Contract Process.
1. Initial Meeting
We discuss your software development requirements in detail. Ideally, we prefer to meet face-to-face, but we often do this over the phone.
2. Proposal
We produce a proposal based on the initial conversation. The proposal includes our thoughts on the best way to meet your requirements – often we provide an analysis of two or three options, and then make a recommendation on the best approach. We aim to make our proposals fixed-price, but this depends on how clear your requirements are.2. Proposal
3. Detailed Design
For most website/software development projects, there is usually more design work to clarify exactly how the system should work. For larger projects we prefer to do this work on zoom meeting and screenshare; for smaller projects we can work via voice call and email.
4. Update Financials & Agree Contract
If the requirements have changed during the detailed design process, we will update the project costs. We work with the customer to achieve the best balance between cost and system functionality.
We agree terms for the project. Normally we ask customers to pay in stages, with each payment due against some development milestone.
5. Development
Our team starts work on your website/software system. Our project manager keeps you updated on progress on a bi-weekly basis.
We believe strongly in involving the customer throughout the project – we use a collaborative customer project tracking system, called the PTS Customer Portal. The Portal enables customers to track the progress of their software project, providing functionality to report issues, keep up to date with tasks and issues, and view additional delivery information, such as burndown charts. It allows project stakeholders to drop pins where they want to add feedback or pinpoint an issue, automatically creating service request tickets in the project tracking system. This allows customers to take ownership of the work being done by putting them in control of progress.
For online systems we have a test version online at all times. For standalone websites/portals/software we send you regular new versions for you to try.
6. Functionally Complete
At the end of the development stage, we deliver a website/software system which is “functionally complete” – i.e. we have no code left to write for features. The system will have had internal testing on each feature, but further testing begins at this point.
We expect customers will want to be involved in system testing at this stage.
7. System Completed
Testing is complete, and the new website/software system is ready for use. If required, we can assist with deployment – which may involve importing existing data.
In the end, we will provide you free support according to the volume of the project.
