Behind our leading software and content solutions are a passionate team of individuals, each driven by the goal of empowering our customers with their knowledge and skills.
In this ‘meet the team’ blog post series, we give you a glimpse into the innovative minds shaping the future of Chorus, allowing you to get to know the faces behind the platform and how we deliver value to our customers.
First up in the series is our Head of Software Engineering, Chris Toothill. As a skilled software engineer with over a decade of experience, Chris is well versed in tackling the challenges of developing and scaling software products for some global companies. He shares more about his career background and what’s involved in his role at Chorus…
1. Tell us about your career background and what led you to your current role at Chorus?
“When I was applying to university, I initially wanted to do business studies and economics. However, the course I accepted was Business Information Systems, which turned out to be mostly computer based with one or two business modules. It was a happy accident that led me down a really interesting and fulfilling career path!
“After graduating in 2014 I started working at Converged Communication Solutions, where I was responsible for developing software applications, and then managing the business process models to ensure continuous improvement.
“I then worked as a software engineer for various companies, including Indeed.com and RelyOn Nutec which is where I met Rory, one of Chorus’ Co-Founders. I joined the Chorus team full-time as Head of Software Engineering in December 2023.”
2. What are your key responsibilities in your current role?
“My role is centred around how we scale Chorus’ software products for our customers. Right now we’re in a pretty unique position in that we can give quite a lot of time to our customers, and really understand how they need to use the software. We work closely with a number of customers right now, a lot of whom are storing information in spreadsheets and various, separate, systems. We’re working on bringing all that information together in an easy to use application.
“I’m also responsible for keeping the system live and online, which is essential for hazardous industries. We have an automated tracking system so if a user ever experiences an issue, or tries to use the system in a certain way and something hasn’t worked, we automatically get notified. My job is to identify whether it’s the process or the software that’s going wrong and then fix that. The goal here is that we can resolve any issues before a user even realises they have a problem and reaches out to us.”
3. In your opinion, what’s a common issue when it comes to software development?
“In my experience, quite a lot of software can be made overly complicated, but to ensure people can get the most out of it, it’s so important to make it straightforward enough that everyone can use it easily.
“For example, the purpose of our learning management module is for people to easily access and complete a training course; so we need to make sure there’s no distractions when designing the user interface. We need to make sure that once users have completed a course, it’s easy for them to find their certificate too. It’s about combining high functionality with effortless usability, rather than overcomplicating processes that should be simple and straightforward.”
4. What’s involved in developing a new feature, how does that process start and what's on the roadmap?
“We’ve recently launched our competency module, and that started out with just a piece of paper full of notes and ideas. Unlike other providers, we understand from our previous customers that competence and learning should be part of the same learning journey. So we took the initial idea to a user group of subject matter experts and work out from there.
There are more modules we’ll be looking to develop in the future, which are mainly based on customers' needs that they’ve fed back to us, so the development process can start from a number of different points.
“For me, to really get these things working properly it all comes down to the data that people have and how we interpret that. There’s so much data available now and it’s important that employers and individuals can harness the most relevant insights to yield the best results.
“A customer might give us a spreadsheet full of data, and for us to build a new feature and make it successful for the end users, we need to marry all the data together in a cohesive way. We need to bring all the data into one place and visualise everything on a screen to make it simple to use and understand.
“This process of acquiring and organising data ultimately allows our customers to see which training courses and certifications have been completed, by who, when they were taken and when the certification expires. It sounds simple but this unlocks a huge amount of knowledge for both employers and employees, allowing them to plan better and make safer decisions on who will be conducting certain tasks based on their competencies and certifications.”
"The application roadmap is exciting, and we hope to be able to showcase our new features and modules soon, in partnership with our customers."
5.How do you make sure the software is suitable for the end user?
“Oftentimes, a lot of people who want the software for their company aren’t actually the end users. At Chorus, we try to work alongside the people who are ultimately going to be using the software where possible, because some people may use it in a different way to what we initially conceptualise.
“To make sure the software is suitable, we usually develop our UI designs and then walk our customer through the process. This is to show how the process works right at the start without any data or showing how it’s going to look, which allows us to test and refine in the early stages before fully developing a feature.
“We like to test at scale, so if there’s a simple task, it has to be easy for lots of people to use. If someone’s running a course, for instance, and they have 500 delegates enrolled, having to produce certificates and update records is very different to doing this for 5 or 10 delegates. So the functionality really depends on who will be using the software and at what scale, which is why we’ve developed parts which act differently for an individual or for an organisation.
“After the testing phase, we then work collaboratively with the customer on making adjustments, before coming up with a process of getting data into the system and showing what that would look like. Sometimes this process is straightforward, but other times users want a lot of detailed information, or there’s often a lot of changes required to make the software more usable for a larger number of people.”
6. In terms of user interface and experience, what are the key factors you consider when designing e-learning software?
“We’re always striving to make our software as usable as possible across a number of individual requirements. Quite a lot of the time, people are most interested in one specific part of data, which may differ to what someone else in a different role wants to see. For instance, a lot of administrators will be working from a desk and need to use the software for a variety of different functions, but there’s now more people than ever doing training on the move with a phone or tablet, and will use the software in an entirely different way.
“As the Head of Software Engineering, I need to ensure users are getting the same high-quality experience no matter what device they’re using. Some aspects of this can be quite challenging, because a number of our courses are interactive, or certain parts of the software needs to provide enough detail without being displayed in a way that requires a huge amount of scrolling on a mobile device.
“To overcome this, we’ve identified a lot of information that can be kept in the background and easily accessible on a mobile device, leaving the key information front and centre - such as an individual’s training record or certificates for when they’re going offshore.
“Essentially, it’s about trying to ensure that users have a level of flexibility to customise their interface based on what’s important to them as an individual. That’s why we embed a sense of flexibility within the UI, so the design isn’t catered for only one or two people.”
7. What sets chorus apart
A few aspects. Mainly we have a lot of automation and monitoring across our platforms so we know if a user is having a problem, bad experience or not seeing what they want, often before the user knows it. Secondly, we act on it, we have an extremely maintainable and scalable product that we are continuously improving based on our customer's feedback. There isn’t a day we stand still.
8. What new technologies excite you and why
I'm particularly excited about the advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning. The ability of AI to learn and adapt opens up incredible possibilities, speeds up software engineering and the intelligence to learn quicker from users. Used in the correct way it can allow engineers to focus on more complex user needs and ensure we consider all possibilities. Watch this space from a Chorus POV!
9. What would you like to do if you didn’t work in software
I’d like to be a joiner, it's fascinating how it mirrors software development in many ways, yet it's completely different. Both involve solving problems and creating something meaningful. It would be great to be away from a desk and get that satisfaction of the finished product.
10. What do you like doing in your spare time
When I'm not renovating the house or tinkering with the car, you'll find me in the great outdoors. Often mountain biking, trail running, and camping. I often try to stay as far away from a desk as possible.
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