Getting Started
You have some ideas for a system that will substantially improve the efficiency of your business and give you a leg up on your competition, but where do you take it from there? Should you staff up internally or take a chance on an external vendor? We can walk you through some options to help you decide.
Step 1: We Listen
Since we’re natural designers and builders, we’re (naturally) intrigued by our clients’ new ideas and concepts. We make good listeners and aren’t afraid to ask lots of questions to step into your shoes.
In the end it will all come down to business value – you want to increase revenues, remove a nagging pain point, or simply get help to understand how your business fits into the modern world. It may be a problem with your hiring process, inefficient operations, service delivery, or operations management. Or it might be a game changer that no-one else has. Whatever it is, we understand that you want us to hear it first in those terms.
Our clients are often surprised by the possibilities uncovered by our first conversations, and how quickly we begin to shape them together. Along the way we’ll cover the relevant work we’ve done for other customers, and won’t drag you through lengthy discussions before giving you a back-of-the-napkin estimate.
Step 2: We discover
Discovery is all about making your concept concrete. It is a short, but intense series of meetings designed to help put the core business problem into shared terms understood by our joint teams.
During Discovery, we begin to materialize concepts into specific user journeys and stories and formalize specific requirements you already have in mind. Depending on your needs, these may take the form of stories, wireframes, visual concepts, use cases, or more technical models.
We tend to do more up-front thinking and planning than other agile shops, because we strongly believe it reduces risk, establishes overall expectations, and gives our clients what they need to make the right decisions. A LightWave® Discovery:
- organizes a set of use cases in priority order, which are used to develop the “Minimum Viable Product” (MVP), a scope control mechanism important at the “blue sky” stage
- helps everyone to understand overall project complexity and risk
- generates a detailed estimate for requirements at a fine-grained level, allowing MVP scope to be tailored to available budget
Step 3: We propose
By this point we’ll all be excited, but we won’t simply begin work with a nod and a wink. Our proposal will provide you with everything you need to make an informed decision and feel confident about moving forward with Jonah. The proposal will contain:
- a statement of shared project goals
- the detailed scope of what we’re proposing to do
- a discussion of the management approach we'll take on the project
- a high level project plan, resource plan, and cost estimate or quote
- the exact set of deliverables
- a description of the warranty and support you will receive after the project is complete
Let’s chat
Embarking on a custom software journey for the first time can seem daunting. Or perhaps you’re already been through it (with “big consulting” or other vendor) but are seeking better value or a better experience. Rest assured that we’ll always speak plainly and openly about what we can offer, and help you understand if we’d be a good fit for your project.
The Jonah Developers were exceptional. Exceptional with their coding skills, with attitudes toward the project, raising problems before they became problems, thinking outside the box. It’s been fantastic working with Jeremy and the team. There’s something magical that Jonah has going on over there that I have yet to put my finger on.
Director, Product Development & Compliance, H&R Block Canada
We want to help.
We ask our team members to care as much as our clients do, and we promote a culture that makes them feel motivated and excited about giving their best. We hire team members that are dynamic, highly proficient, and service-oriented. We think you’ll enjoy working with them!