CUSTOM PROGRAMMING

SavviTrack™: The process which ensures proper user experience, design and development.

Savvior’s deep experience helping global leaders, emerging startups, and influential non-profits solve business challenges through technology will enable solid collaboration on this effort. To meet the specific needs of this project, Savvior brings forth twenty years’ experience, a proven track record and great team to deliver the right fit for this technology.

Savvior employs our proprietary SavviTrack™ Five-stage development process: Define, Structure, Design, Build, and Deploy

Stages conclude with milestones met, and your approval of our deliverables. The five stages may occur in parallel at times, according to the specific requirements and time considerations of the project.

 

 

Savvior Project Management

Savvior has a proven Development Process and a Project Management Methodology that works. Project Management at Savvior is the key to providing quality, on-time and on-budget delivery of work, and the Project Manager is the keeper of that process. The Project Manager becomes the primary point of contact for all project planning, requirements gathering and content coordination.

The Project Manager works in partnership with you to ensure the project stays on track. The Project Manager is ultimately responsible for delivering the project plan, updating customers with status and providing detailed task and budget information regularly, milestone documents, setting schedules and coordinating team resources at Savvior to ensure the successful on-time, on-budget completion of projects.

Phase 1 – Define: Discovery and Planning

Working with your team, we will help facilitate front-end discovery and strategic analysis to identify the most effective features and functions, as well as the specific user-experience solution that will achieve the required results. End-user and technical requirements are gathered, assimilated and distilled into the framework of the product.

SavviTrack™ Discovery Sessions are hosted by key members of our team, with deep experience in all relevant technology and business areas we’ll address.

Following our SavviTrack™ Discovery session, the Savvior team will create a project plan with schedule, milestones, and pricing, for review with your team.

 

 

Phase 2 - Structure

Once the initial Discovery process is complete, Savvior will perform a deeper technology assessment. This will include a review of current systems and point solutions, assesment of hosting and back-end data, a look at initial design files or SEO plans, and an assessment of Risks and Assumptions related to the project.

After the SavviTrack™ Discovery Session we will identify which types of documents will be required to make your project a success. Some of these documents include:

  • Work breakdown structure (WBS)
  • Detailed project plan/schedule
  • Full software requirements
  • Use Case document
  • Testing Plans
  • Wire frame design documents
  • Finalized design files
  • Functional Prototypes
  • Launch Plan

What is Risk?

A risk is defined as a potential problem, or setback, that can occur due to unforeseen circumstances, caused by a lack of proper planning. Part of the SavviTrack™ process is to define, contain, and eliminate risk in a project.

Risks contain three parts:

  • A description - This is a statement which describes the risk
  • An impact assessment - The impact assessment describe what we believe the impact to the project will be if the risk turns out to be true.
  • A mitigation strategy - This is a suggested course of action to mitigate/minimize the impact described above

 

In addition, as part of Risk Management, Savvior will define a series of Assumptions.

Assumptions - Assumptions will be made about how something exists, how something should work, or might work and it is not possible to answer without a full formal discovery process.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phase 3 - Design

We work with you from initial idea to nailing specifications, from creating initial mockups to an iterative prototyping process before formalizing the final design.

This collaborative process happens by Savvior engaging your team to provide feedback and input at all stages of design. By letting the entire process remain open to users, Savvior removes the risk of last minute changes or sudden “stop gaps” in user experience by ironing out known flaws during the mockup and prototype process.

The end goal for our design flow is a product that sharpens into focus, rather than a switch flip into final design. That is to say, the end product should be very familiar with the client as they will have seen it grow from skeleton to fully-fleshed out product.

Specifications

During the discovery process the key stakeholders in the project from both the client and Savvior will meet to discuss everything from big-picture overviews, to look and feel, to specific “I want that” options. Savvior will bring its operations lead, project manager, and design team to provide expert level insight into the design of the app.

During these meeting(s) everything from the idea phase is fleshed out on paper, questions are asked from us based on past experience, and answers are given to any comments and concerns you the customer might have. This process also includes running through any process currently in use by you or your team. By running through how a potential current system operates we can identify with you known pros, cons, and flaws in the process.

While this discussion is occurring everything will be recorded onto a document available to everyone who is a key stakeholder to the project. This document will be in flex as new features or clarifications are discussed over the course of the discovery process. Once the specifications document is complete, and both parties are happy with the results we move to the mockups or wireframes.

Mockups

Savvior leverages special programs which accelerate the mockup process, and produce basic design mockups for your review, which help us collaboratively think through the flow of the app/site/software and allows for firming up of requirements for the project.

Initial mockups spur creativity and ease-of-use with user experience at the forefront. These mockups, which are quick and messy by design, bring clarity to our final product, and also eliminate haziness in potential roadblocks for the final product.

As the mockup cycle unfolds, Savvior hosts the branding and visual design process, ensuring any logos, pictures, or color schemes are incorporated as part of our design process.

The end goal for our design flow is a product that sharpens into focus, rather than a switch flip into final design. That is to say, the end product should be very familiar with the client as they will have seen it grow from skeleton to fully-fleshed out product.

Following our mockup process Once the initial mockups are in a state where they are an accurate representation of the user experience flow the UX engineering team takes over. They combine the initial mockup with the finalized branding and visual design to produce a usable prototype.

 

 

 

Prototyping

At this stage of the process, Savvior's team has mockups in a state which accurately represents the future user experience, and our engineering team springs into action to combine initial mockups with finalized branding and visual design.

Now we have a usable prototype, which will be partially functional, further testing begins to explore any unwanted user experience bottlenecks. From here, Savvior and your team runs through the flow, look and feel, and often make tweaks and changes, bringing us ever closer to final design.

Back in your hands, we work with you to gauge feedback on look, feel, usability, and aesthetics, from your team or through the use of focus groups, as preferred.

 

Beta Testing and Focus Groups

Savvior facilitates focus group meetings at our Pittsburgh Headquarters, or at a location of your choosing, and typically work with individuals provided by our clients for the sessions.

Open betas consist of a number of users who download beta version of the site/app/software the app for testing (if applicable). Leveraging our process and years of experience, we get the right results on the all important feedback and how to shape the overall user experience.

 

Phase 4 - Build

Through frequent interaction (i.e. on-site meetings, web-based communications, written updates, phone conferences, meeting notes and agendas) we keep you involved as the project progresses. The Savvior development team will:

  • Complete a thorough quality assurance check throughout the development process
  • Address all issues raised as a result of usability testing

 

Savvior employs an extensive quality assurance system (QA) to ensure that the solution performs correctly on all target configurations. We fully test our deliverables for technical bugs and will install the application on your servers.

As a client, you will have full access to the SavviTrack Portal™, our client project portal, to keep abreast of all project happenings.

Phase 5 - Deploy

 

Now that your project is complete and tested out, it's time for the most important part of the process: Successful deployment and maintenance.

Savvior uses version control disciplines and software to ensure that your project is deployed correctly, quickly, and with little required input from you or your IT dept.

Just because the project is live and ready doesn't mean Savvior is done yet, our maintenance contract covers you against security updates, changes in browser/compatibility changes, and answers to question or training on the new software.

Can you make one of the world’s most popular project management tools even better?

Savvior’s done it!

The world’s leading companies are leveraging the power of Atlassian products, including Jira, one of the top project management tools, for agile software development.

Every company has its own unique project workflows, however, and out-of-the box Jira workflows do not naturally fit bespoke project management methodologies, which can quickly lead to project teams getting out of sync, missing steps and fields, and confusion which can arise over deployment of new features project statuses. For 20 years, Savvior’s helped the world’s leading firms better optimize their existing software environments, with tools and platforms that help users more fully customize and collaborate.

Savvior’s Mantra&tm; platform offers a customized portal which matches unique, custom workflows for any company’s software project by exposing custom workflows out to customers, allowing full service help desk features, including submission of tickets via email. Now, migrating relevant project information into Jira takes seconds, and is always up-to-date. Savvior can also help help your company deploy and integrate Atlassian products to help overall performance:


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