Questions and terms
What every word on this site means
Every trade has its jargon and mine is no exception. Each term below is explained by what it does, in a sentence you can repeat in a meeting without feeling ridiculous.
The terms
What is an ERP?
One system where every piece of business data is written once and everything else reads it from there: sales, stock, purchasing, invoicing and accounting connected. The long answer, with the signs you already need one.
What is Odoo?
One of those systems. It is open source, used worldwide, and it comes as applications: you can install sales without installing manufacturing. It is the one I implement.
What is the difference between Odoo Community and Enterprise?
Community is free and its source is public. Enterprise is paid per user per month and adds applications and services Community does not carry. With community modules, Community covers rather more than people assume.
What is enterprise architecture?
Deciding, and writing down, how the processes, data and systems of a company fit together so it can do what it set out to do. It keeps you from buying the same thing twice and tells you what breaks when something changes.
And solution architecture?
The same, but for one concrete system that is going to be built or integrated: what pieces it has, how they talk, and what they run on.
What is process mapping?
Writing down how the work is done today, step by step and with the name of who does each thing, and how it would look afterwards. It ends in a document your team signs. See the service.
What is BPMN?
A standard way of drawing processes, with symbols that always mean the same thing. Its advantage is that anyone who knows it reads the drawing the same way, with no explanation.
What is the C4 model?
A way of drawing a software system as a map with four levels of zoom: context for the board, the pieces that get deployed for whoever runs it, and the detail for whoever codes. See it working.
What is ArchiMate?
A standard language for drawing a whole enterprise in one model: what it wants to achieve, how it works, which applications it uses and what technology they run on. It answers what is affected when one piece changes.
What is digital or architectural maturity?
Where a company stands in the way it organises processes, data and systems. It matters because an investment that works for one company leaves another, at an earlier stage, worse off than before. See the diagnostic.
What is an Odoo migration, and why does it hurt?
Odoo ships a version a year. What is standard upgrades almost by itself; what somebody wrote to measure breaks in ways nobody sees until it runs. You can know exactly what breaks before budgeting.
What is the OCA?
The Odoo Community Association, a non-profit that maintains hundreds of free modules for Odoo. Many of them solve things people assume only the paid edition has. I contribute there as a translator and reviewer.
What is this satisficing thing?
An idea from Herbert Simon: set the level a solution has to meet and take the first one that meets it, instead of hunting for the perfect one. It is how I decide what goes into a project and what does not, and why my scopes have a written end.
About how I work
Do you only work in Ecuador?
I live in Quito and work remotely with companies in Ecuador, Colombia and the rest of Latin America, in Spanish, and with English-speaking clients in English. The digital products ship to any country.
How do you charge?
Digital products have a published price and are paid up front. Services have a fixed price per scope: half to start and half on delivery. Anything that does not fit a fixed price is quoted by the hour against a written scope.
What if it is not useful to me?
Digital products carry a full refund within fourteen days, no explanations. The full policy.
Where do I start if I don't know what I need?
With the free fifteen-minute evaluation, or by telling me the problem in your own words. There is a page for that.