At CL Infotech, we work directly with your employees to understand your business objectives and realize them through a pragmatic project methodology. Our team will collaborate with your staff to select the right tools and work through our development process to implement, test and launch your e-business system.

Our Development Process is based on specific development phases, and deliverables are tailored to the needs of each client project. A preliminary system architecture is developed first, then small increments called "milestones" are identified and integrated into the schedule at short delivery intervals. This reduces integration risk and provides checkpoints for project adjustments.

The CL Infotech Assessment is the first phase of the CL Infotech Development Process and comprises a technical analysis of the project to evaluate the system, software and application architectures as well as the development and deployment environment. The Assessment makes sure we set out to build an application that meets your scope, cost and delivery objectives.

• A consistent means of delivery that maintains quality across all engagements and ensures that important activities are not left out.

• A framework to facilitate the knowledge flow within a project.

• An efficient process that promotes learning and allows us to continually refine our methodology.

• A deep understanding of our client's goals that integrates our business and technology expertise. This helps us fully understand our client's immediate and long-term business needs and allows us to design robust technological solutions that will keep pace with our client's future needs

• A set of project management and estimation tools that allows us to accurately estimate the resources, budgets and schedules for new work.

• A risk-management approach to mitigate the risks of adopting new business models and emerging technologies by following a tested methodology. The necessary checks and balances are built into this methodology to assure that a project is proceeding satisfactorily.

• Flexibility to adapt to specific goals and market needs, as well as consistently deliver value to a diverse range of clients.

An e-business has limited value if it remains static. To retain or gain a leadership position within an industry, you must continually innovate. What makes our approach different, is built-in feedback and iteration, which allows for continuous innovation from a stable base of operations while planning and engineering the next solution. In the rapidly changing marketplace of e-business, this innovation is key.

A Proven, Results-Driven Methodology

Our phased development process simplifies management and reduces risks for the creation, integration and implementation of e-business systems. Our approach of incremental development over short time intervals allows for a controlled, customized and repeatable process that reduces costs and ensures delivery. Routine Quality Assurance reviews are performed by experts outside of the project team to ensure the system is delivered on time and on budget. Our four-phase development process—covering assessment, analysis, development and testing—is a methodology with a proven track record for success.

Assessment Phase

This involves the study of the user's requirement. This phase gives a clear and concise understanding of the capabilities, scope, requirements, costs and schedule for a system that meets current business objectives, while building a foundation that allows you flexibility and scalability for future needs. Our experience and thorough process combine to give you an entire blueprint—with unmatched accuracy and reliability—to achieve your e-business goals.

At this stage, a team leader and a business analyst is identified for the project. The team leader is involved in all the stages of the project life cycle from now on. Life Cycle stages as in "water fall" model are followed.

Analysis Phase

In this phase of the project life cycle High Level Design and Low Level Design are performed.
-High Level Design: Logical view of the computer implementation to the customer requirement is designed. The functional architecture of the application, the database design and the project standards are finalized.
-Low Level Design: The application is broken into modules and programs. The common functions, tools are designed. Program Specifications, Unit Test Plans compiled in low level design phase.

Combined with applicable assessment phase findings, the analysis phase lays the foundation that turns your business vision into operational reality. The analysis phase produces detailed requirements and system architecture specifications to ensure a smooth, and predictable project execution.
The key Analysis phase deliverables are:

• Requirements Specification - a detailed description of functional needs, as well as non-functional requirements, including performance, reliability and security requirements.

• High Level Object Model - highlighting key business objects and their relationships.
• High Level Project Plan - with preliminary schedule, tasks, resource requirements and organization chart.
• Technical and Software Architecture Specifications - including software partitioning, other products, protocols and deployment options.
• Architecture and GUI Prototypes
  

Development Phase

In this phase, the programs are written as per the program specifications compiled in the earlier phases. All the programming standards are followed. Self unit tests and independent unit tests for all the programs are carried out in this phase.

Milestones are assigned for each grouping of business functions, and for implementation and testing. Generally, each milestone is completed within eight to twelve weeks, depending on the number of business functions in the milestone and the complexity of the functionality described. The development work for each milestone includes:
Design Documentation - with sequence diagrams and a greater level of detail provided to the Object Model.
Source Code Written - to implement each business function in the system.
Testing - beginning with unit testing, followed by incremental integration testing and regression testing.
Functional System Demo - as each milestone completes, a demonstration of the functionality becomes available for review.

Testing Phase

This final phase of the development process actually starts during the analysis phase when the project team evaluates and selects the best testing tools for your company's system test. A three-step testing process begins with:

1. System Test and User Acceptance Planning - which details processes for conducting the system test, defines how and when performance and stress testing will be conducted, details reporting and tracking of software defects and outlines test team member roles.

2. System Test - requires completion of all milestone units, integration and regression testing. The system test team identifies and logs any defects in the software, the development team makes appropriates fixes and then the system test team executes additional test cycles until all defects are eliminated.

3. User Acceptance Test/Pilot - the last step in the testing phase includes final testing of the software and release to a subset of the user community. The pilot process develops a core group of users to debug the system in its actual production environment and to help accelerate training when made available to a broader user community.

The fully tested application is installed at the customer work place. The customer is trained to install the application.

Acceptance contains the necessary software modifications to fit the customer environment and obtain customer sign off for the application. At this stage we give the installed application warranty support until it stabilizes in the production environment.
Each phase of the Development Process is accomplished by our professionals whose expertise has helped many companies develop e-business systems efficiently and effectively to gain competitive advantage.