SIEvaluate™ helps you find which technology solution you need and how this can be tailored specifically to help your business grow.
Our Approach
The approach we propose for customers embarking on any project is shown here, this approach should be adhered to as closely as possible to avoid project issues and failure. The recommendation is based on many years of successful project delivery, on time and on budget.
We recognise adhering to the above will save money and avoid feature creep.
Following a project initiation discovery phase or kick off, two parallel streams of activity progress. One stream validates the business strategy and develops the user journey and business requirements while the other stream established the approach to technical implementation.
This approach simultaneously applies top-down questioning of ‘why?’ and bottom up ’will it work?’ As proven in many large-scale implementations, this pragmatic approach maximises chances of project success and ensures a high degree of strategic and technical thinking interaction and cross pollination.
The purpose of each activity is described in the following sections.
Discovery / Kick Off
The project discovery/kick-off will ensure that all parties working on the project understand roles and responsibilities appropriate communication channels and governance and most critically interdependencies between streams and tasks. This activity will ensure appropriate start to the discovery of the project and reiterate clear objectives and timelines.
Strategy Review
The strategy review considers the why, who and what of the project followed by a validation exercise. Conceptually, the areas covered by this series of tasks is as follows:
| Why? | Who? | What? | Verify |
|---|---|---|---|
|
What is the solution being built? |
Who is the target audience? |
What will be built? |
Verify that who? what? and why? are correct |
|
What is the business problem (in the most concise term)? |
As-is client analysis |
Creation of epics (very high-level requirement) |
Test that customer journey and features meet customer needs |
|
|
Analysis of potential |
High Level User Journeys |
|
|
What does good look like? |
Definition of to be client base |
Roadmap for Epic Delivery |
Interview selected customers to confirm assumptions |
Our preferred method for strategic analysis of the project is the business model canvas. The business model canvas is a strategic management and entrepreneurial tool that is designed to allow an organisation to describe, design, invent and pivot their requirements and business model and to capture the key elements of the business for use in the design and planning of commercial change and operational support within a business.
In the context of the approach to a project it is designed to provide customers with a context for the organisation against which the digital projects can be validated and any changes proposed at a very early stage. Adopting the approach of examining the organisation and stakeholders. In functional terms will provide clients with a view of the core functions of the business the core requirements and for who and how it is delivered.
The information is analysed to determine whether the content of each function is standard or nonstandard, bespoke of off the shelf, internal or external, commentary or hard data and whether data is known or calculated. These dimensions will help in determining the boundaries of the digital project and then allow clients to determine what content should be contained within various systems delivered, functions and phases. The ultimate output of this exercise is a high-level vision document that will outline the scope of the Digital project and answer the first three strategic questions Why? Who? and What?
The output of the strategy review will be a high-level vision document, which will include a high-level list of requirements in the form of epics, the exercise will also highlight other areas require further investigation and analysis.
Business Analysis
The business analysis activity takes the output of the discovery kick off/ strategy review and goes into the next level of detail covering:
- Product backlog (user stories)
- Detailed swim lane activities
- Collaboration model
To derive a fundamental understanding of the needs within an organisation, Software Imaging have developed the following approach to business analysis:
- Develop a holistic view in a simple picture of the business and identify key process steps. At this stage a requirements document can be produced.
- Use the business model to identify who does what work, typically documented in the form of representative user personas and stories.
This approach is detailed below:
| What do we need to know? | How does the whole business function? | What do users need to do thier jobs? | How do complex high risk process work? | What is the relative priority of user needs? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Why? |
To Provide context to understand how ExtraCare works |
To design the environment |
To ensure there is no complexity in the detail that is overlooked |
To inform the order in which components will be commisioned |
|
What tools do we propose? |
Business model canvas |
User personas epic user stories |
Process models |
Spreadsheet |
|
Who needs to be involved? |
Senior people with broad understanding of the process |
Senior people with broad understanding of the process |
Process owners, process actors (the people that do the work) |
Project sponsor or project board |
|
How long will it take? |
Typically one day |
Subject to scope |
Subject to scope |
Typically one day |
Once the strategic aims are known and agreed, the detailed requirements are set, and personas created wireframes within the application can be created. While the process is here represented as linear approach, in practice software imaging would advocate an iterative approach.
The output from the exercise will be a high-level business requirements document that describes the inputs and outputs of the business, defined in terms that can be easily translated into a document that can be issued to a technology provider or business member used to measure standard technology choices which may be deemed appropriate for the task involved.
The requirements document will be used as a persistent touch point within any subsequent project to ensure that the originally defined requirement is accurately implemented.
Technical Analysis
The aim of the technical analysis activities is to establish any technical constraints that may influence future development.
The technical analysis will be performed by a technical architect supported by experienced developers. The work requires interaction with the clients staff with knowledge of the original technical requirements set out in the sales process. Leading to creating technical designs and architecture.
Technical analysis activity covers:
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Review of open source or propriety packages
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Development of test strategy
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Identify performance criteria
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Development risk assessment
-
Detailed system design
-
Build and deployment system
Review
The review activity allows clients and software imaging to play back what has been learnt through the entire process/previous activities and a plan of next steps with structure and confidence. Risks and issues will have been addressed and a full understanding of the scope will have been obtained through the various verification gates.
All parties will be required to agree and sign up to a project plan that includes the full scope of activities before the build of the digital program. From this moment on any scope changes will need to be addressed and agreed upon by both parties. Minimal scope creep is always our aim, though an Agile working methodology allows for project discussion within a controlled program to avoid unnecessary tension between all parties involved in the project.
Build
Once the sales discovery/blueprint phase has been completed the project can move on into the build phase.
Cost
Costs for the phase of activity will be determined by the opportunity presented and estimated and agreed with the client.
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What our Clients say about us
The feedback we get from our clients is consistent. We take real ownership. We happily serve as mentors in tech and Agile. We listen to real business needs instead of just shipping features.
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Software Imaging has been a valuable and trusted partner for Global Graphics on a variety of imaging projects over the year. They have always been there for us.
Justin Bailey
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Ricoh has worked with Software Imaging for many years and we would like to see Software Imaging maintain its independence in the marketplace as a trusted and respected supplied of imaging technologies.
MI
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The experienced and knowledgeable engineers at Software Imaging have supported Zeta with key software development services for a number of years, helping us to deliver our new electric vehicle charging products.
Philip Shadbolt OBE
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We have been pleased with the technical quality of Software Imaging’s code deliverables, and have no hesitation in recommending Software Imaging’s technical capability in imaging development.
Jonathan Schwartz
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