Software Development
We are about more than just SharePoint consultancy and have a history of developing custom .NET solutions since 2002. Here is a flavour of our key working methods.
Design Patterns
Our use of Design Patterns can speed up the development process by providing tested, proven development paradigms. A design pattern is a general reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem. A Pattern is not a finished solution - it is a template for how to solve a problem that can be used in many different situations.
Iterative Development
The key to achieving a shared vision of the solution and to ensuring your business stays in control of the solution is an iterative process. Each iteration includes a process to agree the objectives of the iteration, execute the development and review the results.
Communication
It’s vital that development teams work closely with the business and continue to communicate throughout the development. We address this in several ways, not least by asking our developers to spend time on the customer’s site to appreciate the challenges they face and get to know the people.
For every project, we always include face to face meetings between developers and the stakeholders and you are welcome to speak directly to our technical staff over the phone at any point. You will receive regular updates and opportunities to feedback on the new system as it evolves.
Common Development Environment
All of our developers work using the same set of consistent tools, software platforms and standards. This enables better communication and less reliance on individuals. Being a Microsoft Gold Partner gives us access to Microsoft’s latest development tools and Design Patterns.
We have used Microsoft’s Team Foundation Server (TFS) for many years to control software versions and manage our testing, Visual Studio as our coding and development environment and SharePoint to manage the project documentation and versions.
Testing
We carry out extensive testing of all software that we develop. We test against requirements, business processes and usability standards to ensure that what we have built is of the highest quality and provides what the business wants. We offer dedicated support during User Acceptance Testing to ensure that users and the business as a whole are happy. There are a number of tools we use to assist with testing such as Visual Studio, Red Gate ANTS and Load Impact to monitor bugs and to help with performance and load testing.