For every product or application development lifecycle, iD4 employs an appropriate development methodology. The objective is to deliver with optimal quality and value while keeping delivery time and cost minimal. Making use of the legacy models like SDLC/waterfall, Spiral/Iterative, agile and others our panel of experts along with the team members decide on the process technique. A common iD4 methodology consists of following phases :
Identify / Assess requirements phase
Working closely with the client we first get a look at current business practices,objectives and goals to enable in-depth understanding
of the requirements. On receipt of a detailed project specification or request for proposal (RFP) we proceed for assessment of the proposal.
A detailed counter proposal is submitted by iD4's development group for client review and approval. This document encompasses the project
scope,goals, functionality and constraints. Also a project estimate containing project size, work effort and development costs and
a draft project plan is part of the proposal drafted in this phase.
Design phase
The output of comprehensive review of the requirements identification carried out in the previous phase is drafted in the form of a functional
specification document. This document covers both functional and non-functional requirements such as interface requirements, requirements for performance, reliability, security etc. With understanding of the requirements an architecture and high level design document is composed.
In addition, the draft Project Plan and Estimate are revised and updated as required to bring up finalized figures on budget, schedules and milestones.
Sign-off from the client on the functional specification document implies the advent of the next phase which is development.
Develop
On completion and approval of the project requirements specification and architectural design starts the development phase.
Intermediate deliverables are provided to the client based on the agreed upon milestones for verification ensuring the end product shapes
up as per original objectives. Also unit testing on each module is carried out by developers to ensure correctness of the functionality
and reliability at unit level. After unit testing all modules are integrated together to carry out a full blown component integration
cycle. This component integration test bed is then used further for system, performance and stress testing to ensure robustness
and scalability of the product. The outcome is an Alpha release that can be provided to the client for review.
Dissect
iD4 terms QA phase as Dissection wherein extensive testing is carried out by QA team. Its the responsibility of QA to detect any deviation from the quality procedures and ensure all requirements and specifications are properly considered and met. After rigorous testing QA releases the
beta version of the product. All bugs and errors found by QA are constantly reported back to the development support team which fixes
and provides QA team with patches. A regression QA cycle is carried out as necessary.
Deploy
This is the final delivery phase. Here final product is configured, installed and deployed at the deployment site. After the 'Go Live' the
whole system is monitored closely, fixes are provided for critical issues ensuring complete customer satisfaction. It is also during
this phase when iD4 carries out knowledge transfers to the client, if requested.
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