Custom Development: The Standard PCA Design-Build Methodology
PCA leads every Client thru a standard design-build process that is designed to gather the right
information in the right sequence, and to provide continuous visibility,
Client review and approval at each step of the process. Clients are required to review, provide feedback
and approve the results of each phase, as a prerequisite to proceeding on to the next phase.
Project-specific milestones are established every month to measure progress, manage changes
as they occur, drive decisions in a transparent manner and keep the project focused and on track.
Just follow our lead — and provide the feedback we require
at each phase — and you will see your custom application evolve from initial Prototype designs, thru detailed specs,
to a fully-functional Smart Client solution that is custom-fit to your unique business needs.
PCA Custom Engineering Principles
- Agile Process. Good ideas can be unforeseeable at the outset of a project, so the best results are often achieved thru an agile process, not a rigid plan. Our experts will work closely with your team throughout the project to identify and exploit opportunities to simplify your application and business processes, reduce waste, manual inefficiencies and errors from common business tasks, and improve workflows and overall productivity.
- Incremental Approach. PCA will work with you to formulate a rational, phased approach that makes sense for your business. We will help align application capabilities with your key operational needs, so we can deliver incremental results with tangible value. Our primary objective for any new project is to determine the SMALLEST set of application capabilities that are sufficient to meet your core business needs, so we can focus on building a strong foundation that can be extended over time in a cost-effective manner.
- Design and Validate. Getting highly visual Prototype design concepts into your hands early in the process, with good communication and tight turn-around of your feedback is far more efficient and effective than traditional paper-intensive requirements gathering methods. Prototypes facilitate the right level of communication, and the outcome of the Prototype Design phase is confidence that we are on the right track, a properly scoped project with reliable budget and schedule estimates, and source-code to drive the Development Phase. Documentation is always useful, but not a substitute for making real progress on the application.
- Good Communication.
Frequent, effective communication is critical to project success. We will facilitate a highly-interactive exchange of information, and provide tools and methods that enable detailed Project tracking and closed-loop validation of functional requirements at the project line-item level.