Everything you need to know about working with software house – milestones in software development

To start with, a handful of good practices that help to narrow down the criterion of finding the right business partner:

• Research – check if the software house can boast of projects similar to yours. Through the prism of an appropriate portfolio you will see if the company understands your business and the goal you want to achieve.
• Customer reviews and evaluations of the cooperation on Clutch + customer references on the website
• The human factor – check if there is a thread of understanding between you and your potential business partner. Nothing will harm the project as much as the lack of so-called chemistry. 

Discover milestones in cooperation with software house. 

Cooperation with Da Vinci Studio – how do we work?

Each company has its proven practices, methods and so-called know-how. In this article, we will explain how we approach project cooperation. 

1. Demo/prediscovery phase – initial meeting 

• Introduction to the project

During this stage you will have an interview with our Project Manager and UX Designer – so that we can get to know your idea/business and needs better. At this stage we are preparing a demo to show you how we’ve implemented projects that are similar to yours. It is worth to have a first outline of the project’s specifics, scope and approximate realization time. 

• Mutual understanding

Second, we want to know your business goals. Live chat or online contact is OK. During the conversation you will get to know our values and the technological stack together with the background of our specialists. During the meeting, the Project Manager will answer technical and non-technical questions about the planned project, identify initial project requirements and potential challenges in the project.

• Presentation of business objectives

Market value is not only multifunctional software, but above all software that meets your customer’s needs. At this stage we will be happy to learn about your business model, your assumptions, vision and mission of the whole project. Present us with your business goals and what is essential for you.

2. The discovery phase

• Event storming

It is thanks to the event storming that we will be able to concretize information about your business domain and the product being manufactured. Get ready for a few hours’ workshop where you will talk to programmers, business analyst, project manager and solution architect in a non-technical language. You will take on the role of a domain expert and present the business from the inside out. There will also be a facilitator – a person who knows event storming techniques to guide it properly. After the event storming together with the team we should know what is the complexity of the project, which elements may be problematic and how your product should work when using particular modules or functionalities. 

• Choosing the team and work style

When you talk to software house, determine what your expectations are of the way you work and communicate – it’s important that you tell us at an early stage how you like to work. Besides, think about whether you need a technology partner or maybe an advisor and mentor on business and marketing issues. At this stage you also get the first outline of a roadmap and initial prioritization of the tasks. 

• Summary of findings – contract

In order for each of the parties to have a clear picture of the cooperation, at this stage we sign a contract. In addition to the functional specification, the contract will include a cost estimate, discussed points and payment model for the project according to time & material. More about settling accounts with the software house – here. There will also be an agreement on: data processing, copyright and a confidentiality clause.

3. Phase three – transition to operations

• Project team involvement

When all the arrangements are clear, the way of working and communication are aligned, work on the project begins. Each person in the project knows their scope of duties, schedule and tech stack. Thanks to this approach, everyone maintains high motivation and willingness to act. After all, every specialist who has a real impact on the business or creating value for the client can be very effective and motivated. By choosing us, you are guaranteed a motivated team.

• Standardization of work

You can achieve your goal in different ways, but the best methodologies in software development are the agile ones – Agile, framework Scrum, Lean Development or Kanban. Thanks to agile methodologies, priorities are set on an ongoing basis, change management is easy, and everything is about delivering value to the customer. During continuous improvement, enhancements are implemented by the team on an ongoing basis, automation is efficient and finding errors is faster. In software development, we choose the latest technologies that are developed, stable and easy to maintain. We also use good practices. For example, software-level testing, unit tests, code comments, code review (that is, checking each line of code before adding it to the software).

• Iterations and improvements

Thanks to the planning and operation in the so-called “sprints”, which have a “sprint review” every two weeks, the design work is much more efficient. The project, despite its scope or level of complexity, is embedded in a framework, which has its components built step by step. Thanks to such work, achieving the goals is easier than using traditional methodology such as Waterfall. Moreover, agile corrections or removing failures is possible because only one or few elements are modified, not the whole project. 

4. Phase four –  project production, knowledge transfer and maintenance

• Implementation

Once all the functionalities have been tested and the project is up and running, the team presents you with the final product demo – what was able to be completed and what is still needed. The Project Owner then answers all the questions and verifies what is the next plan of action (e.g. Development of what was not possible to do).

• Knowledge transfer 

Thanks to the so-called knowledge transfer, you receive from us the know-how on the functioning of the product. Our project team answers your technical and non-technical questions related to the introduced functionalities and questions that may arise from the target customer. Knowledge transfer can also be applied to more business-related issues. 

• Training and support

When you want to get to know the product from the lining or get more and more adopted by your customers, take advantage of the training and support of the software house team. Our team will support you both with technical support and more business issues.

See what projects we have completed so far!

PROGRAMMED INNOVATIONS TO DEVELOP YOUR BUSINESS