Why R&D Velocity Matters
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” This quote from Steve Jobs perfectly captures the essence of high R&D velocity—something companies must embrace to stay competitive. At Seekda, accelerating innovation cycles to deliver top-notch product quality is a key priority. With insights from Klaus Niederacher, Managing Director at Seekda, we will explore the principles, people, and processes that fuel Seekda’s R&D success.
For Klaus and his team, R&D velocity is about more than speed; it’s about crafting a seamless, agile process that allows for rapid responses to market demands, without compromising on quality.
Understanding High R&D Velocity
In the fast-evolving world of technology, innovation speed is everything. For tech organizations, Research & Development (R&D) velocity isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s a key driver of success. Why? Because high R&D velocity enables teams to deliver continuous value to customers, react quickly to market changes, and maintain a competitive edge.
According to a recent study, companies that achieved a highly successful shift to agile methodologies had a three times higher chance of becoming a top-quartile performer among peers than those who had not transformed. (McKinsey, 2023)
At its core, R&D velocity is about more than speed; it’s about the entire innovation cycle, which spans from ideation to deployment. Each phase in this cycle has a direct impact on product quality. Faster cycles allow organizations to iterate on features and fix bugs quickly, while also addressing customer needs in near real-time. With quick feedback loops, tech teams can prioritize the most impactful improvements, ensuring every release brings significant value. This cycle has a huge influence on user experience, customer satisfaction, and the overall perception of product quality.
For Seekda, a SaaS company focused on delivering mission-critical solutions in the hospitality industry, achieving high R&D velocity has been a journey of continuous improvement. Their objectives are clear: keep the innovation cycle tight, maintain top-tier quality, and make the user experience seamless. From breaking projects into small tasks to emphasizing flexibility, Seekda’s R&D team has refined its processes to support agility without sacrificing quality. The following principles, processes, and people-focused strategies highlight how they’ve managed to build an R&D model that balances velocity with value.
Key Principles of High-Velocity R&D
To keep R&D agile and high-performing, Seekda’s approach is built on three core principles: embracing agility, leveraging continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD), and implementing well-defined processes for rapid, incremental value delivery.
Breaking Projects into Smaller, Reliable Milestones
One of Seekda’s foundational practices is dividing large projects into smaller, actionable tasks. This approach makes complex goals more achievable and allows the team to respond swiftly to change. By setting shorter milestones, Seekda not only builds momentum but also significantly improves the reliability of its predictions, ensuring it delivers on promises and meets customer expectations. Frequent milestones help the team stay aligned, enabling quick course corrections with minimal disruption. This consistent progress boosts confidence among developers and stakeholders, fostering a steady focus on delivering value.
Maintaining a Flexible Roadmap
Flexibility is essential to sustaining high R&D velocity. Seekda’s roadmap is designed to adapt quickly based on real-time feedback from customers, team members, and market trends. Each adjustment is informed by a robust set of feedback metrics:
- Key Performance Metrics: Seekda tracks key performance indicators across customer care and technical support to gain insights into trends and address issues proactively. Regular team reviews ensure these metrics are analyzed and acted upon to maintain high service standards and operational efficiency.
- External Feedback: Feedback is also gathered from external sources like OTAs, web agencies, and partners. This comprehensive view ensures Seekda stays aligned with market demands and partner expectations.
- 24/7 On-Call Efficiency: Seekda minimizes work and out-of-office responses from the 24/7 on-call team, ensuring their availability is optimized for critical tasks.
Leveraging Continuous Integration and Deployment (CI/CD)
CI/CD plays a significant role in enabling Seekda’s high-velocity R&D. With CI/CD, Seekda can accelerate its release cycle by deploying small, frequent updates rather than large, high-risk releases that take longer and carry more potential issues. This streamlined process not only increases deployment speed but also minimizes delays and disruptions. By working in a unified codebase and avoiding unnecessary branching, Seekda reduces merge conflicts, which expedites communication and development.
Achieving Seamless Integration with Operations
To achieve seamless integration across the pipeline, Seekda collaborates closely with Operations, ensuring zero-downtime deployments and enhancing system stability. By challenging the mindset of “it’s hard, so let’s do it less often,” Seekda embraces repetition to achieve mastery and reliability in their deployment process.
Ensuring Rigorous Test Coverage
Test coverage is non-negotiable in Seekda’s CI/CD framework. Each deployment undergoes rigorous testing to prevent potential issues, with a high standard of test coverage that supports rapid, reliable releases. This test-driven approach guarantees that each incremental release meets quality standards, enabling Seekda to maintain high velocity without compromising on quality.
Data Warehouse for Integrated Analytics
Seekda’s data warehouse is a powerhouse of data integration, consolidating information from production systems, ERP, monitoring, finance, and more. With around 100 dynamic dashboards and over 2,300 queries, it provides actionable insights that drive data-driven decisions. This enables Seekda to focus on doing the “right” things—prioritizing efforts that deliver the greatest impact. By leveraging these insights, Seekda saves an incredible amount of time and accelerates its innovation process, significantly enhancing R&D velocity.
Managing Technical Debt for Sustainable Growth
Effective management of technical debt is crucial for high R&D velocity. Seekda regularly tracks and addresses debt to keep the codebase lean and maintainable, preventing outdated code from hindering innovation. Seekda takes an “accumulated view” of technical debt—understanding that unchecked debt will eventually consume resources, slowing the team’s ability to innovate. Ignoring technical debt puts organizations in a precarious position that can become difficult or impossible to recover from. Therefore, Seekda diligently identifies and addresses these issues before they escalate.
Minimizing TOIL—manual, repetitive tasks—frees developers to focus on innovation. Automation of routine work optimizes resources and keeps the R&D cycle moving efficiently.
Seekda also balances legacy and modern technologies, adopting new tools only if they offer long-term value without adding unnecessary complexity. Removing unused code further streamlines the environment, ensuring quick responses to changes.
Another essential practice is removing unused code. Code that no longer serves a purpose is carefully identified and removed, keeping the codebase lean and efficient. By cutting out “dead weight,” Seekda maintains a streamlined environment that supports agile development and efficient updates. This ongoing commitment to code cleanliness ensures the team can respond quickly to changes without battling outdated or irrelevant code.
This proactive approach helps Seekda sustain an agile, modern tech stack, enabling fast, high-quality product delivery. It allows the team to focus on forward-thinking projects without being held back by past decisions, ultimately contributing to Seekda’s ability to deliver high-quality products at speed.
The People and Culture at Seekda Fueling Innovation
High R&D velocity wouldn’t be possible without a strong, culture-focused team. Seekda has a distinct approach to hiring and team development that fosters the qualities needed to sustain fast-paced innovation. Rather than focusing solely on technical skills, Seekda looks for traits like technical curiosity, problem-solving acumen, and a passion for continuous learning. This mindset brings in individuals who are not only skilled but genuinely enthusiastic about pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.
Seekda’s culture emphasizes collaboration, feedback, and recognition. This approach means that developers aren’t just handed tasks—they’re encouraged to understand the purpose behind each project, aligning their work with return on investment (ROI) and broader business goals. This sense of purpose empowers team members, making them feel valued and connected to the company’s success.
Feedback is a two-way street at Seekda. Regular check-ins and feedback loops ensure that developers have the support they need to thrive, while also giving management insight into how they can further support the team’s growth. By providing autonomy within a framework of support, Seekda nurtures both independence and teamwork, two essential ingredients for achieving high R&D velocity.
The Role of Processes in Driving R&D Velocity
Results and Recommendations from Seekda’s R&D Efforts
Seekda’s commitment to high R&D velocity has yielded impressive results. With over 100 deployments per month, their development team maintains a robust, up-to-date system. Additionally, their uptime score of 99.9994% for core systems shows that even with frequent releases, they’re able to provide reliable service to their users. This commitment to quality is reflected in Seekda’s Net Promoter Score (NPS) of >50, indicating high customer satisfaction.
SeekdaPay, the first fully integrated payment solution specifically designed for the hospitality industry, exemplifies Seekda’s high-velocity R&D approach. Developed within just nine months, it was brought to market through a meticulous, step-by-step process that incorporated early feedback and pilot testing to fine-tune the product. SeekdaPay offers a wide range of payment options, including traditional credit cards and modern e-wallets like PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay.
What sets SeekdaPay apart is its seamless integration with booking systems, offering features like payment links, virtual terminals, and automated tools such as scheduled payments and integrated statements. By replacing third-party providers, it simplifies workflows and ensures PCI and PSD2 compliance, reducing friction for hospitality businesses and their customers.
This product’s success highlights the effectiveness of Seekda’s go-to-market strategy, executed in phases to gather early insights and ensure the solution met market demands. It also demonstrates how Seekda’s R&D velocity drives innovation that delivers immediate, tangible value to its users.
Kickstarting R&D Transformation: A Step-by-Step Guide
Revitalizing an R&D department that’s struggling requires a clear, focused approach that balances empathy with action. By starting with team engagement and addressing key pain points, leaders can create a foundation for positive change. This process isn’t about sweeping reforms overnight; instead, it’s about small, intentional steps that build trust, improve workflows, and boost morale. The following action points provide a roadmap for fostering a high-velocity, collaborative R&D environment—one where quick wins, knowledge sharing, and continuous improvement come together to fuel sustainable progress.
- Engage with Team Members: Begin by listening carefully to understand their challenges. Show empathy and openness to create a foundation for collaboration.
- Identify Barriers: Ask team members directly about what’s holding them back. Acknowledge any lack of trust that may exist initially—this transparency will help build rapport.
- Lead by Example: Dive into projects and features yourself to demonstrate leadership. Show the team that you’re invested and ready to support them hands-on.
- Solve a Key Issue: Address a major, visible problem (e.g., unstable deployment services) to establish credibility and demonstrate effective problem-solving.
- Show Results: Ensure that once issues are resolved, they don’t recur. Reducing repetitive work shows the team that progress is being made and inspires confidence.
- Iterate and Improve: Keep building on each success. Repeat the previous steps to gradually build momentum and reinforce a culture of continuous improvement.
- Build Trust: Foster trust through consistent actions and open, honest communication. Transparency and reliability will strengthen team relationships over time.
- Share Knowledge: Encourage a collaborative environment by having team members create test examples in familiar areas. This helps standardize processes and builds shared understanding.
- Adopt Test-Driven Development: Implement TDD practices to reduce deployment fears. Writing tests before coding establishes a foundation of quality and reliability.
- Gradually Increase Testing: Step by step, expand the number and complexity of tests. This gradual increase ensures steady improvements without overwhelming the team.
- Celebrate Successes: Acknowledge and celebrate each achievement, no matter how small. Recognizing progress builds trust and morale across the team.
- Prioritize Quick Wins: Start with the simplest projects or features to gain fast successes. These quick wins help create positive momentum and show tangible progress early on.
Conclusion
Achieving high R&D velocity requires more than just quick coding. It’s about fostering a culture of innovation, implementing agile processes, and equipping teams with the right tools. As Seekda, a Valsoft company, has demonstrated, these practices can drive exceptional product quality and high customer satisfaction. Valsoft empowers businesses within its portfolio to adopt these proven strategies, helping them accelerate their innovation cycles, optimize operations, and deliver lasting value to their users—all while positioning themselves for long-term, sustainable growth in their respective industries.