What it means when we build software with a client team
When On-Off Group builds software with a client team, our designers, researchers and developers work alongside your people to build the actual thing: a rough prototype first, then an AI feature, internal tool or production release, with a before and after number attached to it.
If you know On-Off Group from a workshop, this is the other half of what we do: building the thing with your team.
We build working prototypes, AI features, internal tools, and software that goes to production with your customers or your branch staff using it. Our designers, researchers and developers sit with your people and build it with them.
If you are trying to show your boss something real from the customer journey work this month, this is the part of On-Off that does that.
What the problem usually looks like
The idea already exists. Somebody wrote it up in a PowerPoint, it went round three approvals, and the slides now have a target date on them. Nobody has built anything.
Then the build starts and the slides turn out to be wrong. The field the form asks for is not the field the customer has. The AI feature needs a document nobody uploads. The internal tool assumes branch staff have two screens. None of that shows up in a review meeting, because the slides read fine there.
There is a second problem. Six months later somebody asks whether it worked, and there is no before number, so the honest answer is a shrug. We have sat with teams who had a live pilot and no before number to compare it to.
So building starts with two things: a rough version somebody can actually click, and one number recorded before you touch anything.
What we build, in order
First, a rough working version. Something a person can open on their phone and try, even if the data behind it is faked and the edges are ugly. That is where the slides get corrected.
Second, the real feature. Once real users have tried the rough version, the scope is usually smaller and clearer than the original write-up. That is the version we build properly, with real data and real code.
Third, the thing that keeps running. Internal tools and production releases: the admin screen the operations team needs, the AI feature that drafts a response and hands it to a human, the onboarding flow that is now live for customers.
Each step cuts work out of the next one. Most AI ideas get smaller once someone has tried the rough version, and that is the cheapest time to cut them down.
Fixing the customer journey before adding AI
AI on a broken journey automates the failure. If applicants already give up at document upload, putting a chatbot in front of that flow just gets them to the same place faster.
So the journey work comes first, and it is short. On a series of five-day design sprints with a large insurer, customer-facing web journeys that had previously taken six months or more were designed and tested with customers in two weeks and live in four. That is 26 weeks down to four weeks. Completion rates on the new journeys rose 80 per cent and the old drop-off points disappeared. The client measured it, not us.
Once the flow works, an AI feature on top of it has somewhere sensible to sit. There is a public write-up of a design sprint with Meralco if you want to see what one of those weeks looks like from the inside.
Who is in the room
A team from Manila: designers, facilitators, researchers and developers. On-Off Group was founded by a UK designer in 2015 and has worked with Philippine banks and insurers since then, including BPI, Security Bank, Metrobank, AIA, AXA, Sun Life and Insular Life, plus Meralco, Firefly Electric and the Asian Development Bank.
Who you put in matters as much as who we put in. We want the people who will own the thing afterwards: a developer, whoever runs the flow day to day, and at least one person from operations or a branch who knows what customers actually do. If nobody from your side is in the build, all you get at the end is a handover document.
The training is set up the same way as the build. Teams learn the working method by shipping one thing with us, which is the same reason a custom workshop built with your team uses your real work rather than a case study.
The number you keep
Every build gets one number agreed at the start, in your words. Turnaround time on the onboarding flow. Completion rate. Handling time per case. Applications a branch can process in a day.
Record it on the current process first, even roughly. Counting by hand is fine. Then the pilot has something to be compared against, and when your boss asks whether it worked you have two numbers.
When the number turns out small, we say so. Turnaround time going from nine days to seven is a small result, and we will report it as nine to seven.
What to do this week
- Pick one flow that is already annoying people: onboarding, claims, a branch process.
- Write down the one number you would use to prove it improved, and find out whether anyone is measuring it today.
- Ask your team for the roughest version of the idea that a real user could click, and set a date for someone outside the project to try it.
- List who on your side would own the thing after it ships, and get them into the build from the start.
- Take the AI feature out of the plan until the underlying flow works end to end. More of the builds and the sprints behind them are at onoffgroup.com.
More on Building software
- Software development for banks and insurers in the Philippines: how we build with your team
- Prototype or production build: which to commission next
- What building an AI feature with us involves and how long it takes
- How to take an AI prototype to production without a six month project
- Instead of a platform project: ship one customer journey, measure it, then widen
- Everything on Building software
Questions people ask
Is On-Off Group a training company or a software company?
Both. Since 2015 the work has run across four lines: training, customer research, diagnosis, and building software and products with client teams.
Do you build with our developers or instead of them?
With them, where they exist. Our developers, designers and researchers work alongside your people, and the code and decisions stay with your team.
How quickly can something be in front of customers?
On a series of five-day design sprints with a large insurer, web journeys that used to take six months or more were designed and tested with customers in two weeks and live in four.
What if we have no before number?
Then measuring comes first. Pick one number, usually turnaround time or completion rate, record it on the current flow, and compare after the pilot.
On-Off Group trains teams, tests products with real customers, finds where a transformation has stalled and builds what gets it moving, for banks, insurers and enterprises in the Philippines, since 2015. How we help with building software.
