Autodesk

San Rafael, CA (Bay Area)
$1.8 billion market leader in CAD and data for architectural and product design, media, and entertainment

Product and business-unit use of SyncDev on new and next-generation 3D CAD, product data management, architectural and entertainment software.

Autodesk found a large market in 2D CAD software sold through dealers for $2,500 per seat. A few years later they needed to expand into 3D CAD, seemingly a straightforward transition. The 3D team used SyncDev and spec’d what they believed was the Minimum Viable Product that the existing staff could develop. But SyncDev soon proved otherwise. Autodesk did not have the required know how to reliably design and code must-have features. “SyncDev saved us hundreds of thousands, maybe a million dollars, by not bringing out the wrong product,” the CAD unit co-GM said.  Instead, Autodesk bought a company whose product already matched the spec they had validated with SyncDev.

Next, a data-management product team used SyncDev. They test sold their product to four customers in Detroit for two days.  At the end of the second day they were late for a night flight to Rochester, NY and were unable to debrief. Aboard the flight, in a darkened airliner cabin, John, the chief engineer typed intensely on his laptop under the overhead light. “John, can I gather the team around to debrief today’s meetings,” a team member asked. “Not now,” he grumbled. “I don’t want to get beaten up tomorrow like I was the last two days.”

Had it not been for those embarrassing meetings in Detroit, when would the team have discovered design problems? Would it have been quarters later at beta, or when the product failed in the market? Would they even have discovered the problem? Would they have fixed it? All are moot because SyncDev exposed the problem because the team had a shared experience; the fix was uncontested and was done before the next meeting.