Planning and Architecture
Even a simple website project can become overly complicated or mismanaged if not given the proper planning and organization and this only becomes more true as the scope and complexity of the projects increase. Time, resources, and cost can be misallocated if there is a lack of planning, details can be missed, and subsequently the results suffer. By spending the time to plan and organize up front, all parties involved have a better understanding of the scope of work and effort involved and can approach all subsequent phases accordingly with the emphasis being put on the appropriate pieces.
The planning and architecture phase of a software development or website project does not have to be an overly complex or drawn out process. We do not believe in 'meetings for the sake of meetings' or taking a simple project and adding overhead where it is not needed. Instead, we approach each project individually and will recommend a level of planning and documentation that will provide a framework for project success.
This phase first and foremost consists of information sharing, with all parties involved gaining an appropriate understanding of the project scope. For clients this may be understanding the limitations of technologies or expanding on the aspects of the project that they thought they had worked out all details for while in fact there had been a lot of assumptions made which now need to be clarified. For our team, this will be where we gain a better understanding of the goals, any business logic, the user types and expected interactions and so on.
We will then take this information and understanding and put together documentation which outlines the scope of work, including as much detail as appropriate for the project. Complex, custom applications could require dozens of pages outlining the complex rules, interactions, and functions on each piece, involving code as well as database structure and function, while a simple website could just outline the type of content to be shown on a page and any interactions visitors might have with it.
Measure twice, cut once. We have an excellent process to help get out all of the details of your project. Proper planning is the first step towards success!