions. They need to be fully aware of the user requirements, documented design and development practice to formulate their testing accordingly

R

Research operations

What is research operations?

Research operations (ReOps) focus on the people, mechanisms, and strategies that set user research in motion. It provides the roles, tools and processes needed to support researchers in delivering and scaling the impact of the craft across an organisation.

This includes managing logistics, tools, and infrastructure needed for research activities; coordinating participant recruitment; ensuring compliance with ethical standards and maintaining data quality and security.

Come to us for 

  • Support and guidance when completing your project’s ethics review.

  • Questions about handling participants’ data and the consent process.

  • Participant recruitment strategy queries, support with working with participant recruitment agencies, and best practice for incentivising users.

  • If you require support when using platforms and tools to conduct research activities.

How to work with us 

  1. Give us time to support you – we work across a variety of projects so may not always have the most capacity.

  2. Early in the project, ask us about the ethical, safety and data risks of doing research with different types of users, to inform your research plan.

  3. We work best when we are embedded in project teams, as opposed to having an advisory role.

S

Scrum master

What is a scrum master?

A scrum master leads agile implementation, facilitates scrum processes and empowers teams for efficient product delivery. They work closely with development teams, product owners and stakeholders to foster collaboration and ensure alignment with product goals while upholding financial and technical governance.

Come to us for 

Help understanding the scrum process and how we interpret scrum at NEC Digital Studio. The way we run scrum development projects will vary from project to project, but the basic structure of the team and core processes we use will be common throughout all our projects.

We can help with:

  • Communicating to internal and external stakeholders how we implement scrum

  • Clarifying the roles and responsibilities of team members and who is responsible for what

  • Understanding what the expectations are from clients and how they can impact the performance of the development team

  • How to structure development teams when planning projects

  • Understanding how UCD can be integrated within development teams

How to work with us 

  1. Include the scrum master in the early stages of project setup to make sure the correct structure is in place to work out what resources and people need to be considered for an effective scrum team to operate

  2. Invite us to occasional internal design team meetings so we’re kept abreast of the latest updates in UCD and further understand the roles and responsibilities of those involved and share knowledge

  3. Get in touch if you have an interest in development and want to understand more about how we implement scrum for different types of projects and how to present thoughts and ideas

Service designer

What is service design?

Service design improves connections between users and the organisations which serve them.

Services are everywhere. They’re complex and messy. Whether we’re booking a GP appointment, paying our rent, claiming benefits, or doing our shopping, services underpin all that we do in society.

Service designers blend systems thinking and user-centred design to understand and solve the most complex challenges. Using a broad selection of tools and collaborative approaches, we help organisations explore the future of their products and services and create attainable strategies for getting there.

Come to us for 

We can help with:

  • Understanding and communicating issues and opportunities with an existing service

  • Co-designing and communicating visions and strategies for new end-to-end services

  • Convening users and stakeholders to tackle issues and build consensus in creative and collaborative ways

  • Developing maps, diagrams, storyboards and other artefacts which provide compelling stories for change

  • Co-designing offline and online prototypes and touchpoints across multiple channels, systems and technologies

  • Designing accessible and inclusive services that work for everyone

  • Reducing risk and cost through evidence-led decisions and prioritisation

  • Building client service design capability for ongoing quality and improvement

How to work with us 

  1. Bring us in early. We’re great at helping you to define your scope, acting as an impartial convener to identify challenges, create project briefs, identify goals and outcomes.

  2. Work transparently and collaboratively - we love developing strong relationships with stakeholders.

  3. Be prepared for us to question everything. We’re not happy unless we’re working in knotty and complex spaces.

  4. Look beyond digital. We will likely want to go beyond the realms of digital to understand the full extent of a service

Software developer

What is a software developer?

Software developers (sometimes known as software engineers) play a pivotal role in creating innovative software solutions. They collaborate with cross-functional teams to develop cutting-edge applications that meet our clients' needs. Their responsibilities include writing clean, efficient, secure, and maintainable code, participating in code reviews, and troubleshooting software issues. They usually work on either the front-end (the user interface we interact with) or the back-end (the application logic), but some consider themselves full-stack. They contribute to the continuous improvement of all our software products.

Come to us for

If you need to know how the application software works or how it communicates with other software and services, we can usually help you. Any required development tasks must always be directed through the Scrum Master for the given project.

We can help with:

  • Bringing the ideas our business community has to life in our software solutions

  • Troubleshooting and resolving issues with software

How to work with us

  1. We usually work in a scrum team. That means working in 2-week long sprints and in line with scrum and agile processes. Please use the appropriate methods through the scrum framework to ask us for support.

  2. Our work is allocated in 2 week sprints. So if you have a task that requires development support, create a ticket and provide the ticket details to the scrum master for that project.

  3. If you find an issue with any software, please provide as much details as you can to help the developer identify the cause. This includes logs, screen shots, device, time and date, as well as the steps to reproduce the issue

Solution architect

What is a solution architect?

Solutions Architects plays a crucial role in designing, overseeing, and ensuring that software systems and applications meet both the technical and business requirements. This role bridges the gap between business needs and technology solutions, ensuring that the architecture of systems aligns with the customers goals, technical standards, and long-term strategy.

Come to us for

Support resolving a technical problem. Solutions architects create documentation to help justify required developments and provide the details product teams require to progress. They also have an overview of the technical landscape across the business, to help us make more informed decisions about future solutions.

We can help with:

  • Help translating business requirements into technical specifications.

  • Evaluating and recommending technologies, frameworks, and third-party solutions to best meet the needs of the project.

  • Provide technical guidance and resolve issues that arise during development.

  • Design solutions that integrate with existing systems, ensuring smooth interoperability and data flow between different components.

  • Work with security teams to ensure compliance with relevant standards and regulations.

How to work with us

  1. Bring us in early to advise. We work closely with the bids team across various opportunities to help us make the right choices early on in our projects. We create the designs and documentation that can be required for bids and project delivery.

  2. Explore challenges with us. We can help modernise legacy solutions and migrate them to current technologies and cloud environments.

  3. Connect us to people. We are happy to engage with end-users and clients to help inform our recommendations.

Support consultant

What is a support consultant?

Support consultants provide second line support to customers using our applications, both online and over the phone. Their responsibilities include addressing customer inquiries, investigating incidents, maintaining detailed records, monitoring system logs, reacting to alerts and supporting application roll-outs.

Come to us for 

Everything related to second line support (like technical assistance and advice and guidance).

We can help with:

  • Supporting the applications

  • Access requests to the applications

How to work with us 

  1. If you require application support (including accounts created etc.) please log a ticket in Ivanti. Calls take priority so you will get a faster response

  2. If you need our support for more than 10 minutes, please clear our time with our manager so we can manage workload efficiently

T

Technical architect

What is a technical architect?

The technical architect is responsible for the detailed design and implementation of specific components or aspects of a software system. They focus on the technical elements, ensuring that the architecture of the software is well-designed, efficient, and aligned with both the project's requirements and best practices.

Come to us for

If you have a specific area of an application or design that you need to create with particular requirements (for example low latency or high throughput).

We can help with:

  • Creating detailed technical designs and blueprints for specific components or modules within a software system.

  • Defining how these components should be structured, the technologies to be used, and how they will interact with other parts of the system.

  • Evaluating new technologies and assess their applicability to the project.

  • Producing comprehensive technical documentation that details the design, implementation, and operational aspects of the component.

How to work with us

  1. Log a ticket in our Jira board detailing the technical problem you are trying to solve.

  2. Talk to us about any ideas you have that you are unsure if they can be achieved with a given technology.

  3. Speak with us. We love helping developers implement new technologies and are happy to have virtual whiteboard sessions.

U

User researcher

What is user research?

User research is the process of understanding the behaviours, needs, and motivations of users. We use various research methods such as interviews, surveys, usability testing, and data analysis.

The insights we’ve gathered inform the design and development of user-centric products and services. This research ensures that the end solutions are effective, user-friendly, accessible and meet the actual needs of the target audience​.

Come to us for 

Everything related to users, understanding their needs and testing out new ideas.

We can help with:

  • Understanding your users or potential users

  • Testing new concepts and providing actionable feedback

  • Usability testing with real or potential users to find out how your product or service is working

  • Bringing rigour and quality to analysis and synthesis

  • Translating research findings into actions

  • Telling compelling stories about users to your product teams, owners and clients

How to work with us 

  1. Talk to us early about the project, product or service and what you are trying to achieve

  2. Get involved! Come along to our sessions where we talk directly to users so you can see and hear first hand

UX designer

What is UX design?

User experience (UX) design is the process of creating products that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to users. As UX designers we cover all aspects of design, from user research, user testing, wireframing, content, interaction and visual design, information architecture, accessibility, and prototyping.

UX designers focus on enhancing user satisfaction by improving the usability and accessibility of the product. They use various research and design methods to understand user needs, behaviours, and pain points, and to create solutions that meet those needs effectively.

Come to us for 

Delivery of end-to-end user centred design, focused specifically on products within NEC Digital Studio and NEC Software Solutions.

We can help with any size of project, from the creation of a new product, a complete product redesign, or a change to an existing product (including usability and accessibility audits).

We can help with:

  • Making sure our products:

    • meet business and user needs

    • are deliverable within time and budget

    • are functional, accessible, intuitive and engaging

  • General queries or concerns via our UX clinic

  • Any issues with an NECDS or NECSWS product that is affecting the users

  • Support with bids, events and sales. We can create quick prototypes to demonstrate a concept, instead of trying to explain everything with words or static images

How to work with us 

  1. Speak to us when you form your project plan. We can help you to understand how long each stage is likely to take

  2. Think of us as part of your project team and include us in the project kick-off

  3. Ensure we have access to test systems as appropriate

  4. Share information about how a user currently completes a task, or support us in gathering it

  5. Allow time for user testing, checking workflows and design concepts early on to allow us to quickly iterate as needed, saving time and money

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