How much to build the unknown?

The internet has changed greatly in the past few years and as new technologies become available, it’s only natural that many businesses want to harness these advanced capabilities to ensure they remain competitive. Some are just getting started and need to create a foundation to build on, while others may already have legacy applications built which need to be modernized. With modern technology, there are a variety of ways to go about the same task. Given our experience in the industry, our broad customer base, our established processes and development methodologies, we can work with you in a variety of ways to best achieve your objectives. You may want to carefully plan every aspect of your project upfront to control timelines and budgets, or just want to get something up and running quickly and adjust as you receive feedback.

We will customize our approach for your project and use the combination of methods that works best for you in order to hit your timeline, budget and deliverables. In this article we break down some of the various different approaches.

The Foundation

Are you building from scratch or an existing foundation?

The first thing to establish on a project is the starting point. Is it a new build, renovation, tear down or something else?

Here are a couple common starting points we encounter.

Built from scratch
You have got the idea (or some of it) but are not sure how to bring it to life. We will create a blueprint, then decide the best technology to use and build from there.

Existing Application
Your company has legacy system that still works but is starting to look a little tired, lacking functionality or doesn’t work across all devices. We will do an initial assessment to examine the underlying foundation to see whether what you need can be achieved with the existing system or has to be rebuilt.

Built on top of a CMS
If you are building on top of a CMS, it provides for a great starting point, however you often need to go the direction the CMS does. Given our experience with a large variety of CMS applications we can recommend, build out and extend the functionality as needed.

Built as an app
Everybody wants an app, but the lesser told story is that they are very expensive to build, take quite a while to build/get approved, require people to install (therefore having lower adoption rates) and need to be built for multiple platforms. Unless your solution needs to utilize a user’s camera, GPS or push notifications, a native web application (runs in the browser) is often a better solution.

Hardware driven solution
So you have a device and it records it’s data to a file, but not to the internet. We can help organizations connect their hardware to software to provide real time analytics, streamline processes and ultimately provide cost savings or some other tangible benefit.

Development Methodologies

Waterfall Method

Creating a plan to manage timelines and budgets

When going the Waterfall route, c-Seven will first do an in-depth analysis to clearly understand your must have objectives vs. nice-to-have ones as well as your budget. We then make a plan on how to achieve all your must have items within your given budget. Progress meetings are held at specific milestones until the project is completed

Pros

• Plan it all out on paper first to control budgets
• Defines must-have items vs. nice-to-have items to ensure core objectives are met on time

Cons

• Takes slightly longer to get started
• If the spec needs to be amended, costs can increase

The cost for an upfront analysis starts at $2500. This fee includes meetings with you and your staff, industry research, internal team meetings, planning and documenting. Once we have completed the upfront analysis and requirements specifications we will have a blueprint to work from and will be able to accurately quote you on the desired functionality.

Agile Method

Get started and adjust as we go

When going the Agile route, c-Seven will sell you a monthly retainer’s worth of hours and work them off. Regular progress meetings are held to advise about what stage the project is at and what direction you would like us to go.

Pros

• Get started quickly and get going with the general objectives in mind.
• React to users feedback more quickly with ongoing evaluations and code updates

Cons

•  Harder to estimate timelines & budgets
• If an unforeseen circumstance arises, it could be a more costly repair than if you had spent more
  time planning.

Monthly retainers for custom development going the agile route start at $5000/month. This retainer also includes consulting, project management, quality assurance and technical support on your project.

Recovery Method

Let’ have a look and see what we can do.

It is not uncommon for companies these days to end up with a solution but have nobody to support it. Given our experience in a wide array of programming languages and database formats we are very proficient at reverse engineering web applications to find/repair problems or  extend functionality.

Pros

• Saves you having to rebuild
• We perform initial tests in isolated environment

Cons

• No guarantees as we did not develop initial code
• Could be costly depending on individual situations

The cost for an upfront review starts at $2000. This fee includes moving a copy of your system to our servers (for testing purposes), an initial audit and reviewing your requested changes to see if/how they are possible.