Product development without a strong process is doomed to fail. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But some day it will. And even if it doesn’t, the headaches you will face everyday from that point on will make you wish it did fail.
Product development is notoriously difficult and even the slightest indulgence in cutting corners will result in immeasurable costs down the road. Our passion is in employing formal software development processes and we utilize sophisticated tracking tools to ensure each client has complete visibility into its product development cycle. We have developed a repeatable process for the design, rapid prototyping, development, QA, and deployment of robust and scalable technologies. Our process has proven to be successful, and all of our clients will attest to our professional, timely, and thorough execution.
The Process
A successful engagement is a combination of people and tools that communicate effectively together. At CoreObjects, we realized that a well defined process should drive everything else. The Core Unified Process (CUP™ ) was developed to cover the end-to-end task of product development. This process allows us to establish our core competence of being a Distributed Cooperative Software Development™ engine.
Our expertise lies in managing distributed international project teams with members consisting of client personnel from multiple locations, client-specified independent contractors, CoreObjects US resources, and CoreObjects India resources. Our ability to effectively communicate with a distributed team and operate an efficient, cooperative development environment across multiple companies sets us apart from our competitors.
A Robust Framework
We are committed to developing Intellectual Property that continually improves this process.
This framework enforces and accentuates the elements of our development process that are the key to our success: quality, efficiency and repeatability.
We have learned that failing to formalize the development process often results in the execution of unnecessary or duplicate activities, and sometimes results in activities being overlooked. Our experience and deep knowledge of software development practices and leading methodologies led us to creating CUP - which in turn allows us to develop an efficient and thoroughly tailored delivery cycle for each of our clients.
Detailed artifacts (Project Charters, Design Documents, Test Plans, etc.) are created at each stage to further support the framework. A delivery of a product involves not only the code, but all these artifacts, test scripts, etc. – everything that a client would expect from his or her own team.
The Tools
Even though defining the sophisticated process was a major accomplishment in itself, we did not rest on our laurels. The entire process is managed by our Product Lifecycle Management tool, ClearVu™. This tool goes far beyond existing tools and easily integrates with existing systems and provides a platform for launching and managing products and services.
To further expedite the time to market, we have built re-useable Common Core Components that can be used to jump start the development. These components are essential for almost any product and we provide robust and well-tested pieces that are currently operating in commercially deployed products.
Quality
At times it almost seems like product developers forget the main purpose of building the software in the first place. The product is supposed to make life easier for the end user – by simplifying the process, making it less expensive or making it faster.
Poor quality flies in the face of this purpose. Quality cannot be an after-thought – it has to be an integral part of the process.
At CoreObjects, not only do we make it part of the process, but is enforced by the proper use of ClearVu™. A feature is not complete until it has been matched with its requirements, unit tests have been developed, all artifacts have been created and the release criteria have been met as per the project charter.
It is not simply enough to be able to build a product – one should also be able to deploy it. Our Assured Quality process ensures that whether it is a shrink-wrapped product or Software delivered as a service (SAAS), the quality is assured for the initial release, as well as for all future releases.
The Engagement
Our business model requires that we empower our clients. A major benefit of CoreObjects' approach with its clients is the way in which we enter the relationship. We encourage our clients to interview our leads before they are ever put onto the engagement. Our clients are able to take advantage of a complete CoreObjects team that can provide whatever the client might be looking for – whether it is a CTO, a Product Manager, an experienced senior architect, a technical software engineer or a fully functioning Quality Assurance team.
Our goal is to provide a service that is more than a sum of just the resources, and we back this promise by employing a transparent process where everything that is available to the engineers working on a specific engagement is also available to the client. At no time do we want the client to feel like they are locked in and cannot get out. A successful engagement for us is one where we are a trusted partner that the client can rely on blindly to do the right thing by them.