Development Process
We like iterations, don't you?
Defining specifications
First we will talk about your project and what you are trying to accomplish with it. We may conduct a few interviews to make sure all stakeholders are heard.
Brainstorming & Mind-mapping
Give us a moment to think about what could bring even more value to your project and fill a backlog of ideas.
Stakeholders survey
Depending on the project and the target audience, gathering more information through user surveys is helpful to prioritize and focus on the tasks with the most value for the end-users.
Voting on task priority
Depending on the size of the project and the secrecy it may require, we will open a voting platform that will help us shape the project further during our work.
Making hard decisions
Brainstorming and surveys bring a lot of ideas and requirements, too much even. Sometimes it is necessary to make some features less of a priority at first or even make the hard decision to remove it from the project at hand.
Sorting tasks
We always focus on the most value-added tasks first, but sometimes technical requirements or other external factors may influence the priority list as well. This process is constantly evolving during the whole project.
Analyzing dependencies
Some tasks require that other ones get done before beginning to work on it, that's where analyzing dependencies is important. In order to optimize our priorities and avoid putting dependencies in the same iteration, we need to envision as much as possible and as early as possible.
Building the dream team
Depending on the project size, ambitions and technical direction, we may require the help of external freelancers or hire internally. By knowing who will be part of the project team helps us schedule the iterations to deliver your product on time and on budget.
Scheduling iterations
We will work with you and define a plan to start working on your project. It may well be the very next day or weeks later depending on your schedule and expectations. We're flexible and we will not mind implementing time-off between iterations.
Project setup
The technological setup of the project is always an important phase. We will mount new server instances, configure our work environment and virtual machines, etc. This is also the time to talk deployment and hosting solutions that can vary greatly based on your expected reach, timezones, initial budget and recurring budget.
Creative experiment
Most projects are ambitious and require creativity and experimenting to be defined in greater details. This is the phase where we will work on the blocking elements of the project, making sure everything is achievable in a reasonable time-frame.
Iteration: Planning poker
The first phase of every iteration starts with a team planning poker. Don't worry, we're not betting your life savings in a casino. The planning poker is an exercise that helps us estimate time for each tasks at hand and we also evaluate the risks for the project.
Iteration: User Experience design (UX)
This is the time to think about all interactions and the flow within your application's navigation.
Iteration: Wire-framing (UI)
That's when we put together pages and layouts. That's the structure of the user interface.
Iteration: Programming
That's when coders get to sweat and the application gets built up.
Iteration: User interface design (UI)
Our designers will work hard to make your application beautiful and enjoyable.
Iteration: Finalizing the deliverables
Crunch time, the whole team will work hard to make sure all the components integrate smoothly with each other.
Iteration: Code review
We always have an external pair of eyes looking at our code. That's how we avoid silly mistakes.
Iteration: Data management
Every application has some sort of data to integrate, some more than others. This is the phase where we make sure our code and design works great with the content.
Iteration: Optimizations
You want your application to be fast and work on any device don't you?
Iteration: Staging version (alpha or beta tests)
That's our "demo" delivery, where we all (including you) will have access to the latest version.
Iteration: Quality assurance
Tests, tests and... tests.
Iteration: User experience tests
Even more tests. This time dedicated to the navigation flow and all interactions.
Iteration: Validation
Time to close this chapter of the project. Let's review together what went well and what didn't.
Iteration: Demonstration
It's time to show you and important stakeholders what we did. It is also time for us to gather new feedbacks for the next iteration and improve our internal processes.
Next iteration...
Then we either start another iteration, take a break or finalize the project.
Working in components
Our processes are designed to let you give us feedbacks all the way through the project and to provide a working solution at the end of every iteration. It is then up to you to let us improve existing components or build new features in the next iteration. We will also decide together if the deliverable of this latest iteration is worthy of a public release or not.
Product launch
Even before a first version is ready to launch, we will work with you to elaborate a plan for launch day. Building momentum is key and it has to start as early as possible. Some projects even benefit from launching closed or open beta versions to start building a community and raise awareness.