Process and Methodology

We have over seven years of experience in successfully managing US based customers from offshore and these include software companies developing products as well as enterprises who require us to build or support internal application.

Our experience has led us to firmly believe that there is no single methodology or process that works for all clients and projects. During the initial phase of engagement with you, we work towards defining a methodology that will work best for you.

We begin with a framework that cover all aspects of the SDLC in detail and then factor in variations to suit each engagement.

• Modified Waterfall
• Agile – Scrum methodology

The modified waterfall uses the same phases as the pure waterfall, but is not done on a discontinuous basis. This enables the phases to overlap when needed. The pure waterfall can also be split into sub-projects at an appropriate phase (such as after the architectural design or detailed design). It gives more flexibility than the pure waterfall model. Also if there is a personnel continuity between the phases, documentation can be substantially reduced. Implementation of easy areas does not need to wait for the hard ones.

Benefits

Risk reduction spirals can be added to the top of the waterfall to reduce risks prior to the waterfall phase. The waterfall can be further modified using options such as prototyping, JADs (Joint Application Development) sessions or other methods of requirement gathering done in overlapping phases.

Phase 1: Requirement Analysis
This phase would start capturing the functional and non-functional requirement. During the functional requirement phase the team understands the business process and record them in a document. Once the business process flow is captured, cases are developed. In parallel, page flows can be analyzed and documented.

Phase 2: Test Case Preparation
Once the functional requirement is approved, the test team starts capturing the test case scenarios.

Phase 3: Design Phases
This phase includes high and low level design which included UI design, database design and class design. This phase starts once the requirement analysis phase ends. Rapid prototyping can be used to iterate faster on requirement analysis and design phases.

*Phase 2 and Phase 3 can run concurrently.

Phase 4: Development
This phase includes code development and unit testing.

Phase 5: Testing and Deployment
This phase includes internal testing, user acceptance testing and deployment. Documentation is part of this phase. This phase is initiated during the development phase. Individual modules are tested separately before integration testing is done. UAT will continue once the internal testing team certifies the application.

We have adopted agile development methodology for a few of our projects where there was a need to address a back log of small projects and enhancements pending at the client end. The team is relatively small and work independently on projects that are not too complex.

The Agile methodology followed by us includes the following:

• Pair programming – with offshore and onsite resource pairing up for some of the tasks.
• Daily scrum meeting of offshore and onsite team.
• Tracking of progress using burn down chart
• Concurrent design, development and testing in an iterative development process.
• Prototype development for quicker iteration.