How Agile product development methodology fueled Quadcode's growth

Not so long ago, banking was a tedious undertaking that typically required physically going to brick-and-mortar banks, even for basic tasks. However, that has changed now – banking for customers can be a completely digital experience if they desire it.

Fintech companies like Quadcode are at the forefront of revolutionising the financial industry. Today, the company manages numerous projects in investment, banking, and SaaS, each of which acts as a think tank for products in their respective industries – a next-generation trading platform, neo-banking solutions, proprietary trading, and educational tools, among others.

Quadcode's mission is to provide tailor-made solutions that effectively tackle the most pressing challenges facing the modern fintech industry. Over the course of a decade, they've gained valuable insight into managing change, fostering company growth, and, most importantly – how to remain flexible and competitive in the fast-evolving fintech industry.

The company has undergone a significant transformation, growing from a small startup to a multinational fintech enterprise with offices in five countries and a workforce of 700. This expansion has required ongoing evolution and adaptation of new work methodologies. And Quadcode has discovered a formula that works for them – a combination of the Agile Trains methodology and a product development approach that emphasises flexibility and experimentation.

What is Agile Trains methodology and what are the pros & cons

In 2019, Quadcode recognised the need to focus its development efforts on implementing the most valuable business projects rather than everything in between. To achieve this, they introduced end-to-end planning that spanned from company strategy to product roadmaps and quarterly tasks for development teams.

This led to the launch of their first Agile Train – a group of Agile teams that work on a specific business area of the company. Each Train includes all the specialists needed to implement projects and features in a particular product or infrastructure area.

The result? The teams became more focused and efficient. And there were more positive aspects, such as:

• The Train's key advantage is its ability to have all the required personnel and skills to implement any feature for a specific product. 
• A product manager can enhance the overall communication culture and accelerate feature implementation by dedicating sufficient time to their team.
• The team benefits from a more coordinated vision, roadmap, and clear priorities for both short-term and long-term goals. 
• The Train staff is intimately familiar with their products and entirely focused on them, allowing them to provide the best technical solutions. 
• By reducing the time spent on planning and meetings, the team can focus more on actual development and testing.

Nevertheless, this methodology has its cons, too. The biggest one being that not everyone on the team is open to the fact that, by design, the product manager assigns tasks and limits autonomy. Thus, Quadcode has combined this methodology with a flexible product development strategy. 

Let us explain how it works. 

A flexible and iterative product development approach 

An age-old question: how can a company determine which ideas are worth pursuing and which ones should be discarded? 

Most companies will recognise that implementing every seemingly promising idea or haphazardly borrowing from competitors is not feasible due to limited resources.

Quadcode's approach to product development is centered around formulating hypotheses regarding product enhancements, then testing them with an initially modest investment of resources. This method prioritises flexibility, small iterative movements, and a focus on experimentation. 

This approach to product development is combined with the Agile process approach. In practice, it means that each major business area, be it banking or SaaS, has a business owner (responsible for business metrics and large-scale development) and product owner (responsible for product metrics and process metrics for Agile teams).

After conducting market research, customer development, and competitor analysis, the business team formulates hypotheses about what needs to be refined in the product and creates a task backlog. Then, all hypotheses are tested before being approved for development.

Throughout the product development process, Quadcode encourages its employees to contribute their own ideas for improving the product. The company places great importance on ensuring that every member of the communication chain has executive power: the business evaluates the ideas, the engineers propose the best technical solutions for implementation, and the product managers coordinate workflows.

What's next for Quadcode: a look at their core products and future plans

Quadcode's adoption of the Agile methodology has fueled remarkable growth in their flagship product, the trading platform, with the user count soaring from 950,000 to over 150 million users across 170+ countries.

What's next on the roadmap?

Quadcode aims to expand its platform ecosystem by offering a variety of user-friendly instruments such as Forex and investment products, integrating alternative payment methods, creating more banking products, and launching partnership programs with reward and bonus incentives for existing and potential customers – all supported by their established product development approach.

It appears that fintech is poised to continue shaking up traditional banking and trading services. The beneficiaries of this transformation are customers, who can access an ever-expanding range of services – and, of course, companies that can stay ahead of the curve and cater to the ever-evolving digital needs.

Quadcode is expanding its team and bringing together industry experts to create robust fintech solutions. With over 30 open positions available for middle and senior-level professionals, Quadcode is seeking talented individuals to join their team. Check out the current job openings at https://jobs.quadcode.com/jobs