The FirstLink Process

We meet to discuss detailed project requirements and review the PRD for the project. If no PRD exists, we discuss necessary steps to create one. 

Requirements Gathering gives both parties a level of confidence about the care that each party brings to the successful completion of the project. 

1. Overall project, goals and time frame.
2. Review requirements document based on industry standards of the ANSI/IEEE Guide to Software Requirements STD 830-1984. We look for a document with the following characteristics:

• Unambiguous
• Complete
• Verifiable
• Consistent
• Modifiable
• Traceable
• Usable during the Operation and Maintenance phases of the project.

A proposal document is developed detailing the context, scope and limits, and the detail of phases and milestones of the project, along with a standard consulting agreement.

The first task when work commences is to complete a project schedule, and appropriate and proven project management tools are recommended, or your existing project management infrastructure is adopted.

Time-tracking and billing schedules are put in place.

We provide a weekly time keeping system of the activities relative to the project for each member of the team we are managing, along with a weekly report indicating the following:

• Achievement during the past week 
• Issues encountered and resolution plans
• Plans of activity for the coming week.

We enter each phase with a written review and acceptance of a set of design documents:

• Hardware Architecture Document
• Software Architecture Document

Depending on the scope and complexity of the project and the required time frame for completion, additional experts may be brought on board either for the duration of the project or for specific phases. To keep costs low only the required support is added.

As part of the prototype development, we create a project specific development environment and assemble all the required software tools for virtualization of the project.

This allows us to deliver our development environment to you as an artifact so the you have the exact tools and procedures used during the development of the project.

After acceptance, the prototype enters the production phase.

In this final phase of the project we deliver to client’s premises all the elements of the project:

• All documentation
• All Schematics
• All Source Code
• All Prototypes

We also ensure that client’s personnel has been trained to take the project forward, and put any necessary contracts in place for post-delivery consulting.

We use our process as a guide and adapt it according to client constraints such as budgetary, time to market, resources, etc.

A timeline can be established after a detailed analysis of the requirements and proposed solutions.  Our commitment to our clients is to provide this information as early in the project as possible.

The overall cost of a project can be estimated after detailed analysis of the complexity of the various phases of the project.

Contact us to set up an initial conversation. We look forward to learning about your project and goals.