Pillars Approach

Quality Control 

PillarProjects understands how to apply technology to meet business needs. We also know that not all IT projects are the same but our approach will ensure a quality product is delivered, reducing risks and costs.

Each of the steps below will be considered when taking on a new project, of any size and some or all will be implemented.  The intent is to provide your business's website with a smooth transition from conception to launch.

The Project/IT Life Cycle

Understanding the business objective ... This means sitting down with you to understand what you are trying to achieve, not just gathering requirements, but the business goals as well so that Pillars can think with you.

Establishing a project structure ... All IT projects need to put in place a project structure. This does not mean you need to have a full "Project Management" methodology in place for all projects, but "something" is needed to ensure items are tracked and managed.

Documenting ... This step outlines "Who, What, When, Why, and How" of the project. Why are we doing the project, What will be delivered, by Whom, How will it be approached and When will it be delivered. The effort with this is directly related to the project size. For the smaller projects we accomplish this with a simple questionnaire.

Design / Development ... "Waterfall", "Rapid Application Development" / (RAD or Agile), or a mix of the 2. How an IT project approaches development varies on size. In most cases, "coding" will be occurring while documenting what is needed. This way you can see firsthand on how the application is shaping up allowing for adjustments, at an early stage in the process.

Testing ... Testing is a way to mitigate risk of something going wrong with your application. Testing can be costly if the full suite of testing occurs and if not enough testing is done it could result in reputation loss. We can put in place a testing strategy to protect you.

Launch ... This is a process that many take for granted, but it is really a means to document the steps needed to implement an application and execute them painlessly. Again each project will have its own flavour and Pillars will put together an implementation to meet your needs without falling over when you flip the switch.

Operation support ... as your IT Department we are thinking of these considerations well: "play environments", statistics, data migration, disaster recovery/ backups and scalability.

While none of the items above are very difficult, very few companies know/do all of it as it should be accomplished.