The first and most surprising realization is that “IT project failure is the norm, not the exception”. Throughout the last 20 years, academic institutions, industry analysts and others have researched IT project failure and have concluded that between 65% - 80% of projects fail to meet their original objectives, run significantly late and cost far more than planned. Researchers have also found that this failure generally has little to do with the technology. Large IT projects involve many people and processes – sponsors, users, business analysts, designers, programmers, architects, testers and more. Success or failure is generally based on the skills and the effectiveness of the people involved, their ability and time to focus on the project, creating and operating within a well structured and controlled environment, and overall team dynamics. Although the introduction of a System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) model helped, it was found to be more of a starting point rather than a guarantee of success.
To mitigate the above problems, Matlen Silver has formulated and combined a group of 5 critical components necessary to successfully complete an application development project with on-time and on-budget results.
- A high-level “Roadmap” or Program Charter to define and manage client expectations from the start.
- A seasoned team of Business Analysts experienced in both the business and underlying technologies.
- A tailored Design and Development methodology focused on “best practices” and streamlined results.
- A Quality Assurance (QA) Testing program that is initiated at the beginning of the life-cycle rather than the end.
- A comprehensive Project Management framework staffed by experienced PMP certified consultants.
Depending on the individual needs of the client, these unique services can be applied together as one throughout the application development life-cycle or utilized individually to support a specific deficiency or requirement.
Matlen Silver’s seasoned team of business and technology consultants will combine and apply these critical components to successfully develop a custom application tailored to your specifications. Using these in combination with our proven “Accelerators”, we will perform all the necessary steps, from analysis and design through final release and deployment. Once the completed software solution is deployed, we also provide ongoing support during a pre-defined period of time after operational acceptance. During this extended period, any programming error or bug detected is corrected at no additional cost. By additional agreement, we can also provide an outsourced line of technical support and enhancement services.
Program Charter
For any major development project, we will develop a preliminary scope of the entire project through our “Program Charter” approach. The major deliverables surrounding this first component include:
1) Current State Snapshot
2) Future State Vision
3) Alignment Transition
4) Transformational Roadmap
This then forms the foundation on which the proposed development project will be based, and provides a “Blueprint” to include application functionality, project plans and schedules illustrating the major milestones through to project completion and preliminary budget estimates covering all project costs.
Business Analysis
The second component requires an experienced team of Business Analysts (BA) with the right techniques, knowledge and skill sets capable of identifying and documenting your specific business needs within this next level of detail. This includes: 1) Requirements Elicitation, 2) Requirements Analysis & Documentation, and 3) Requirements Communication. Once these activities are completed and agreed to by the client, our BA’s technology based skills are leveraged to transform these requirements into an appropriate level of automation for streamlining your operational processes.
Design & Development
The third component leverages Matlen Silver’s (MS) many years of successfully completing a large array of complex development projects including custom software, web and database applications. Through these projects, the basic System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) approach used by many firms has been refined into a more unique and robust methodology. This tailored methodology represents a powerful combination of the best industry-proven practices and leading standards, but is more focused on streamlining the development process to increase return on investment (ROI) and compress time-to-market.
QA Testing Program
Although this fourth component is usually focused on only during the last phase of the development process, we believe that emphasis should be placed on starting the testing and QA activities early in the application development lifecycle. Our unique Quality Assurance (QA) Testing Program emphasizes the prevention of program defects from the beginning and adds a level of quality throughout the entire project. Leveraging our proven “Accelerators”, we extend our methodology to include the following four testing categories: 1) Functional Testing, 2) System Testing, 3) Performance Testing, and 4) User Acceptance Testing.
Project Management
The fifth component is perhaps the most critical as it serves as the overall framework within which the other components effectively operate. We have combined a series of sound management principles to ensure that projects are completed on-time, within budget, and meet our client’s expectations. These are formulated within the following four major categories to encompass 1) Planning, 2) Execution, 3) Monitoring & Control, and 4) Closing, and are implemented and managed by our staff of PMP Certified Consultants.
By adopting our comprehensive suite of Application Development Services, we can facilitate for you the design, development, and implementation of your automation goals within a cost-effective “best practice” operational environment, while allowing you to focus on your core business.
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