At Company Net we recognise the importance of working in partnership with our clients to create new products and services that structure operations and optimise collaboration across the business. Ensuring the effective selection and use of technology, our expert business consultants deliver value according to each individual customer’s requirements, timeline and budget.
We often describe solution design as a negotiation and we take a large number of factors into consideration such as:
- the requirements of the business and its users
- the prioritisation of these requirements and how they might change in the future
- the current and future technology landscape
- the capabilities and expectations of the users alongside budget and time constraints
When designing solutions built upon platforms we consider what can be done out of the box (configuration), what can be done using standard toolsets such as branding, workflows, data structures (customisation), and what requires custom development such as advanced functions, integration (extension).
Our goal is always to meet your requirements wherever possible with only configuration and customisation, however some specifications will require an extension of the platform to be delivered. Our Solution Architects are vastly experienced in the strengths and weaknesses of the Microsoft platforms and can help guide the design of the solution towards configuration and customisation rather than extension. This will result in a solution that will be straight forward to upgrade and evolve in the future, is lower cost, simpler and easier to maintain.
Our Engagement Process
At Company Net we have developed our own project delivery methodology which we have refined through our own experience of solutions delivery using Prince 2 standards and Microsoft’s Solutions Framework. Each element is important for you and for us, and only by jointly understanding this approach can we both expect to embark on a successful engagement which is to the mutual benefit of all parties involved. It allows us both to have the confidence that we can expect to deliver a great solution for your business and that we can deliver this on time and to budget.
We call this our ‘Recipe for Success’:
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We begin with Vision & Scope, in which we identify your high level goals and our Business Analysts work with you to identify your requirements and scope to budget. We will prioritise your requirements to give you the best value whilst de-risking the chances of a budget or time overspend to ensure that your project stays on track. During Analysis & Design we prepare a Technical Specification which acts as a frame of reference for the project.
Once the Technical Specification has been signed off, Company Net will use this as the reference point to build the system which has been scoped.
During this intensive phase, we invite members of our client’s team to be embedded within our Development Team and to be fully immersed in the development and decision making process and take advantage of the knowledge transfer opportunities this represents. During the Build process, our development team will carry out Unit Tests on each piece of functionality to verify that each component is complete and conformant to the Specification. Once all Units have been tested, Company Net will consider the build complete and move to the Testing and Joint Project Finalisation stage.
Application System Testing – We carry out our own internal System Test phase, informed by test scenarios, ahead of Joint Project Finalisation of the application.
Joint Project Finalisation (JPF) – The purpose of JPF is to conclude the Build Phase of the project to the mutual satisfaction of both the client and ourselves, which is represented by both parties formally signing-off.
The JPF process is similar to conventional User Acceptance Testing; however, Company Net places an increased emphasis on jointly working through any items raised with the client in a spirit of collaboration, and jointly working towards a common goal of signing off the built system. JPF combines the conventional business of identifying any bugs and deviations from specification and resolving these to our mutual satisfaction alongside mutually agreeing how to resolve any matters of interpretation in relation to the specification.
JPF is conducted within a controlled time box, and Company Net chair a daily triage session to control the process, providing full visibility of logged JPF items (and their status) to the client’s project team members.
Immediately following JPF sign-off, with the host infrastructure environment now ready, we will package the build ahead of deployment and install the application into your environment.
Our implementation service is based on the understanding that we will be granted full administrative access to the server environment and will be able to access this environment remotely as well as physically.
