Recent efforts to bring about a digital transformation in Lebanon's public sector have stirred the public's imagination of what a new Lebanese state could look like, with tools like IMPACT for the first time enabling the fair and transparent provision of public services. We spoke to the tech teams at Siren Analytics behind these innovations to learn what it takes to power this change.

Agile teams with efficient communication

Big teams mean more coordination and bureaucracy - a challenge if you've got rapidly developing needs and tight deadlines.

"For this reason, we treat each team as a small start-up or company," said Antoine Samaha, Lead Software Engineer. "Each team should be able to handle the main features of the project by itself, generally being composed of a project manager, three front-end and three back-end developers.

Antoine and Dany during a brainstorming session

To keep everyone aligned, Antoine explained that the teams work in two-week sprints that are kicked off by a 'scrum' where everyone collaboratively agrees on tasks and assigns points to them reflecting their complexity. Communication and collaboration is encouraged through daily stand-up meetings, where team members update each other on what they have done, what they are working on, and any difficulties they are facing.

For lead front-end developer, Ghinwa Hasbani, these daily meetings are especially important when urgent, unforeseen tasks are a regularity. "Working on IMPACT, we were in fact more than agile,” she said. "There were changing daily requirements from clients, and we had to continuously deploy new releases and fix bugs."

A culture of support

During sprints, a project manager binds the team together, acting like an "older brother coordinating between people, listening to them, and providing technical help where needed," Antoine said. The lead front-end and lead back-end developers on each team are additionally there to mentor - rather than manage- staff.

"Last summer we had seven interns under the Youth4Governance program," Ghinwa said. "I introduced them to the team, the work, the company, and followed up on their progress and gave them feedback. Some of them later joined as full-timers and have since delivered separate modules or full features alone. It was so satisfying to see that I helped them achieve this."Antoine and Dany in a brainstorming session

For Dany Mezher, an advisor on strategy and governance at Siren Analytics, the start-up mentality and strong collegial spirit in the company create further support mechanisms. "It's an open space and people talk to each other and rush to help out," he said. "Recently we were discussing a problem with a colleague. Ten of us end up working with him to solve it until 2 a.m. Nobody asked us to do that, but I could count on others to do the same for me if I had a problem."

Growth and development

For Antoine, exposing developers to the core business problem in each project supports their growth by giving them a chance to bring their ideas to the table. Encouraging full stack development, where front end developers are pushed to take on backend tasks, and vice versa, equally leads to more capable, productive teams.

"Developers are solution finders, not just coders," he said. "Always bring them directly to the problem at hand. Having full stack skills is also much more interesting for devs, and it cuts out waiting times as they know what they want and can do themselves."

Involving developers in the problem and solution analysis also helps streamline projects and ensure the end product is fit-for-purpose. "If there's nobody technical dealing with the busines requirements, the solutions proposed can sometimes be impossible to implement," Ghinwa said. "Developers often provide helpful inputs that can be implemented easily and with greater effect than the solutions suggested by non-technical people."

Team, rather than individual, evaluation

When a team owns its projects and can implement them independently, they also own its accomplishments. The playfully named teams in Siren Analytics, which reference cartoons such as Grandizer and The Powerpuff Girls, use the project management software Jira to track their ‘velocity, or the number of points they achieve per sprint. These metrics indicate the degree to which team members are collaborating effectively.

Sprint complete!

While performance indicators are in place to monitor progress, it's hard to beat positive feedback from the public as a force to keep pushing forward. "I can't tell you the satisfaction you get when people are tweeting that their Covid-19 vaccination code was accepted for travel to the EU and thanking Siren," Dany said, referencing the EU's certification of the vaccination QR code issued via IMPACT.

For lead backend developer Batoul Ess, this personal touch is what it's all about. "Working with Siren always means working on something special, something that touches people. It’s more than just a project that we deliver and then go home."