All Things Considered « Orange and Juicy

All Things Considered

August 30, 2011

Technology

Shannon Spence

Bob Cody, Gate6’s resident Director of Technology Consulting, is a funny guy. Don’t be deceived by his sometimes serious countenance – he’s really just concentrating on delivering the BEST results for our clients as is humanly possible. Here’s a snapshot of Bob’s daily grind. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

What’s the first step you guys in development take when starting a new project?
We sit down with the client to understand their needs and set a tone of collaboration. During this meeting (usually several meetings), we gather the project requirements in writing and create what we call a BRS (Business Requirements Specification). Once written, we review this document together until both parties agree on the details of the project before getting started.

It’s so important to do this upfront: to outline the work entailed, set a timeline of completion and determine costs. Just as you wouldn’t start building a house without a blueprint, we won’t build software without a gameplan.

And it’s not just for us … the BRS is insurance for both parties. We are agreeing to do a certain amount of work in a certain amount of time. At the same time, our client can come back and say, “This isn’t what we agreed to.”

What does “out of scope” mean?
As we move forward and have more time to think about things, other ideas and action items come up. This usually leads to a change in requirements, or “change of scope.”

When requirements are changed, it’s not as black and white as most people think it is. There’s a lot of gray area. Sometimes what a client is asking for is actually quite involved, which can lead to schedule delays, an increase in project cost or both. But some things come up that are easy changes or additions to make. These we try to accommodate as much as possible, even if they’re not included in the original BRS.

Does timing matter? Is there a difference between changing things at the beginning of a project as opposed to in the middle of it?
Yes, definitely. When a requirement changes toward the beginning of a project, it’s a lot easier to accommodate. The deeper we get into a project, the more we have to undo to change a requirement. A lot of work that’s already been done may have to be replaced or significantly rewritten. It is also more than just the time needed to make the changes but also, time required to test or retest areas of the project that are impacted.

How common are these scope changes?
No matter how much time is spent upfront, something always comes up. “We need to display this on the screen as well.” “We’d like to add a blog.” It’s not always easy to account for everything. Most analyses we do here, we’re able to include about 90-95% of the project details. There’s always that 5-10% that nobody has thought of. Hopefully, these things come up early on when it’s cheaper and easier to make changes, rather than 6 months down the road where you have to undo work you’ve already done.

You mentioned some of your clients aren’t used to documenting their needs. How does Gate6 differ from other companies with this process?
Some clients tell us they were given a fixed price over the phone after talking to a sales representative for just 5 minutes. We oftentimes spend weeks going through this process, learning about the company and creating the analysis document (a.k.a. BRS). Once you have these details documented, you’re in a much better position to give project estimates and propose a schedule. One big advantage the client gets from this process is that they have a detailed list of their business requirements. This can be shared with any other company so that when they compare costs and schedule, they are comparing apples to apples.

Other companies have said they can do what we do in two weeks. Problem is, not all requirements are taken into consideration. Those companies will complete a project and the client will many times find that significant pieces of what they wanted done have not been included in the finished product.

When a company can give you an estimate without actually sitting down and talking about the project, it usually means that all things have not been considered.