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Is your business faced with a complex need that no software addresses “out of the box?” If custom development is the best path, and you seek a reliable road map, Solertium consultants can help. Our scoping and design practice works with enterprises to lay the groundwork for successful custom software projects.

We will work with your executive team to choose the most cost-effective forms of assistance from our menu of scoping and design services. In some cases, we may ask to have the opportunity to bid on the development, management, or support phases of the project. We may also agree to explicitly disclaim any chance to bid, preserving our absolute neutrality as a scoping and design advisor.

Cost/Benefit Analysis: Researching The State Of The Art

Are you sure a custom solution is the best fit? A small-to-medium-size custom development project generally costs between $10,000 and $100,000. Perhaps an existing off-the-shelf solution can be customized to meet your needs for much less investment, with much greater returns. If your organization lacks the internal resources to do a thorough cost-benefit analysis of custom development, turn to our researchers and our extensive network of industry insiders. For a small investment in research time, your organization can get trusted answers in a well-documented package.

Eliciting Business Requirements

Within any enterprise, there may be barriers to effective communication about requirements. Stakeholders may have personal, professional, or political issues that prevent them from volunteering critical information about their needs. Without full disclosure about requirements, a custom development project can have failure “designed in” from the outset.

In the Solertium requirements elicitation process, we use directed questioning and active listening in a judgement-free forum. Our staff is trained and experienced in the application of dialectic techniques that lower participants’ defensive barriers and get them excited about having a voice in the design process. When language or cultural barriers challenge the process, we involve native speakers and local representatives as facilitators.

Requirements Documentation

Starting from a collection of bits of information about user needs, we can produce a document that articulates the problem domain clearly. The document can use the communications template and branding of your organization, or develop an effective information design for you. The requirements document can be a component of an RFP or can be raw material for an engineering and design exercise. Our methodology involves separating business and technical requirements, producing two documents or a two-part document, each type of requirement communicated differently to achieve clarity to its intended audience.

Technical Validation

Unfortunately, RFP respondents sometimes stretch the truth about their products or services, and it is difficult for an unsuspecting buyer to discover the discrepancies – until the project is well under way. Can the proposed database really support the needed number of users on the available hardware? Does the proposed software really work reliably on all the needed platforms? Using our extensive network of partners and industry contacts, we can quickly and economically cross-check such elements of a vendor’s RFP response against real-world facts and experience. Vendor selection is always your decision, but we can arm you with the facts to make the correct choice.