Smart applications:
the intelligent approach
Custom software development needs intelligence – and not the artificial kind. What makes your applications work as a smooth set of solutions is human judgment: treating your project requirement as a connected process from Day One, in the knowledge that decisions made that day should still look good on Day 1,000.
It’s a process that involves understanding. Critical assessment. Openness to learning. And the skills to iterate that learning into new versions and releases of your software, each one getting that little better, flowing that little more smoothly. Here’s the lowdown on our smart approach. It’s in six parts.
Requirement gathering
The first stage involves a lot more listening than talking: it’s about understanding what success looks like, getting to grips with your ideas, and turning those into concrete specifications that describe your solution. It’s why we put business analysts in your office and make sure they liase with our software architects day-by-day. There’ll also be a dedicated software consultant, project manager, and product owner to take responsibility for different areas.
Smart applications design
The next stage is to design the custom software application itself – starting with its architecture. Every feature, every data source, every action and task is accounted for, with detailed screen descriptions, page mockups, process diagrams, and workflows.
Software implementation
Now it’s time to implement. It starts with a work plan that outlines expectations of everyone on the team: project manager, development team, and the Scrum Master who oversees the Agile methodology we use for most of our projects. Implementation then happens – over a planned series of Sprints, each focused on a specific deliverable DevOps, Software Integration, and Continuous Delivery / Continuous Improvement. (SI, CD, and CI.) Yes, there’s a lot of acronyms.
Testing and verification
The greater part of success is testing …. and testing … and testing again. It takes a QA (Quality Assurance) strategy – created to strength-test the application across a variety of tasks and loads – including unit testing, integration testing, regression testing, performance testing, system testing, acceptance testing, security testing, and usability testing with the people who’ll use it. Often aiming for compliance with the ISO standards we all know and love.
Release to production
Creation happens in a controlled environment; once your custom software application is ready for your business, it’s released into a live one. Data sources are connected and tested; quality procedures are agreed and implemented; support resources are set up. And then the real value-adding work begins: application monitoring, user training, security structures and service requests. And that can be 24/7 if you want.
(And parallel bugfixing)
A key benefit of outsourcing is to get a different perspective on your business challenges. We apply the same principle to patching and fixing – it’s done by a different team not connected with the development process. This means problems can be caught early and fixed smartly, including problems never foreseen by the original developers. Why do we do this? Because that’s what happens in the real world – the unexpected. With Strypes, you’ll expect it.
