System analyzes productivity

Small Morrisville company has 4 customers to gauge software development

Software development doesn't happen in a vacuum -- but sometimes it feels like it.

Companies, wary of intruding into the creative process, traditionally have taken a hands-off approach to managing their developers. But without insight into employees' work, companies often don't know why their projects fail.

And failure costs time and money.

Enter 6th Sense Analytics, a small Morrisville company with an automated system for measuring and analyzing developers' productivity.

6th Sense's software gives managers a window into the creative process, helping them understand how their developers build and test software. The analysis is especially critical in a global economy, with companies looking around the world for talented developers who can also help them save money, said CEO and co-founder Gregory Burnell.

"When you do that, the challenges of managing that work force multiply exponentially," he said. "There are only so many airplane tickets you can buy."

The company has signed four customers: Iconoculture, a market research firm; Defywire, a wireless infrastructure company; GXS, which makes supply-chain software; and CoreObjects, an Indian outsourcer. Its software has been used in India, China, Bulgaria, Vietnam, the Ukraine and the Philippines and is used by about 200 developers.

Companies are increasingly concerned about keeping tabs on their far-flung operations. Duke University and Booz Allen Hamilton reported in October that 48 percent of the 530 companies they surveyed cited loss of managerial control as a major risk of offshoring, a 30 percent increase in just a year.

It's a concern the company's founders know firsthand.

Burnell and Todd Olson, the company's chief technology officer and co-founder, first worked together at TogetherSoft, a Raleigh company purchased by Borland Software in 2003. Most of TogetherSoft's development occurred overseas in St. Petersburg, Moscow and Prague. Olson spent much of his time bouncing between development centers and checking up on projects.

That's when he decided there must be a better way to manage offshore operations.

He and Burnell incorporated 6th Sense two years ago, and the company received its seed funding, $1.5 million from Intersouth Partners, in November 2005. Since then, it has grown to 18 employees, introduced its product and built development, marketing and sales teams.

The company is winning industry attention, too. Next month executives will present at Demo, a high-profile conference for exhibiting new technologies.

Many offshoring services companies provide some of the same productivity measures as 6th Sense, but the market is wide open for an independent company that can offer inexpensive, objective solutions, said Thomas Koulopoulos, president of the consulting firm Delphi Group.

Companies usually don't know there's a problem in their software development until it's too late, he said.

"6th Sense is trying to move problem resolution to the point where the problem originates, rather than the point where it requires some backpedaling and additional discovery and digging to identify where the issue began," Koulopoulos said.

6th Sense's software also allows for comparisons between onshore and offshore operations.

Thus far, the company's analysis shows that offshore development centers aren't as productive as their counterparts in the United States, due at least in part to the higher turnover in countries where skilled workers are in short supply. Each new worker takes several weeks to get up to speed, and that affects a business' costs, Olson said.