The Axispoint Engagement Process
Discovery
Our business process begins with internalizing your business process
In the discovery phase, we will listen to your specific goals, explore your existing systems, and craft a plan for a technological solution. Expect face-to-face meetings and interactive design sessions with our top analysts, architects and system engineers.
Out of this intensive collaboration, you’ll have a clear schedule and timeline for the project; confidence in our mutual understanding of the problem; and a scope and architecture for a solution that is tailored to fulfill your needs, hopes and wishes. Axispoint’s meticulous discovery process lays the foundation for our future success.
At the close of our discovery phase, we’ll have developed:
- a “project vision”, consisting of epics, a model of the project domain and business processes, and the non-functional requirements.
- an initial architecture; a high-level design of the software system to be built
- a suggested project approach; recommendations on the delivery methodology, including duration, project cadence, and team structure.
We know your challenge, and now we pave the road to solve it.
When we have a rough idea of who you are, what you need, and how we’re going to solve it, we begin the development project with a short 1-4 week inception, or "Sprint 0" phase. (If your project didn’t call for a discovery phase, we’ll do most of those activities during this phase instead.)
During inception, we define a prioritized list of features that form the basis of future development work, then organize teams and work environments, ensuring that construction can begin unhindered.
You’ll be introduced to a project team we assemble specifically for you. Your team will work closely with you to ensure the product features meet your criteria before they’re “done,” brainstorm and storyboard user interfaces (the screens that you’ll see and work with in the final product), and prepare you for the construction process. We’ll give you a clear idea as to what we’ll need from you and how you can monitor our progress. Sometimes, we’ll also deem it useful to undertake a prototype or proof of concept to verify that we’re on the right track
At the end of inception, you’ll have:
- a prioritized product backlog,
- a thorough understanding of the development work that will be completed at the beginning of the development phase,
- a scheduled cadence to follow for the remainder of the engagement, and
- established development environments.
Inception ensures complete alignment on the expectations and activities during the development phase and will provide you a detailed path to actualizing your software vision.
Inception
Development
And now... we build
Up until now your big idea has existed in detailed plans and maybe even in dreams.
Development is the phase where it becomes reality… real reality, like the kind you can see. With our agile software development approach, you’ll be able to see working code in as little as two weeks after we begin.
The development phase is made up of successive time-boxed “iterations” (or sprints), where each iteration takes the same form. Typically our iterations last two to four weeks, depending on your project requirements.
Why iterations? We recognize that challenges arise and requirements change throughout the development process. Building a product with non-iterative, whole components, called the “waterfall” approach, makes design adaptation costly and time-consuming - just imagine altering your cookie recipe once they’re in the oven. Iterative design consists of cross-functional teams working simultaneously on a series of features, meaning not only a faster build time, but a flexible and efficient development process.
To begin, an iteration is assigned a series of features to implement in each sprint, the so-called sprint planning. You, as the product owner, will join us in a detailed dialogue about the features to implement in the next sprint, so that you can decide which stories to prioritize. Our team has daily check-ins (“scrums”) where progress is reported and issues can be raised. The features are implemented and tested, and at the end of each iteration, they are presented to you in the sprint demo. We then hand the working system over to you for feedback and review. The cadence is regular enough for you to set your watch by.
And to make sure each sprint is more effective than the last, we take a short time to reflect on what went well and what could be improved (“retrospective”). In parallel, we are also working on defining the details of features that will be implemented in the upcoming sprints by exploring possible solutions, finalizing business rules, and sketching user interfaces.
We keep iterating until your product has sufficient functionality to warrant what we’ve all been waiting for - a production release! And then, if the project calls for it, we keep iterating, building on the first release functionality to make your project even better. At the end of the development phase, you’ll have a consumable product that meets the current needs of your stakeholders.
You’ve seen it, you’ve played with it, and you’re ready to let it loose on the world (well, your users at least).
Enter the transition phase, where we successfully deploy the working system into a live and usable environment.
We’ll work with you to determine the logistics and mechanics of the release, such as where and when to deploy, whether the new system will run in parallel with the old, or if any data migration needs to take place.
At the end of transition your software vision will be fulfilled.
Axispoint can also provide ongoing support and maintenance services beyond the Transition phase. Our support agreements are as unique as our software, so Contact Us for more info.