Cafésoft's Approach to Professional Services

Many companies do software development and system integration, but do a very poor job of understanding the customer's needs, defining a process for fulfilling those needs and communicating clearly throughout the project. Without proven project management methods, it is unlikely that you'll get the solution you want. How will you know: What the solution includes? What are the milestones? What documentation needs written? Who requires training?

To answer these questions, we use a structured approach to project management that includes the following phases:

1. Requirements Specification. Cafésoft engineers work with customers to define the business problem, and define system constraints and performance requirements. The resulting document uses plain English to describe the requirements in functional groups and to prioritize their business urgency.

2. Requirements Analysis. In this phase, Cafésoft engineers describe the system services in more detail using industry standard Unified Modeling Language (UML) use case notation to express the system's work flow. The document is understandable by technical staff and business managers, and can serve to define the contract for services. For complex projects, it is sometimes necessary to create prototypes that answer key technical questions.

3. Design Specification. This document is an abstract description of the software and will serve as the basis for its design and implementation. The Design Specification maintains a clear relationship with the Requirements documents, but is directed at software engineers. UML class and sequence diagrams are used. If necessary, a draft or template of the manuals may also be created.

4. Implementation and Unit Testing. During this stage, the system design is realized as a set of programs or program units. Unit testing involves verifying that each program unit meets its specification, and automating those tests such that errors caused by changes can be easily detected throughout the software's lifecycle.

5. Integration Testing. The individual program units or programs are integrated and tested as a complete system to ensure that the system requirements have been met. Releases are provided to the customer as defined by the project milestones. This phase is iterative, involving a number of release and feedback cycles at Cafésoft and with the customer.

6. Documentation and Training. No system is complete until the administrators are trained to support the system, the users know how to use it and engineers know how to maintain it. Cafésoft provides complete documentation on the system design, along with code-level documentation. Optionally, end user training and documentation is also supplied.

7. Operation and Maintenance. The system is installed and put into production use. Maintenance involves correcting errors that were not discovered previously, improving the implementation of system units and enhancing the system's services as new requirements are discovered.

With this process, Cafésoft helps ensures the success of projects in which we are involved. Of course, the customer must be willing to dedicate the time and resources to step through the process together or there can be no guarantees.