The approach we use at 3B is designed to enable our customer to control costs and archive maximum benefit from the project .... (details)
- Initial idea sharing
- Consultant and solution proposing
- Budget and costing proposing
- Implementing and developing
- Testing
- Going live
3B-Workshop Approach
The conventional process is that the customer specifies what the software will do, the supplier quotes for providing the software and if the customer agrees the price an agreement is signed. After a period of time the supplier delivers the software and the bill.
The process works well for large companies, they can afford to give the time to produce an accurate specification plus there procedures are more mature and stable.
For the SME this is not so. The advantage with the SME is the speed of response to changing market conditions, procedures are varied and often change to take advantage of moment. Time is of a premium and difficult to justify spending talking to a software supplier when it can be better spent doing business.
A different more flexible approach is needed. One that serves the interests of both the supplier and the customer, it is in no one interest to take advantage of the other. If the supplier takes advantage of their customers they will get a bad reputation and their business will suffer. If customers takes advantage of the supplier they are unlikely to be around when support is needed.
The approach we use at 3B is designed to enable our customer to control costs and archive maximum benefit from the project whilst protecting us from unnecessary expenditure by reducing rework due to unexpected changes in requirements.
In stead of a specification we produce with the customer a set of agreed business benefits, not what the software should do but what it should archive. This enables the customer to know what the result will be while leave 3B free to deliver that benefit in the most cost effective way.
A budget is agreed against the benefits this enables the project to be monitored and if it becomes clear that the benefits cannot be archived within the budget they or the budget can be adjusted.
Further by breaking the project down into small deliverables it can be constantly measured against the expected benefits and adjustments made without undue cost which ensures a successful outcome.