custom development process

For all custom development projects, we follow an Agile process. This has 2 key benefits that can be the difference between a successful project and a failed project:

1. The Agile process can adapt to changes in scope, budget or timeline very quickly.

2. Agile development focuses on always having a working version of your project. This is a key point because it means you don’t have to wait until the very end to have a working site, it works during development.

How does it work?

Phase 1 – Initial Project Planning

We’ll work with you to develop a project plan along with a list of features to develop.

Next, we’ll ask you to rank the tasks by priority (high, medium, and low) where:

• high = Without this, the project is useless
• medium = Without this, the project is functional but not very useful
• low = This would be nice to have, but the project will still be successful without it

Finally we’ll ask you to set a budget for the project. This will cap the amount of time we spend on the project, but does not define the feature set for the project.

Phase 2 – Development

Once phase 1 is complete, we’ll then begin development “sprints”. A sprint is a chunk of time that’s devoted to building features from the project plan. Sprints generally consist of 10-20 hours of development time, but can vary based on the project scope.

At the beginning of each sprint, we’ll work with you to create a prioritized list of tasks to be worked on during that sprint. Throughout the sprint, we may ask you questions about development. You’ll always have access to our development preview site, along with the Slice n Press Dashboard, so you know what’s happening with your project.

Once a sprint is complete, we’ll review the development version of the site with you, along with any tasks that did not fit into the budgeted time during that sprint. We’ll then plan the next sprint with you and repeat the process.

Phase 3 – Review/Testing

Once all sprints are complete, we’ll do final testing and have you complete a final review.

Phase 4 – Launch

After the project has been approved and final payments have been received, we’ll coordinate the launch of the project with you.

FAQs

Q: Is my project a fixed price?

A: Yes, the price of your project is set by you during stage 1. However, the feature set of the final project will be determined by the time required to develop the features of your project. We provide our best estimate of how many features we can complete, but this is not guaranteed.

Q: What if I want more features developed than you have time to complete in my initial budget?

A: No problem, you can set a new budget amount and then we can continue with development using that budget.

Q: How do I sell this to my clients?

A: We think this page is a great place to start. You’re welcome to copy and paste the text into your proposals or sales material and modify our wording however you’d like. We also recommend focusing on the fact that using an Agile process can vastly improve the likelihood of a successful project for the following reasons:

• Your clients can choose the features most important to them and leave out some of those “nice to have” features that are less important to the success of the project.
• Developers are focused on always creating a working version of the project at the end of each sprint. This means you never end up with a project that’s 80% finished, but not working at all.
• The budget for your project can be fixed, so you aren’t surprised with a large bill at the end of a project.
• You’ll be able to keep up with the development of your project through the development site, the Slice n Press Dashboard, and project updates in basecamp. Of course you’re always welcome to shoot us an email or give us a call with any specific questions or concerns.
• Changes are “no problem”. Ever get tired of telling your clients “No we can’t change that” or “Sorry that’s outside of scope”? Yeah, us too. With an Agile process, you can say “No problem, we’ll add that to the project task list and plan for it in an upcoming sprint”. This shifts the focus of responsibility for changes to the client’s willingness to pay for those changes, rather than you saying “No we can’t do that”.

Another benefit we’ve found is the Agile process gives you a competitive advantage when it comes to pricing a project. We’ve found that clients will often come to us with a list of features for a custom project and then want a quote. Often that quote is much higher than they’d like, not because their entire project is too complex, but because they want a select few features that comprise 50% or more of the development time. By using an Agile process and breaking down all the features by priority and then asking your client to set a budget, it removes the “sticker shock” and helps guide your client to a workable and successful solution within their budget.