Agile Development Teams

Frequently asked questions

Below is a list of queries that we often get asked when initially speaking to clients. If you don’t find the question that is relevant to you then please contact us and we would be happy to answer.

How do you make sure you meet my requirements

We’re passionate that great software makes a difference to our client’s businesses, therefore we don’t want to make assumptions or take chances. It’s imperative right from the start, we ask questions, build a solid understanding of the business and formulate a precise plan to deliver software you’ll be ecstatic about and that’ll be truly business changing.

Collaboratively we undertake a series of discovery exercises, to build our understanding. One of the hardest things many people struggle with is conceptualising how the software will behave and how functionally it will perform.  To ensure you are getting exactly what you require we use advanced software to build a functioning model of your software. This prototype accurately shows how each of the screens with look and how they will function, because it is visual it helps avoid assumption so that each party can be clearly agreed on what is to be development. Prototypes are accompanied by flow diagrams and written user stories.

Who owns the software?

We want our customers to be ecstatic about what we’ve done for them, that’s why there will never be any awkward conversations about licensing, or ownership of the software

• When the software is completed, the intellectual property rights are transferred to you. There are no ongoing licence fees to use the software
• Every project is started blank, no proprietary 3^rd party plugin or technology is used ensuring that your software can be maintained by any competent Microsoft trained developer.

Do you outsource any of your development?

No, never all of our development is done by our own highly talented team based at our offices in Redditch, Worcestershire. This ensures we have complete control over the development process and quality.

Will we be stuck with you moving forward?

No, our clients are under no obligation to stay with us, our projects are designed so that they can be picked up by another competent Microsoft technologies developer or development house.  Our experience shows that our clients enter into a true partnership with us, ensuring that our relationships are continuous.

Do you talk in Jargon? Will me and my team understand?

We talk in plain English – no Jargon. If you’ve got team members who want to talk geek, we are quite happy to do that too. It’s important you understand everything about your project, for that we stick to plain English. Our product team are highly skilled business systems people, who can do any necessary geek to English translations which might be required.

Who will I be dealing with?

You will have a single dedicated point of contact from our product team who will work with you for the whole project.

How will you keep me informed throughout the project

We guarantee to be transparent and honest in our approach, this means we’ll keep you fully informed if we identify risk to the project, this could be a change in requirement, missing information, creep or slippage.

Once your project is underway you’ll be set up with access to our online project management software which will allow you to keep track of progress and access the project prototype and documentation. Messaging and questions are sent through it, providing one central place where all communication about the project is held. During the development the product team will be in regular communication and at the end of every sprint cycle or development phase you will be invite for a presentation of the work produced.

How much of my time and my teams time will you need?

Transformative projects are a true partnership between our businesses. You should be prepared to invest the amount of time it takes to deliver the result your business requires.

If you are embarking on a project across multiple departments and functions of your business you will need to ensure the relevant stakeholders have visibility of the project from the on-set and brief them on your expectations.

You’ll need to appoint a project sponsor from your organisation, this is the person responsible for leading the project and ultimately has the final say on your requirement. 

How much will it cost?

The cost will ultimately come down to your requirements. We’ve delivered enough projects over the last 10 years to have a good understanding of what it takes to deliver different types of software applications. After our initial conversations we can prepare estimates of budgets and timescales.

Our discovery, planning and prototyping are usually conducted on a fixed fee basis. From then, we are able to offer two commercial models for the development of your software.

• Agile (Scrum); our team work in efficient 2-week sprints to develop the software in an iterative way. Agile is the most popular and effective method of delivering larger scale or complicated software projects where the scope of the project is difficult to define.  This model allows you to complete your project in the shortest possible time scale and benefit from paying on a discounted time model
• Fixed Priced; This model can be used when the functional and technical requirements of a project can be clearly defined into a precise and executable specification document prior to development. This model is only offered on smaller sized projects with a budget below £50,000.

What languages do you code in?

The software is built using the Microsoft technology stack, C#. ASP.NET, .NET Core, MVC, Angular, with MSSQL databases. Apps are built using Ionic Framework.

How frequently will we be shown updates throughout the project?

Our product team will be in close contact with you via the phone, email and screenshares throughout the project.

At the end of every two week sprint cycle or development phase you will be invited for a presentation of the work completed during that sprint. The product team and developers involved will present to you the user stories delivered as part of that cycle.

How do manage request for change during development?

Working using Agile allows us to embrace change into a project and easily deal with change requests. Changes can be made to the development requirements up to the point a sprint begins, providing the request has no dependencies which have not yet been developed. This allows the backlog of development to be managed in accordance with your priorities as a business.

How do you test the software and ensure quality?

Producing great quality software our absolute passion. Our testing and quality processes ensure that the software we develop is created the highest possible standard. Delivering great quality is the responsibility of all of our team. To do this we use the right mix of both unit testing and human testing. Our development team is responsible for creating high quality, error-free code in line with our coding standards, they do this through peer-review, automated and unit tests. Our product team then test all visual and functional elements of the software against the software prototype, validating the user experience and user stories meet the client’s requirement. A separate UAT environment is then provided for you to independently test your software where you can log bugs  and provide your own feedback.

Can you host our software?

If you do not have access to hosting infrastructure we can help to architect and arrange appropriate hosting for you. The majority of the applications we develop are hosted within Microsoft Azure, and this is generally our recommendation. We offer a managed service whereby we host your application on your behalf on our own infrastructure or a direct service whereby you contract your own environment directly for Microsoft Azure from your own chosen infrastructure provider.

How do you manage Source Control and Version Control?

To manage source code and documentation which requires versioning we use Git, a leading source control and version control provider.

Do you provide training?

When building software we try and make it as easy and as intuitive to use as possible when designing the user experience. This minimises the level of training your users may need.

We’re always happy to contribute to your change management and roll out plans by providing structured training, workshops or presentations to your teams to support your adoption to the new software.

How will you support me after go -live?

When your project is completed and live, we offer a 30 day break-fix warranty on the software, any bugs or defects which you encounter will be resolved by our team free of charge. This tends to be minimal, with most of these issues being picked up in UAT prior to deployment. During this period your Product Owner will be on hand to ensure smooth transition.

Post the warranty period we offer support through a managed service level agreement (SLA), with guaranteed response times and priority levels. An SLA should be adopted for any business critical software application which could incur you financial or reputational loss.

Our support team are on hand during business hours to help resolve any problems or questions you or your team might encounter.

If a SLA isn’t right for your business we offer pay as you go break-fix support, purchased though on account support tokens. Support tokens are offered on a best endeavours basis and are not recommended for business critical applications.