You, along with everyone else, want flexible, innovative, intuitive, software that never goes out of date and enables brainwave-to-product-launch in an instant. At first sight of the brief your under pressure IT Department man the barricades defending the current operations while suppliers drawback fearing the lack of weighty specification documents and a defined budget. This is why Answer exists.
Whether it’s a Java or .Net Commerce solution, enterprise architecture challenges, legacy mainframe integration or a project in trouble, we have the experience and proven practices to provide the Answer. We’ve worked in every sector, seen most things, and there is never one fix to suit all. Our consistency is derived from technical pragmatism and, above all, having people with the know how to engage clients and users in achieving success.
What is Buildfactory?
Buildfactory is how we deliver projects. It is how we collaborate with our clients and how we ensure successful delivery, of business benefit, to our clients.
OK, so is it Scrum then?
No! But it is agile. It's origins are in DSDM, but Buildfactory is a living thing. We adapt it to suit the circumstances that face us. Our customers are never the same, neither are their requirements or circumstances, and so our process is adaptable and flexible.
We know that tools and processes are not a silver bullet. It is in knowing which tools are right for the job, and how to re-evaluate continually along the way, ensuring we maintain momentum and focus on delivering value. However, every Buildfactory project will share some common elements which are based on a number of fundamental agile principles:
Deliver demonstrable, useable resultsIrrespective of project scale, Buildfactory practices target delivery of a working application within weeks or even days of start-up. This establishes technical feasibility but also enables the business users/customers to return feedback and to provide early validation that initiative has enough merit for forward investment.
within weeks of start-up
Early validation that theLeaving testing until the last weeks of a project creates the risk of fundamental issues arising. The Buildfactory approach, testing is applied from the start; at developer level but also at the application level. We also target testing of functional and non-functional requirements right from the start. Giving early feedback to the questions we all worry about: does it work, can it scale?
application works
Remove projectReleasing early and often, testing for functional and non-functional issues, and validating on a continual basis are difficult practices to adopt without a supporting tool-set. In Buildfactory we have the tools and platform in place to support the team from day 1. Through our dashboards, progress is visible to all stakeholders. Issues are spotted and resolved before they risk the overall delivery.
infrastructure impediments
Successful delivery meansWe believe in incremental delivery and based on priorities. This demands a close relationship between the delivery team and the key stakeholders. Through rigid prioritisation and constant negotiation we ensure that there are never any surprises. It might not be the solution you envisaged at the start, but we deliver working solutions that meet your customer's needs.
constant negotiation
Using Agile tools and techniques sometimes feels like a leap of faith, because of the perceived uncertainty, but the Answer team have such great expertise in the area, in practice you just win quicker, in a refreshingly different yet controlled environment.
Jonathan Phillips, Head of Consultancy Solutions, Bluefin Group
Answer got to grips with what we were trying to achieve very quickly. It was a difficult concept but Answer was responsive and pro-active. Using their considerable skills in Agile project delivery they took on a lot of responsibility for defining the BAKOFF project
John Walker, Head of Application Development, Arcadia Group Ltd