Diceus Quality Guarantees: Processes, SDLC, Metrics

Processes from
the client’s perspective

Our processes are built concerning our customers’ needs to deliver the software project outcomes as expected. For the last nine years, we have managed to create the winning pre-sales, operations, quality and services delivery, human resources. Each of these core business processes and the functions associated with them are performed with transparency, project goal, and customer satisfaction in mind.

Pre-Sales

The traditional steps followed by our customers during the pre-sales:

Communicating your business challenges, problems, goals, and objectives to the pre-sales team
Identifying your requirements on a high level with the help of professional analysts and architects
Understanding your needs for labor and time resources, skills, expertise, technology, getting the approximate project estimation
Getting familiar with our documentation, software development phases, standards, and guarantees

Operations

The scope of Operations comprises the services provided for both internal teams and external clients. Our operations are stable, reliable, and safe. For our clients, this means:

Well-defined policies and procedures to ensure stability in delivering software projects of any complexity
Secure client’s data provided by a range of measures for data security, network, facilities, hardware
Managed IT operations ensured by comprehensive guidance throughout all the teams, continuous compliance monitoring
Well-developed metrics for operations, audits, and software licenses management

Delivery

Our approach to project management and delivery is aligned with client demand for traceable project execution, consistent communication, regular reporting, performance control, and visible outcomes.

Requirement management: requirements gathering, including functional and non-functional requirements that serve as the basis for testing, design, and architecture mockups.
Change management procedures allow us to effectively and quickly measure the impact of the change on the project’s scope, time, and budget.
Traceable project execution. For quality results, we use a traceability matrix to track how well the requirements are aligned with the released functionalities and how test cases cover these requirements.
Consistent communication. Throughout the development, you will be guided by a dedicated account manager, while a PMI-certified project manager will manage your project.
Reporting and performance control. We provide reports on project progress, status, and defects. You have access to a unique Customer Portal to track all the project execution under one roof. The service is continuously checked in SLA reports showing how the agreed levels are aligned with the actual performance.
Visible outcomes. Before the project start, you know when its approximate release date. We use Critical Path Analysis to calculate all the resources, including the minimum time and labor to complete the project.

Quality assurance

Our software engineering processes comply with all the QA standards to deliver our clients a wide range of advantages:

Well-defined software testing strategy and planning that ensures the proper management of your software quality.
Entry-exit criteria for testing on each of the SDLC phases.
Manual and automated testing ensures the highest quality of the software and the delivery of the expected business value.
QA documentation in which all the needed records and reports are kept.

Human resources
and talent development

Our human resources management process is built concerning the IT industry specifics to deliver the following benefits:

A pool of IT skills comprises over 250 specialists in business analysis, design, software architecture and development, project management, and testing.
A series of interviews and tests for job candidates aimed to thoroughly examine the experience, technical and domain expertise of the applicants.
Continuous training and skills upgrade to ensure up-to-date knowledge of technologies, frameworks, methodologies, etc.
Quick scale-up of the team if needed — provided by a vast database of available resources.

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Our software development life cycle

Our software development life cycle consists of four key stages, each subdivided into smaller phases. This process is Agile, which means we can be as effective and flexible as expected from the client-side.

Project initiation

Business analysis and functional analysis

Design and development

Testing

User acceptance testing

Deployment

Support and maintenance

Closure

Project initiation

Before any project planning starts, we hold sessions with the customer to identify the key challenges they’d like to overcome with the help of technology. During this stage, we also capture the high-level requirements, define the key stakeholders, and talk to them, identify the project goal and scope. At the same time, you get familiar with our specialists, processes, standards, and documentation we provide. NDA is also signed at this stage to ensure your sensitive data secure.

Business analysis and functional analysis

We conduct business and functional analyses, refine the team composition, initiate the traceability matrix and critical path. During this stage, the BA team gathers functional and non-functional requirements to develop software specifications and architecture documentation. Once you receive these documents, you have some time for review and approval. If everything is agreed upon, we can proceed to design and development. This stage is critical, as its findings impact the overall project's success, deadlines, scope, and budget.

Design and development

We create the low-level and high-level design, define the infrastructure requirements, and come up with the finalized architecture and design solution. Next, we proceed to the development itself. For most of the projects, we adhere to the Agile (Scrum, Kanban) methodology, which ensures effective project management and on-time results. Every project is led by a PMI-certified project manager responsible for providing a common understanding between the customer and the development team, the complete alignment with the project goal, appropriate change management, and performance control.

Testing

To manage the software quality (both the code and requirements), we have a well-defined software testing strategy and entry-exit criteria for testing on each of the phases. Our test engineers perform manual and automated testing to reach the highest quality of the final product. Types of testing we provide: functional, performance, usability, scalability, security/penetration, integration, and others.

User acceptance testing

UAT’s goal is to make sure that our customers get what they expected and the software works as required. During this stage, we set up the test environment, prepare and execute the smoke tests, execute UAT testing, and deliver user training. Besides, within the project development, we prepare and provide our customers with the appropriate user documentation. It shows how all the software functionalities should work and contains user functions descriptions along with the guidelines.

Deployment

Once the development is completed, we proceed to the deployment stage. Traditionally, we inspect customers’ platforms and, in case of any defects, we provide recommendations on how better to eliminate the issues before the agreed date for deployment. Before implementation, we run all the software and deployment tests to verify that it works according to the business requirements.

Support and maintenance

Depending on your requirements and needs, we have several options for your software support and maintenance. These services are available for the software developed by either our company or other vendors. For effective collaboration, we store the source code, up-to-date project documentation, and operational material like user manuals, metrics, run books, etc. We also report quantitative and qualitative metrics associated with support, such as the number of requests, pass-through performance, and capacity availability.

Closure

The project is closed once our customers, and we are assured that all the work has been accomplished. Final tests are performed, and formal reports are generated during this stage. During the project closure, we transfer all the project documentation and knowledge to the client-side.

Project initiation

Business analysis and functional analysis

Design and development

Testing

User acceptance testing

Deployment

Support and maintenance

Closure

How we guarantee quality

Processes from the client’s perspective

Pre-Sales

Operations

Delivery

Quality assurance

Human resources and talent development