1) Pre-Project Consulting
When you first come to us for software development, we will start off by learning about your idea from our perspective as software consultants. Our initial meeting will be to do a consultation with you to understand the problem you are trying to solve and what you envision the solution to be, rather than saying straight off the bat that we can develop anything you want.
This pre-project consultation from our experience is an important process and much worth the time to do before starting any custom software project. Sometimes, you may even find that custom software is not the best thing for you to do! Our aim is to build something useful, rather than sell you something you don’t need.
We will also get to know each other better and ensure that Edlution is a good fit for your project. From this preliminary round of findings, if we find that we can take on your project, we will then estimate a ballpark budget and timeline for you.
2) Technical Consultation
This is where your project really starts, long before we write any code.
Preparing for a software project involves the larger process of understanding your business, user needs, technical requirements and future opportunities etc. We will do this collaboratively – through discussion, sketching out work flows, and deciding on solutions.
The main objectives of this phase is to gather all the technical requirements of your software. The process typically includes:
- Reviewing of current systems
- Understanding your end users
- Go through your work processes and understand how users will use the new software
- Study and prioritise functions and features
This will help to:
- Confirm that the software is solving the right issues
- Define the scope of the project
- Define user roles and their key processes
- Identify critical workflows
- Lay out architecture and technical requirements and constraints
Types of deliverables:
- Project Proposal clearly stating our findings
- UI wireframes of the 1st version software (optional)
With the foundation set right, we will be more confident that what we develop is what you need.
3) Development
All of our design and development practices are aimed at producing maintainable, scalable, and highly usable software. We begin with the most essential features, so we deliver the most value to your business early-on in the process. This is known as the minimum viable product (MVP).
We believe in building your custom software incrementally, with each feature being fully-tested and fleshed-out at a time, rather than creating many incomplete features all at once. We add new features at each iteration. Our process ensures that software is always well-designed and fully tested.
4) Release & Support
The first release
You hire us to build custom software in order to make or save money. Until it is released, software can’t do either. We help you determine the proper hosting, licensing and distribution mechanism for your system. For example, whether it is internal, shared, dedicated or cloud, our expertise is available to get your software safely deployed and responsibly hosted.
In for the long haul
Whether you are a startup or have your own technical staff, we are available for the long-term to maintain and extend your application. Being the System’s developer, we can keep our maintenance costs low as we are able to identify and fix issues faster. The quality of our company and employees means you can count on us as a long-term partner.
All of your software project’s artifacts are stored in a version control system. We have a disciplined and tested backup procedure. Our backups are stored both locally and offsite. Our continuous integration servers are always watching your project, building and running all the tests on every change.
