A typical Shift software project life cycle—from identifying needs to project delivery.
Over the past several months we have shared with you our successes, our company culture, our way of doing things in the sector. We have also explained in layman terms certain industry concepts that we find important to share with you. However we have yet to describe our project life cycle. Of course, we do not work out of sight once a contract has been signed. We work closely with you to ensure your full satisfaction at every step of the project. Our operational approach is summed up in several simple steps – simple but very important for the success of your project!
Analysis | Prototype | Infrastructure | Development | Quality Assurance | Deployment
Project Analysis
If, following an initial meeting, you decide to move forward with a project analysis, we will plan several meetings to determine your software requirements targeting the most beneficial areas for you and your organization. We will create an inventory of your existing applications and make a determination of your current status. Next, we will plan the stages to be followed to arrive at your desired result.
At this stage, we will define the scope of your “MVP” or Minimum Viable Product. The purpose of the MVP is to define the minimal required functions offered by our software solution that will allow your company to use it. In this way, we focus our efforts on the key functions necessary to your company, at the same time minimizing the time it takes to deliver the project.
The Prototypes
The prototype development stage is, for us, an integral part of the project analysis. This stage consists of conceptualizing the application user interface and presenting how it is used. Here we confirm that the application’s design works well for your users, and that the proposed project meets the needs and procedures of your company. Our team places a great deal of importance on user experience in order to facilitate your employees mastering the application and thus minimizing the needs for employee training.
Infrastructure
While we highly recommend Microsoft’s Cloud services, it is possible to install our applications on your servers. The choice is yours. But remember that it is much easier to do maintenance work remotely using Microsoft’s services as our applications are available to you at all times, whether you are at the office or at home.
Project Development
At this stage, we’ve established your expectations, your requirements and your choice of infrastructure. We are now ready to start developing your application working within these parameters. Our team will use our application development platform to save you time.
Testing and Quality Assurance
Our quality assurance procedure goes beyond ensuring application functionality – it covers all aspects of the application from code to design. We place special attention on the details and quality of the code. We follow a rigorous procedure to ensure an optimal code that more than meets industry standards. This step makes correcting bugs easier and faster. We carry out a series of internal tests and are always happy to assist if by chance you discover a bug. ?
Project Deployment
Typically, it takes between 3 and 4 weeks to develop the first version of your application. It is important to understand that the first version will not be perfect nor complete. However, it will allow you to benefit quickly from our work up to that point, as well as to provide feedback that will inform adjustments to the following versions. These subsequent versions generally take two weeks each to roll out. As each version is deployed, you will be able to see how the project is advancing and your team will have the opportunity to provide further feedback.
Often during this stage you will start to have a multitude of new ideas and think of new functions to add to the application. All feedback will be considered and given a level of priority while we focus our efforts on the essential functions identified during the analysis stage. Non-essential functions will be moved to a later stage of the development process in order to limit costs and to ensure your project’s success! ?
The identification of your requirements is a crucial stage in the project life cycle and serves to plan each of the following stages. Following this stage, we present the initial user interface templates and application functions followed by a discussion with our clients. Next, the application is developed and the client is given the opportunity to see the work advance and to use the software before it is put in production. This last stage, the most important, requires the involvement of all parties. In this way the Group Shift team ensures that no function has been overlooked and that the application is error free. The opportunity to use and test the application and provide feedback occurs throughout the project life cycle.
