Software Evaluation Phase
Our objective is to establish confidence (on both sides) that the project is feasible from technical, business and financial perspectives, and to build a good working rapport with you as a prospective PCApps client. Our consultants will work with you one-on-one to develop a clear picture of your needs, help you understand the options that are available, and recommend what we feel is the most cost-effective approach.
Our main goal is always the same: to identify the smallest, well-defined need that represents a logical starting point for doing more work with you in the future. If we both determine your project is feasible and a good fit, at your request PCApps will send you a project agreement that identifies your primary business and functional objectives, initial cost and schedule estimates, and project milestones and target dates within our standard design-build process.
About PCApps Estimates
Several factors can influence ball-park estimates, including:
- Scope and Complexity of your business application e.g. number of forms, tables, reports, 3rd-party controls, integrations, calculations, etc.
- Quality of your existing application. For example, is your current application properly engineered? Or, is an extensive business process re-engineering required?
- Functional Gaps that may exist between your current application and, thru a series of discussions, what we understand you actually need.
- PCApps Experience with clients in the same industry and/or similar type of applications.
- A bottom-up engineering assessment of your business application code.
If we observe any unknowns or ambiguities during our evaluation, we will always attempt to gather additional information. If your application needs require further focus or refinement, we will work with you to properly scope and prioritize your needs. Our experts take a disciplined approach to help you get the most value — to properly align your business needs with your budget and schedule constraints.
Our consultants will challenge you to separate must-haves from nice-to-haves to determine the smallest set of application capabilities that are necessary to meet your essential business needs. It can oftentimes makes more sense to defer a new capability to keep the project budget and schedule on track.
You will receive an estimates instead of a fixed-cost from us because we want to accommodate new requirements that can (and often do) surface during a project. We find that when a client sees the prototype of a new solution with new capabilities, streamlined functions, and an improved user interfaces, that new possibilities emerge.
If we determine the project is both feasible and a good fit, we will send you a project agreement that identifies your primary business and functional objectives, initial cost and schedule estimates, and project milestones and target dates within our standard design-build process.