Our Approach
At Volano Solutions, we offer collaborative, adaptive, agile, iterative, evolutionary
and process-based solutions to your companies complex business needs. We like to
get involved with the people doing the work -- to understand how the software we're
developing will affect the individual. Software development targets move, and as
we discover more about the business and processes/workflow at hand, we understand
the solution needed will evolve into software that is truly beneficial to our client.
We will define an over-arching project plan that is specific enough to allow the
decision makers to know what they are dealing with, but still vague enough to enable
the agility and adaptability needed in a successful software project. Then the evolution
takes place; we break down the big picture into manageable pieces (modules) and
iterate through those hitting the following steps:
Discovery
Our experience tells us that the best solutions include the right mix of high-level
vision and grassroots specifics. The vision is needed to move companies forward
– not necessarily technologically, but through efficiencies and new offerings. We
learn the vision and ensure that our overall project plan conforms to that vision.
Then we go to the people who actually do the work to get a better feel for what
they encounter daily, and how our efforts will affect their lives. Often, what is
being done on the floor is unknown to the people with the vision and where we can
bridge that gap is where the greatest opportunities for success lie.
Develop
Once we have the information needed to move forward, we start by designing the user
interface (web or windows-based). Page or screens are designed with a sound understanding
of the workflow and how the end-user will use the software. We'll put basic functionality
together and set up a meeting to demonstrate what we've come up with, and both developers
and client will be on the same page. We'll take the positive and the negative, make
our fixes, and develop further functionality into the module if needed. We continue
this process until we have a fully functionally module that can be moved into testing.
Test
This is continuous, by developers, during the development process. Once the software
is ready for the next level of testing, the code is turned over to other project
personnel to give us an end-user feel to the testing. Fixes are made when problems
are encountered and the final tested module is demonstrated to the client.
Deploy
The best planning surrounds deployment. How, when, and where deployment will occur
is a discussion we'll have early, and this will help us understand how the solution
should be architected. When it comes time to deploy, we will document the process
and provide training to all users or train the trainer as needed. If the end-user
doesn't know how to correctly use the system, the chance for success is greatly
diminished.
Enlarge for a detailed view of the workflow process.