Notes from the field: twelve lessons from 15 years inside Lao workplaces

For more than 15 years I’ve worked inside organizations in Laos: hotels and resorts, a group of restaurant brands, a factory group with three sites, a children’s hospital, a research institute, an airline’s local office. Not as a visitor with a laptop, but as the person who kept their networks, front desks, kitchens’ systems, laboratories and medical equipment running.

When I started building software, I didn’t start from a feature list. I started from what those places taught me. Here are twelve of those lessons, and what each one became. Over the next four weeks they also go out, one at a time, on the Vangera Systems pages.

1. Plan for the day the signal drops

At a resort, much of the equipment I looked after was outdoors, in heat, humidity and rain. Things fail, and the network is one of them. So the technician’s day in Vangera Field is kept on the phone: checking in, the checklist, photos and the client’s signature all work without coverage, and are sent when the signal comes back.

2. Ready on day one

On a hotel’s pre-opening team, everything has to work the day the doors open. You write every task down, in order, and tick it off. Vangera HR does the same for a new organization: a setup list (sites, roles, shifts, leave types, public holidays, the clock-in kiosk, pay rules) where each item turns “Done” by itself.

3. Not everyone has a smartphone

A restaurant group has many outlets and brands, and not everyone on staff has a smartphone. In Vangera HR each outlet is a site with its own kiosk tablet, and people without a phone clock in with their staff number and a PIN.

4. One view across sites

When work is spread over several factory sites, a manager needs one picture: who’s in, who’s late, who can cover. The Today page in LohnCC shows your team right now and finds someone free to cover in a few taps.

5. Papers run out

Biomedical maintenance in a children’s hospital taught me that equipment and people both have papers that expire. Vangera HR warns before a certificate ends. Vangera Field warns before a vehicle’s papers end, and won’t plan a job for a crew without the licence the job needs.

6. Every purchase needs a signature and a record

At a research institute I ran IT and the building at the same time, including purchasing. Every purchase needed the right signatures and a record anyone could check later. Vangera Flow is that: your own request forms, who approves by amount, and every step kept.

7. Old equipment lasts when someone checks it

Hardware lasts longer when someone checks it on a schedule and writes down what was done. The checklist in Vangera Field makes every visit the same: the items, the numbers, photos and the materials used, and a return visit asked for from the phone when it’s needed.

8. People use what they understand

I taught computer classes and trained staff for years. People use what they understand, in their own language. Every Vangera app works in Lao and English, and courses in Vangera HR have text, video and a short quiz.

9. A door is only as good as its key

Early in my career I commissioned electronic security systems. In software the key is the sign-in: owners and admins sign in with two steps (a passkey or their phone), and sign-ins and approvals are recorded. Data is encrypted on the way and stored encrypted on the server. It is not end-to-end encrypted, and I say so.

10. Small teams, one accountable person

In every IT team I ran, things went best when one person owned the result. Vangera Systems works the same way: the person you talk to is the person who builds and runs your system.

11. Say what it doesn’t do

Every vendor should say out loud what their software doesn’t do. Vangera isn’t a hotel PMS, isn’t a restaurant POS, and doesn’t connect to delivery apps. Ask me, and I’ll tell you plainly.

12. See the work before the software

So I start every new organization the same way: before I show any app, I spend 60 to 90 minutes walking through how the team works today. You get three problems written in your own words and a suggested start, for free. If that’s useful to you, write to me.