Crosslake
Innovation and Optimization of Software Development and Delivery

It all started as a passion for improving the development of technologies, to produce higher quality products, while reducing the time to market and the cost of production. Russ Albright, CEO and Co-founder of Crosslake, was incredibly passionate about improving technology value -- through better architecture, development process, and organizational structure. Albright elaborates, “I had an opportunity to apply that to Windows 7 and reorganized Windows development practices and tools. It was successful and that gave me the motivation to found Crosslake and apply that same learning to other companies.”

Crosslake works with a variety of companies to improve their end-to-end software development process and IT operations. The goal is to help companies better understand customer requirements and quality aspects and improve how they are developing, architecting, testing, deploying, and supporting the products, regardless of whether the client is a commercial software or technology-enabled company. The key is to obtain and deliver good and measurable targeted business results. “We have seen the challenges CIOs face. We see that they are under a lot of pressure to drive down costs, but at the same time the pace of innovation is picking up speed. They need to bring their technology to market faster and it has to work.”

The foundation of Crosslake’s success is their focus on quality. Their quality strategy is to help companies see the concept of quality in a different light, in a holistic way—is the product fit for the purpose? Does it have the right features and do those features work the right way? That is the most fundamental aspect of quality. It needs to work the way people expect it to work and be delivered at a reasonable cost and with a reasonable time-to-market.

We have a passion for not just developing technologies, but doing it better

“It’s not all about end-product testing, but developing in small increments and getting continuous feedback on feature design and quality and checking for the right requirements throughout the process recognizing that there are multiple levers that impact quality,” adds Albright.

Crosslake has a unique approach when working with their clients, which includes an assessment program. Albright explains, “If a client says they want to improve quality, we go in to understand what they mean by quality. What is the business outcome they are trying to address? This is often different than it first appears.” Once the assessment is made, Crosslake offers a variety of solutions including workshops that is not simply a standard training session. Instead, it is a customized session that helps the company apply best practices to their specific situation and use it immediately in the real world.

Ultimately, the unique quality that makes Crosslake stand out is that they are all about the success of the client. They are a very feedback-oriented organization. Albright prides himself on Crosslake’s approach, saying, “We don’t measure ourselves based on our revenue, but on the frequency at which our customers call us back to do more work for them. If we do that, revenue and success shall follow.” The future of Crosslake is focused on technology transformation with a focus on the software development side.