Service Delivery and Project Management

Project management is a skill that aligns with our values

CSDI customer representatives (CR) are not good at taking orders.  They are responsible for customer success before client sales.  So, if a customer asks for an Exchange shared mailbox, the CR will ask why before she asks when.  The CR is expected to make sure that our services meet both functional and nonfunctional requirements.  If the email bound for the shared mailbox contains personally identifiable information (PII), then using a SharePoint Form may be a less expensive solution that is easier to secure.

CSDI process governs all of delivery. 

Analysis drives our projects

In order to ensure success, we need to know that our plans are complete.   That requires analysis.  Every implementation requires that step.  Simply looking at the analysis checklist to ensure that our standard non-functional requirements are included can save implementations from disaster.  Having these processes in place allows the analysis of small projects to be done minutes. 

Agile Development

Sometimes projects are too large or experimental to design up front.  This is unusual for small businesses, but can be necessary.  In those instances, CSDI follows an iterative development methodology.

Using that structure, all known system requirements are maintained in a list called the "backlog".  The list is prioritized and the project team commits to completing the most important items by a fixed date.  At the end of the development cycle ("sprint"), production-ready capability is delivered and a new sprint is organized.

This Agile methodology allows management to re-prioritize the backlog between sprints and keeps the development effort aligned with business needs.

When we take on projects large enough to require multiple iterations, little changes in our normal process.  The project deliverables still must conform to our standards and all the same non-functional requirements must be met.

Requests that are unique to the customer go through a standard process, too.