anderScore GmbH - anderS: Our Approach

anderS: Our Approach

Starting Point

The

approach closes a gap which often causes projects to fail: mismatch between customer's expectations and the implementation of the corresponding IT "solution".

Often, one can find scenarios like the following:

Business or other customer role: knows the current need that should be covered by software development, at least intuitively, but cannot – or sometimes does not like to – express those requirements in technical vocabulary, common in IT-projects.
IT: thinks in technical terms and expects clear technical requirements that can be translated into program code, without having to care about any business-related topic.
Results: specified requirements are badly or not understood, the developed system does not serve its purpose or is not useable at all.

Common characteristics of such projects:

high strategic importance for the customer
entrance into new market segments or adaptation to the changing environment in already covered segments
initially unclear customer expectations that mostly become more precise during the project as the experience using the system grows
continuous shifts in priorities accompanied by changing requirements and schedules: "development in change mode" is, so to say, daily business
complex cross-system integration, cross-department interfaces with often vague or ambiguous
definitions of data structures
no existing off-the-shelf standard product can fulfil the customer's needs

Solution

specializes in exactly those scenarios. We approach our projects differently, so that the customer’s needs and the IT implementation can be effectively synchronised.

Not every project is

(i.e. different).

precisely clarifies the actual customer need in order to find the most appropriate design for the new application and the means to implement it. Starting point is often the customer's existing requirements documentation.

Alternatively,

works together with the customer on formulating the requirements, on
simplifying the existing or designing new business processes and finally on deriving a suitable technical concept and implementing the application.

During this process,

documents the business-side concept and requirements in a project specific way, ensuring that materials are understandable to the customer and meet existing corporate standards. Even more important than a pile of documentation,

will work to demonstrate the expected functioning of the new application as early as possible.

All this is achieved through intense cooperation between business departments, final customers and the developers, a process that continues during the entire project lifecycle, which is therefore usually divided in short time segments: cycles.

Using this approach,

ensures that

our customer can steer the development during the remaining cycles and can react timely in case the development starts deviating from initial expectations
customer expectations are set towards the final result, thus avoiding "nasty surprises" when the customer first sees the project outcome in the end
business representatives internalize a sense of ownership of the application, stand behind it, and can represent the results towards a wider user base

Key elements of the

approach are:

Cycles	Design and development in short sequential time periods with customer reviews after each period
Senior Developers:	Consultants with distinct ability to translate business requirements into technical architecture
Cooperation:	Tight cooperation of developers with the customer and their business departments
Culture:	Open, problem-solving and partnership-oriented relationship in a motivated team, both within as well as in a joint team with our customer