Processes: How we Work!
On the processes front, ConceptWaves has built its own product rollout model with a strong focus on constant interaction and feedback from the customer at each stage of the project. This is to mitigate the risk of mismatch between the customer's expectation and the actual product rollout.
The processes are home-grown and highly customized to optimize delivery output and maintain high standards of quality. They have been influenced by some of industry's best process frameworks including Rational Unified Process and Agile Methodologies.
Depending on the size and importance of the deal with a particular customer, some or all of the following will be applicable.
ConceptWaves sales & marketing team will be involved in understanding the customer requirements and negotiating the deal. Based on the information gathered, the sales and marketing team would then customize the Master Solution Agreement (MSA) for that customer. This MSA, which would be signed off by the customer, would contain the general high-level understanding of the scope, terms and conditions of execution etc. Rough pricing details per module could also be mentioned in this document which may be fine tuned when the detailed requirement gathering happens on a later date.
ConceptWaves requirements gathering analysts camped at customer premises would study customer's existing processes & their IT setup and gather other requirements for deploying the solution. Based on this study a detailed System Appreciation document would be produced which captures the existing IT setup at the customer premises. Along with this, a detailed Suggestions document capturing the list of additional components that can be built on the existing setup will be prepared.
ConceptWaves with inputs from the customer will put forward the 'Big Plan' of what can be done on IT setup front that will benefit the customer.
ConceptWaves along with the customer will then split the entire scope into smaller packets and will execute the smaller packet deployments in different phases. This partitioning of the 'Big Plan' into smaller packets of work will be primarily based on importance of the features to the customer and the complexity involved in building the features. This kind of splitting the original scope into smaller packets is to reap the benefits of progressive deployment wherein the risk of expectation mismatch is greatly reduced and also to ensure that priority features to the customer are released first. ConceptWaves would further recommend that each of these phases be of 1 to 3 months.
The customer then signs off on the correctness of the System Appreciation document, the 'Big Plan' and the phasing strategy. This signing off will start the phase-wise development of the packets of work.
Each phase would start with further drilling down of the work packet requirements to be executed in that phase to a great detail. This effort will produce a very detailed requirement analysis document for the packet of work to be executed in that phase. The completion of this requirement analysis document would trigger off a project execution plan (PEP) and a Project Management Plan (PMP) for that phase.
The PEP would outline the deliverables, time-lines for delivery of different components, pricing details and other terms and conditions for the execution of that phase of that phase. The Project Management Plan (PMP) gives a detailed management plan of the execution of the project.
The engineering team will be responsible to study the requirements closely and see if any of the existing pre-built products (with some customization) can be deployed for the customer's requirements. If so, the effort to customize the product to the specific customer is estimated and is used as an input in the preparation of the PEP and the PMP.
If no pre-built product/module exists that can be customized for the specific set of requirements, the solution needs to be developed as a services project. These estimates also get into the PEP and the PMP.
The detailed requirements document (focusing entirely on packet/phase at hand) and the related PEP/PMP will be shared with the customer for sign off. On signing off these documents, the solution development/product customization activity starts at the ConceptWaves development center.
To ensure there is no mismatch in customer's expectations from the system that would be built, ConceptWaves analysts will visit the customer premises on a regular basis to understand and ensure that the system being built is in synch at every stage with what the customer needs for successful execution of its business.
Once the development/customization is complete and the software is ready, it will be thoroughly tested at the ConceptWaves testing center and shall be shipped across to the customer for a test run and subsequently will be deployed, tested and commissioned on the "production system" at customer's premises. This deployment activity will be done in the presence of ConceptWaves personnel at the customer's premises.
In certain cases, ConceptWaves can host the service for the customer at a professional data centre instead of at customer premises. In such a case, the deployment code will be moved to such a data centre after comprehensive testing at ConceptWaves testing centre.
Note that the phases mentioned above can overlap and different packets of work can be executed in parallel to accommodate customer's time-line requirements.