The proper process makes sure you don't get a million dollar pool when you asked for a five dollar pail.

We use a simplified and modified version of the Rational Unified Process. While requirements and needs normally develop and become clear throughout the development process, making most projects necessarily iterative, we prefer to plan and assess requirements as much as possible at the beginning of a project. This allows us to engage in a risk assessment and mitigation exercise with a project's stakeholders to create controls to protect a project's budget.

Generally, we follow the following process.

Inception Phase

In the first phase,

• we document business drivers and critical success factors;
• work up a basic outline of the deliverables, features, and constraints; and
• establish a rough estimate of costs.

This phase results in a project description that all stakeholders can circulate.

Elaboration Phase

Here the project is defined with more precision. Aspects of the project that present higher risk are defined with more care than areas that are lower risk. During this phase, we develop use cases and wire frames.

Changes can be made after this phase ends, but such changes are avoided because they can be expensive and risky.

Construction Phase

The software that was planned in the previous phases is coded. At the end of this phase, a public release of the software is created. During the phase, various features and components of the software will be demoed to stakeholders to get feedback to assure the project is meeting the stakeholders’ needs.

Transition Phase

The project is transitioned into production, any documentation is handed over, training is completed, and internal teams are briefed on ongoing support of the system.