Dataviz Software Development & Consulting

By and large, specialized companies deliver much more value to their clients and partners. From the very beginning, Black Label has specialized in JavaScript and TypeScript development and its various frameworks: React, Angular and Vue.js. We’ve also been Highcharts specialists from early on, which is one of the most popular charting tools and data visualization libraries in the world.

There is no possibility to squeeze almost two decades of technological expertise into one paragraph –  so we’ve listed the technologies, frameworks and tools we have been using on client projects over the last few months: 

Front-end technologies: 

Highcharts, JavaScript, TypeScript, React, Next.js, React Native, Vue.js, Angular, Svelte, RxJS, HTML5, CSS3, SCSS, jQuery, Three.js, Tailwind, Vuetify, Bull, Redux, Redux-Saga, Auth0, GraphQL, Material UI, Leaflet, Webpack, Vite, Turbopack, WebGPU, WebAPI, SVG 

Back-end technologies: 

Javascript & Typescript, Node.js, NestJS, Express.js, Jest, Mocha, Bull, Auth0, Go, Rust, Docker, Firebase, GraphQL, MySQL, SQL, NoSQL, PostgreSQL, PgPromise, T-SQL, Kubernetes, MongoDB, PHP, REST, Redis, AWS, Azure,  C#, Django, Java,  C++,  R

AI & Data Analysis: 

LangChain, ChatGPT, Python, Prompt Engineering, OpenAI API, TensorFlow 

Testing Tools:

Jest, Cypress, Karma, QUnit, React Testing Library,  Selenium, Postman

For each of our core services we have a separate pricing structure governed by one philosophy: Flexibility.  

We scope every project to suit the specific needs of each of our clients and IT partners.  We design a collaborative discovery process that is customized for the size and complexity of each project and we offer multiple cooperation scenarios based on the budgetary and time constraints of our clients. 

To deliver the most value for our clients we estimate a Fixed Price for each development phase for many projects. For the largest long-term software development partnerships we are also able to offer an extensive no-string Trial Period (up to  two weeks) so that clients can begin working with one of our developers to see if their experience, technical expertise and personality fit their needs.

For both Highcharts Projects and longer-term software development projects, some clients prefer a Time & Materials pricing approach. For all Time & Materials projects we offer Hourly Buckets where we are able to give additional discounts if the number of hours exceeds a specific threshold. Additionally,  more and more partners need ongoing or embedded Dataviz Consulting which we also scope in both Time & Materials or Fixed Price estimates depending on client preference. 

We usually don’t charge for non-technical roles such as Project Managers or Scrum Masters, even though they are often highly involved in projects on many levels. For all projects we issue VAT Invoices with detailed hourly timesheets attached giving our partners full transparency. We accept payments in multiple currencies through our global digital payment provider and international bank transfers.

Long story short: whatever suits you best.

With more than 160 successfully developed solutions for our clients all over the world, we have used almost every project methodology beginning with Agile – using the most popular of i’s frameworks: Kanban, Scrum, and a mix of two called Scrumban. We are always happy to help our clients to implement elements of other methodologies including Extreme Programming (XP), Feature-Driven Development (FDD), Rapid Application Development (RAD), and Test-Driven Development (TDD). The most common setup is to find the best ratio of the above to ensure that the project succeeds and our collaboration blossoms. 

We often implement Toyota’s Lean methodology in our projects, but we are just as happy when working with the good old Waterfall approach. With one of our largest clients we had a chance to test the PRINCE2 methodology.

By far the most popular methodology among our client base is Scrum. If you’re not familiar with this particular agile methodology, or you’re currently working in a ‘scrum-like setup’ but would like to boost your efficiency and transparency, we’re more than happy to help you implement best practices and even run a workshop for you – free of charge.

With this said, we’re not Scrum purists by any means.  We believe that whatever works for a given project is what should be used – better can be the enemy of good.  We often analyze our partners’ processes and propose changes to improve performance – also free of charge.

Additionally, we’ve learned that using the Kanban methodology can be a more efficient way of running projects with smaller teams, so this is what we tend to stick to.

We try to seamlessly integrate with our clients so we always use the communication and project management tools of their choice. We most often use a mix of the following: Slack, Teams, Github, Github Projects, GitLab, BitBucket, Asana, Trello, Miro, Figma, FigJam, Targetprocess, Monday.com, ClickUp, Notion, Confluence, StoriesOnBoard, Intercom, Sentry, Zeplin, the Google and Adobe Suites and of course good old Jira to keep our projects running smoothly.

For Highcharts, Dataviz Development projects and even smaller general Software Development projects we usually start with one or two developers depending on the scope of the project, and then we can scale the project from there. We can easily scale up or down our involvement as we know how mission-critical resource flexibility can be for our partners. 

For larger long-term Software Development projects we’ve observed over time that the optimal team size is three developers and a Scrum Master although many projects have also started with a one-developer limited trial.  For more complicated App and Interface ecosystems we suggest that several teams collaborate together in a team-of-teams schematic.

We adapt to client needs and standards in terms of hourly reporting. For both larger Fixed Price projects and Time & Materials projects we present comprehensive monthly reports detailing the hours logged in the project. Internally we rely on an advanced Resource Management tool (Agileday) as well as multiple Project Management tools (see full list above) for increased transparency inside our teams.

Our company culture is built around trust so we don’t look over each other’s shoulders but instead use pair programming and other internal mentoring initiatives to help keep each other on track. We naturally understand the importance of transparency to our partners so every developer reports and often comments on a daily basis about the hours they log for a specific task or project which we review internally before submitting our monthly report.

Once again, flexibility is the key when it comes to how many hours each Developer works on a given project.

The average month has 168 possible working hours, however, in practice, our Developers are able to work for our partners for around 140 hours as they also spend  time gaining new skills, deepening their domain knowledge and helping other colleagues improve their skills and code.

Now, this doesn’t mean that every Developer has to spend the full 140 hours a month of their capacity working on one specific project. It’s pretty common that the development team consists of developers working less than the maximum of their capacity, giving you quite a bit of flexibility to increase firepower or scaleback resources as the need arises. In other words, you can tell us how many hours you are able to invest in your project in a given month and we will adjust accordingly.

It goes without saying that we charge only for the hours spent on actual work in each project and for many of our clients we calculate the project in development days rather than hours.

In short, our teams are incredibly stable and we work hard to maintain that stability. The longer a Developer works with their team and with a project, the more efficient the Developer and the team become. Of course if and when the need arises we can shift developers between projects, especially when we see an opportunity to increase efficiency or to help a partner scale up.

We have been fortunate at Black Label to have had minimal Developer turnover over the last decade and a half with close to a 92% retention rate. This has contributed greatly to the stability of our teams over time and eliminated unnecessary resource expenditures for knowledge transfer about projects for both us and our partners.

Relationships are crucial so we establish your point of contact right at the beginning of the discovery phase of your project –  you will most likely meet this person on your first call with Black Label and this will most likely be the team supervisor, Project Manager, Scrum Master or dedicated Account Manager for your project.

Additionally, we encourage all of our clients and partners to keep a direct line of communication open with Greg Iwacz (CEO) and Grzesiek Blachliński (COO) or Thymn Chase (Head of Growth) – who are always available to answer any questions and help improve the project workflow.

The most efficient teams are self-organized teams – this means there is no chain of command nor just one specific problem-solver. Each team tackles every issue they face internally, however there is always a Project Manager, Scrum Master or other supervisor that facilitates all the processes and monitors the team’s communication and overall project efficiency.