comparethemarket.com

As a digitally native business, comparethemarket.com’s macro objective is to help customers find the right product, whilst saving money and time. This means delivering basic customer expectations, whilst also working to prioritise innovative product development initiatives to delight its customers.

Services:

Software Development
Mobile
QA

Technologies:

.NET
Java
Microservices
React.js

Sectors:

FINANCE
ONLINE/TECH

Engagement Model:

Godel Pods, Augmented Team

Duration Of Project:

2 years +

"We understood from the very beginning that you get more value from a partnership than a client/supplier relationship. In this regard, Godel has been the ideal partner. Both sides approach everything from a position of collaboration and transparency."

- Paula Giacchino, Senior Manager, Technology Planning & Resourcing, comparethemarket.com.

"We chose to work with Godel as the team shared our working ethos… they are plain speaking, hardworking and deliver on their promises. The Godel team are now very much part of the comparethemarket.com family and have embraced our ‘Comparison as a Service’ (CaaS) platform, based upon reusable microservices, to build, run and own comparison products. Delivering projects ontime is important to us and the Godel team are frequent bangers of our celebratory project gong!"

- James Lomas, CTO, comparethemarket.com

INTRODUCTION

comparethemarket.com needed to grow its software engineering capabilities to accelerate the execution of its strategy including the migration of some of its products to its modernised Comparison as a Service (CaaS) platform. In 2017, comparethemarket.com chose to work in partnership with nearshore software delivery partner, Godel.

comparethemarket.com and Godel have built a strategic partnership based on close collaboration, trust and transparency. As a result of this, Godel has been able to migrate several products to CaaS, delivering significant business value.

PROJECT DETAILS

One of the largest pieces of work delivered by the Godel team was the migration of comparethemarket.com’s Travel product to CaaS. This project contributed to the basis for a delivery strategy with comparethemarket.com, to be used for future products. Now the migration is complete, Godel has responsibility for maintaining the product’s microservices architecture.

Godel’s front-end React engineers use their UI experience to suggest improvements to the existing Travel UI framework. Synergy between Godel and the comparethemarket.com’s Travel stakeholders, combined with the project governance framework, ensures that new product developments can be delivered at a fast pace by Godel, whilst ensuring the correct decisions are being implemented.

The agile framework includes:

• comparethemarket.com senior management meets with the team every month, to discuss alignment
with the wider business

• After each sprint ends, delivery velocity is re-calculated with story points estimation

• The team follows test-driven development and a CI/CD approach, both of which allow them to
deliver at a higher velocity due to the reduced margin of error

• Pair programming regularly takes place, which achieves the following benefits:

o Engineers are challenged to share ideas and drive quality software delivery together
o Technically complex tasks can be tackled in a team approach
o Updates on tasks – progress, but also bugs and mistakes – are with more than one
engineer, providing more chance that they will be resolved quickly.

AGILE PARTNERSHIP

Agility is crucial to the partnership’s success. Misalignment can result in slowed velocity, bugs or misunderstandings – all of which could negatively impact comparethemarket.com customers. The collaborative software engineering teams are spread across three locations – London, Peterborough and the Godel team in Minsk. Business functions involved in the project include senior leadership and management from both organisations, engineers, customer experience and user experience teams, a data team, project governance and a CaaS architecture team.

Collaboration between comparethemarket.com and Godel is optimised to the point where they operate seamlessly as one team. The Godel engineering team have a comparethemarket.com branded workspace in their Minsk location, attend comparethemarket.com’s social events in the UK and have regular team bonding events.

The teams follow an agile framework taking elements of SCRUM and KANBAN: daily stand ups, a bi-weekly retrospective, and regular planning sessions. Godel provides high-definition video conferencing equipment to connect all of comparethemarket.com’s locations, enabling face-to-face communication across the UK and Minsk, whilst using digital communication tools like Slack and Jira to keep staff constantly connected. UK-based product owners have full involvement on the project’s status – signing off on every completed story.

CONCLUSION

In just nine months the teams have formed a very close relationship - despite the geographical gap. Agile practices, trips across the UK and Belarus and constant communication has resulted in real and lasting friendships forming between team members.

Experian

Shell Energy