Are your information systems working
for you or against you? At NexLAN, we're the team that makes
technology work for you! To make that happen, your
applications must work the way your business works. We were founded to
bring highly skilled and experienced programming expertise to bear on the
solutions to your business problems, and as a Microsoft Certified Partner we
enjoy an inside-track to the company that wrote the software your
applications depend on.
Steps to Success
The first step of
any successful custom software development effort is a Detailed Requirements
Specification. Only by completely defining what the application needs to
do can you be assured of receiving an accurate cost estimate for it's
development and have the final product meet your needs. If you have a
complete Requirements Specification, we're happy to write an implementation
proposal at no cost or obligation to you. If you only have a rough idea of
what your requirements are, then we're happy to assist in the development of the
Requirements Specification, which you can then use to shop for multiple
implementation proposals. A major advantage to having a software
development organization like NexLAN involved in writing the Requirements
Specification is that we know the things that need to be defined (such as
performance, security, etc. that are often overlooked) and we can bring our
development experience to bear on making functionality recommendations that you
might not have even considered or even known were possible!
You won't hear
many custom software development organizations say this, but the second step is
a survey of the already available commercial applications. Simply put, why
re-invent the wheel? We're familiar with the existing software for
many vertical markets and if an application that meets your needs is available
at a defined cost and with a greatly reduced implementation timeframe then we'll
gladly recommend it. Remember, the goal is solve your business problem
and that doesn't necessarily have to require an application developed from
scratch. Also, we specialize in applications for which the source is
available. An often-overlooked option is the use of a source-available
commercial application which can then be slightly modified - at a price
much less than a complete custom development.
The third step
is the development of a proposal to implement a solution which meets the
requirements specification. Under most circumstances, preparation of the
proposal costs you nothing! If you have a solid requirements specification
you can shop it around to multiple custom development companies and
they'll all happily design and bid in the hopes of winning the project.
The proposal should detail how it meets every issue of the requirements
specification - along with the cost and schedule for doing so. A well
developed proposal will also include the short resumes of the people to work on
the project and other terms and conditions such as the payment schedule,
penalties for non-performance, confidentiality agreements, etc. It's also
a good idea to see prior work done by the developing company and ask for letters
of reference from their prior clients.
For small projects of less than 100 hours, you're often ready to
begin development immediately after acceptance of the proposal. But for
most projects step four is the detailed design and, for
really large projects, development of a test plan to ensure the requirements are
met by the final product. The time and cost for detailed design and test
planning should be included in the proposal; but for such sizable efforts, new
requirements are sometimes discovered and revisions made to the proposal during
detailed design.
We're finally
ready for the "programming work" in step five: the development, customization, and
installation of the application/modification per the proposal. This would
seem to be simple after all the work that's gone before - and it is! As
long as the requirements specification was complete and the proposal addressed
it completely and accurately, then the actual work will proceed smoothly.
So why is this step so often fraught with problems and misunderstanding?
Besides the obvious answers that the requirements specification and/or proposal
weren't complete and accurate, the most common issues are changes in scope
and lack of interaction between developer and client.
Changes in scope are very common, and are genuinely to be expected as the
requirements specification is a snapshot of what was needed at a particular
time. As the business changes and evolves, the requirements to manage it
are going change and they rarely become less complex! The key to
managing change is to update the requirements specification, then update the
proposal schedule and costs before just blindly modifying the work in process to
meet undocumented new requirements.
There is no excuse for lack of interaction between developer and client, yet it
happens all too often. Without regular project status reviews the client
is unaware of progress being made (or the lack thereof) and is often blind-sided
later by changes in the schedule or costs of which they were unaware. The
developer, by not reviewing work-in-process, is often unaware of changes that
have taken place in the business which should require a change in the
requirements specification, proposal and work-in-process - all effort is then
misdirected effort.
There you have
it: the Steps to Success for any custom software development. Do all the
tasks required leading up to the actual programming effort, plan to address
changes in scope and hold regular status reviews and reap the rewards of
software that works the way you do!
Services Provided
Requirements and Business Analysis
Preparation of Requirements Specifications
Custom software development for
Microsoft Windows, Microsoft PocketPC and the Palm computing platform
Active-data website design,
implementation and hosting - including streaming audio/video and E-commerce
solutions