How I work
A program built to order is decided one piece at a time: the right decisions are taken at the start, when they cost little.
The stages
Before each stage you know what happens, how it involves you and what you end up holding.
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First contact
What happensYou tell me about your situation. Then we work out whether it is a problem to be solved with software or with something else.
What you end up holdingA clear answer, including when it is no. Free, and with no commitment.
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Analysis
What happensI ask questions of the people who do the work, not only of the people who organise it.
Where it helps I come and see for myself: some things never get told in a meeting.What you end up holdingThe right questions, which are almost never the ones you started with.
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Project document
What happensI put in writing what will be built, what “done” means for each piece, what stays out, and which decisions are still missing.
What you end up holdingThe document, which is yours even if we do not go on from there.
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Quote
What happensThe price is worked out from that document, not from an idea.
If the scope changes, you see straight away what it weighs.What you end up holdingA quote you can read line by line, with the costs that stay with you over time written out separately.
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Build
What happensIt starts from the piece that solves the main problem, and it is built to hold: what you ask for a year from now has to fit where it belongs, instead of forcing everything open again.
What you end up holdingA test environment you can always reach: you can watch while it moves, and speak up before it is late.
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Go-live
What happensIt starts running, usually alongside the old system where there is one.
In the first days the people using it can reach me while they work, and where it is needed I come on site.What you end up holdingThe system in the company, and people who know how to use it.
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Afterwards
What happensWhat comes up in the first month is not a set of mistakes: it is reality making itself heard. It gets sorted.
What you end up holdingSomeone to call who answers, and a system that can be grown.
What the project document looks like
For a job of average size it runs to several pages, and the entries run into the dozens: one part for each piece of the system, plus the parts that hold for all of it.
It always contains: what gets built and what does not, what “done” means for each piece, the decisions taken and the reason for them, the questions still open, and who has to supply what. The open questions stay written down until somebody closes them, so before starting you can see what is still missing to close the scope and set the price.
Below is one of those entries — what “done” means — with four lines taken from real projects. They are rules of operation, that is, what the program has to make happen; the rest is written the same way, the interface included — which screens there are, what you see, what happens when something fails. A line is done when you can look at it and say yes or no, without arguing: everything that can be checked belongs in it, and taste does not.
Example — what “done” means
| Module | When it is done |
|---|---|
| Selling from vansThe morning load | What goes onto the van leaves the warehouse at the same moment: no item is in two places at once. Until the load is closed, the round does not start. |
| Selling from vansClosing the day | Sold, returned and left over add back up to exactly what went out that morning. If it does not add up, you see it the same evening and you see on which line — not at stocktake, six months later. |
| Bike rentalEnd of a rental | A rental closes when the bike is locked, not when the customer closes the app. If the phone has no signal at that moment, the time the bike recorded is the one that counts: the customer pays up to there, even if the message arrives twenty minutes later. |
| PassBookingBuying a booking | Two people cannot buy the same booking, not even paying in the same instant. The second one gets a no straight away, not a refund a week later. |
If you are starting from an idea instead of a company
The first three stages tighten into one — the feasibility review — and the quote covers the first product instead of the whole system. The rest is identical: it is written down first, watched while it moves, and what comes up afterwards gets sorted.
Tell me where you are starting from: what wastes most of your time, what costs you every month, or what you would like to bring into existence.
The first contact is free, and it is there to work out whether the problem can be addressed. It is not a sales pitch: if this is not the right fit, I say so straight away.
- Email info@azzertech.it
- Phone +39 351 974 7299