This process involves interviewing stakeholders and gathering information required to assist us in the development of a web application which closely resembles your business model. In most cases our clients use the following types of services:

• Project Roadmap: helps you understand which resouces are required at various stages of the project, assess the overall risks and opportunities, and allocate a realistic timeline and budget for the successful completion and implementation of the project.
• Project Blueprint: documents and diagrams each of the various technical and content aspects of the software project and how they fit and flow together, such as the data model for the database, user interface for the users, and everything in between. This becomes the main guideline for the Programmers, Graphic Designers, and Content Developers who collaborate with the Project Manager on developing a web application.

Developing a Project Roadmap

Before starting a web application project we need to have the following information: 

• Establish the approximate project cost and delivery time
  
• Identify the required resources and expertise and where to find them
• Know the risks involved in each development stage, and plan for how to deal with them early on
• Gain client agreement on the absolute essentials for each phase of the project. This increases the potential for project success and the long-term return on investment and helps to avoid drastic project delays in the future

As a result of the initial study, the Project Roadmap becomes the foundation of our business agreement with your company. To develop a roadmap, we first communicate with the key stakeholders and study your business model. Project requirements are broken down into manageable stages, with each stage assigned a priority rank and a time and development cost estimate.

Approximately 10 % of a project’s time and budget is invested in developing the roadmap. This number could increase if your business concept and model are being implemented for the first time. 

Developing a Blueprint for a Web Application

For larger projects, Programmers, Graphic Designers, and Content developers do not start weaving a web application right away. To increase the likelihood of the project’s success, we steer the development process based on the project blueprint prepared by our System Analysts and Information Architects. 

Once we reach an agreement with our client on the project roadmap, and sign the business agreements to start the development stage, a project blueprint is created to guide the development team.

The blueprint contains text documents and visual diagrams ( ER, UML, IA Garrett, Use Cases, ... ). In other words, we will be designing the data model for the database, user interface for the users, and everything in between. We model everything on paper to ensure the development team can achieve their goal  of a high quality web application on time and on budget.

These documents are refined and improved as the project moves forward.  The project blueprint almost always changes depending on the discoveries and challenges that inevitably arise throughout the development process.

These documents and diagrams become your property once the project is delivered. This allows you to grow and further develop the application in the future. We do not keep any of the information proprietary. 

Additional Resources on this topic 

Business System Analysis is a very broad concept in Computer Science. To satisfy your curiosity please check out the following resources

• What is Business System Analysis ( on rmd Studio Blog )
  
• System Analysis
• Business Analysis
• Requirements Analysis
• Data Modeling (presented using ER diagrams )
• Information Architecture (presented using IA Garrett diagrams )
• Usability Study
• Architectural Description ( presented using UML diagrams )