Development Process and Technology Blueprint
Development Process and Technology Blueprint
How We Work
We use the best software development processes available today beginning with a foundation/discovery Technology Blueprint phase and then an Agile-like development phase to deliver your brilliant solution. On-going client input, assessment, and responses are incorporated often into a finely tuned customized solution that is efficient, user-friendly, and directly targeted toward meeting your business requirements. We break a project down into phases so it stays in focus and on budget. At LuminFire you get to speak directly with the developer of your custom application or web site so you have more control and input.
Phase 1: Discover and Define
Our development process is a collaborative effort between your team and ours – so we want to make sure that our skills, expertise, and process is what will best solve your unique needs by enhancing processes, strengthening resource management, improving efficiency, and expanding profitability for your business.
Before beginning to build a custom application, we start with a Technology Blueprint. This allows us to assess your existing information systems and current business processes to determine what your business objectives are in seeking a custom application.
Getting a basic understanding of your business is the first critical foundation step. How will the system advance your business strategy? Who performs the steps in the current business process? What information will the system produce and use? What are the major steps in the business process? Who benefits from the products and services this system will produce?
We will develop a written plan in the form of the Tech Blueprint document that details proposed solutions or enhancements that address the specific requirements of your company. The blueprint provides you a well developed and recommended action plan that meets your budget requirements. It concludes with a schedule of how each phase might be implemented, along with what we believe to be a realistic estimate of effort required. The more knowledge we have about the project as revealed through this phase, the more accurate and comprehensive this estimate will be. The Blueprint phase is billed at an hourly rate and averages around 40 hours.
The purpose of the Blueprint document is to provide you the information required so you have an accurate and informed decision point as to how you want to proceed.
Phase 2: Design and Develop
Through an iterative Agile-like process, we will work together to build your custom solution. After some initial work that often utilizes components in our pre-built fmIgnite solution, we build a stable and functional prototype. We put this application into your environment so we can test it, refine capabilities, and enhance in stages. The advantage here is that you get your hands on an actual working application instead of on paper documents. This makes it much easier to envision exactly what features you need.
Phase 3: Deploy and Denouement
When the solution is in the final stages, we integrate it with your existing systems and implement the live system. This includes a final import of any existing data and connection to other systems in your environment. You then test and assure the quality of the solution as it goes into production.
For a period after launch, we monitor and analyze how the solution performs against the success criteria defined in the initial phase. We finalize documentation for the project and present thoughts on how to approach the next generation of the solution. We can conduct training sessions for users or assist in making organizational decisions to help you support the new solution. The key here is to evaluate the new system and ensure that we have met all expectations.
The Technology Blueprint
“You can use an eraser on the drafting table or a sledge hammer on the construction site.”
— Frank Lloyd Wright
The first discovery phase of working together to find the right fit technology solution for you we define as the Tech Blueprint. It will ensure that we have the best plan to make your organization more effective, productive, and profitable.
During the development of the blueprint, LuminFire will perform analysis and design services. The goal is to review a high-level picture of a total solution and its associated components as well as various options that may work for your budget. This process allows us to make realistic estimates of overall costs and development schedules and you will be able to evaluate the initial picture of your project with minimal financial commitments.
The product generated from this process is the Tech Blueprint document that will contain:
- Clear, well-defined, high-level definition of the overall purpose of the total solution.
- Listing of your primary goals and objectives for this project.
- Breakdown of the associated components of the solution with a description of its purpose and part in the overall solution.
- Analysis workgroup size, hardware, software, networking considerations.
- Evaluation and analysis of current systems and business procedures including statistics and system diagrams.
- Listing of layouts, sample screen shots, procedures, features, and reports required.
- Results of tests of connection/integration with identified external systems via APIs, etc.
- Initial ERD (Entity Relationship Diagram) showing the primary functional relationships for a potential custom built application.
- Overview of recommendations for meeting requirements with a custom solution or possible off-the-shelf software that will fulfill Client requirements and make your organization more effective, productive, and profitable.
- An estimate of the costs, return on investment, and suggested timeline for the project.
In order to prepare an accurate and complete Blueprint, we will interview key personnel who can provide insight into the overall and detailed purposes of the system. The more difficult it is to meet with these personnel, the more difficult and longer process it will be for us to complete the document. We reserve the right to request more interview time with these personnel as needed so that a complete and accurate document can be created. Once we have completed information gathering and initial prototyping of various connections, we will return a completed Blueprint document within two weeks of the last interview with key personnel.
The fee for the analysis service and the creation of the Blueprint document is based upon the hours needed to complete interviews, prototype connections, create documentation, and present findings to the client. The size of the project or budget determines how long the blueprint phase should be. Typical blueprint development projects range from 30-80 hours. We can limit the scope of the blueprint to shorter times for smaller projects. These services are invoiced according to terms in our signed master service agreement.
In the interest of making the most of our time, we request any previous work that would be helpful information during our analysis so that we do not need to reinvent the wheel. This will assist in scoping the work and save you time and money in the blueprint development process. We provide a detailed list of questions and key items you can provide to us that will move the development forward quickly.
We may have had initial budget discussions. If there is an absolute firm budget that we must meet for this year or future years where you are preparing to invest in technology we need to know that up front so that we can guide the solution toward something that fits your needs. The overall solution will be a combination of hardware, software, and our time to develop and implement the solution. It's to your advantage to share your budget information with us.
During future work, the Tech Blueprint document will act as a base and plan. The information contained in it will be refined and solidified during design and building phases.
Our standard billable rate is $190/hour. Most clients pre-pay in 40 hour increments to take advantage of our $30/hour VIP discounted savings that prioritizes your project in our work queue. To get started we can send you an agreement and invoice for the first 40-80 hours depending on the anticipated size of your project.
When constructing a building you don't start until you have the plan in hand. With custom development, the tech blueprint is a critical step to creating a successful technology solution. It will provide you with the information required to have a successful decision point for your project.
