Consultation and Project Vision
After you contact us, the first thing we will do is setup a time to meet and talk. We'll discuss things like budget and timeline, your vision and motivation for change, and determine a definition of done. Most importantly, we'll talk about what your goals are and how Ethode can help you achieve your goals. We will take the time to get to know you, understand how you operate, where your inefficiencies are, how you stack up in the market against your competition, and then discuss the most efficient solution to solve your unique business needs.
Project Roadmap
Next, we'll discuss the high-level roadmap and major objectives for the project. As advocates of the Agile Manifesto, we spend more time collaborating and writing software than writing specs. This gives you the fastest return on your investment. Rather than ask you for everything you can possibly think of upfront (when you know the least about what you want, and we know the least about your business), we work in rapid iterations so that we can solve as many problems as we can within your defined budget and timeline. This continual feedback loop ensures you are in full control of your budget at all times and that we are building the right thing in the right way, all while providing you the flexibility to change course as needed without penalizing you for changing your mind with tedious red tape.
Rapid Development Iterations
Once we are in agreement on the high-level objectives, we prioritize the work based on the tasks that deliver the most value first. We focus on delivering working software at a regular cadence. Whereas traditional development companies will take several months just to develop specs, Ethode will have the early stages of working software ready for your feedback within weeks.
We embrace the natural uncertainty in software development through lean agility, allowing us to quickly respond to change. Iterative development keeps development costs low and focuses on the quickest return on investment. At this stage, we start refining the high-level tasks into smaller tasks that we can tackle one-by-one with daily progress.
By using a just-in-time strategy, we eliminate rework and costly communication errors. We use daily standups to report on the three things that matter most: what we accomplished yesterday, what we plan to accomplish today and what, if anything, is currently blocking progress. By doing this, we can adjust course quickly by responding to feedback and new ideas. We use automated unit testing to help prevent costly errors that force rework, allowing us to rapidly change the application based on new discoveries.
Launch & Support
After you have tested and approved the features have been developed to your satisfaction, we launch the app from the testing environment to live production. From there, we go into support mode. If there is any need for training and/or documentation on the software, we'll handle that before launch.
We view software as a living organism. What we mean by that is you will always have new ideas or things you will want to change. It's the same reason Microsoft launches new versions of Excel or Apple launches new versions of the iPhone. After your app launches, we will still be there for you. Have a new idea you want to implement? No problem. We can even set up a retainer agreement so that you are guaranteed a certain block of hours every month just for you if needed. We value long-term relationships and see you as a partner, not as a sale. We appreciate the opportunity to use our creativity and innovation to solve problems, so it is imperative for us that we are there for you every step of the way.