Custom website or web application development projects should go through a series of steps to increase the liklihood of success. Five Technology deems the process to be critical:
If we follow the process, we maximize the likelihood of an on-time, on-budget, within-scope, delivery.
A successful project will start with requirements gathering. When done well, it is our job to ask questions about your business so that you do most of the talking. This step allows us to learn about your business and incorporate what we hear into what we design and build.
Listen and Learn is the phase of the project where we talk big picture ideas and get everything on the table. It's important that we know your business goals even if the current project is only starting off a small part of the end goal.
Now that we have gathered most of the intelligence we'll need, it is time to design, or map out a solution. Depending on the complexity of the project, you can expect a variety of deliverables in this phase.
By addressing all the system architecture challenges now, the development team will be less likely to encounter surprises during the build. Attention to detail here will keep projects on time and on budget.
A great user interface (UI) is more than what the website or web application looks like, it's how it works. Simply put, if the user interface is done well, your people will use it.
The challenge in user interface design is to keep it simple stupid (KISS) while still providing the functionality needed to get the job done. If the user interface can anticipate the user's next move, eliminate dead ends, push data to user rather than having to search for it, and automate tedious tasks, then it is well on it's way to being a great UI.
The project manager is the glue for the project, and is actively involved in all the project phases outlined above. A good project manager will:
The project manager is a communicator who's job requires them to keep both parties in the know. While not an easy, an effective project manager can be the difference between a fun, successful project and a project that fails.
Much has to happen before the project gets to the developers, but this is where the fun begins. During the implementation phase the technical design and user interface documentation is passed to the programmers who will write the code.
Without getting into too much detail, the developers will focus on three areas.
If the proceeding project phases were done well and all expectations have been communicated, the implementation should flow nicely.
The time has come to run the application through the quality assurance (QA) department. This phase is cyclical, in that QA will find bugs or missing parts and pass them back to the programmers/developers. Once the fix is made, the testing can be conducted again to ensure everything looks and functions as intended.
Testing and QA is a great way to get both teams working on the project. Not only can this help to reduce project costs, but both Five and the client get a chance to interact with the system before it is released to the masses.
There is more to do than flipping a switch in the Go Live! process. If fact, Five has a "Go Live List" that contains several items that require attention.
A subset of items you might find on that list:
Upon going live, the evolution of a living, breathing, part of your organization has just begun. You have invested a lot of time and money into a system, and managed services is a means to protect this investment.
Technology changes rapidly. What was cutting edge a year ago is depracated today. These technology trends will affect the custom application, so you'll need a dedicated team to keep things current.
As part of your managed services agreement we focus on 3 objectives:
Managed services not only protects the initial investment you made, it is the conduit to keeping everything operational and current with today's requirements.