Dedication Group

Project Initiation & Scoping

Our Project Initiation and Scoping service eliminates nasty surprises. Project Initiation & Scoping provides certainty to an organisation by quantifying the costs and identifying the risk factors of planned projects. To assess whether a project is likely to deliver a positive return on investment,

Dedication Group can provide you with:

• An accurate estimate of the time, cost and duration of a project
• Identification of risk factors which could impact the budget estimate
• Cost-benefit-analysis to determine whether a project is feasible
• Identification of the technology, people and external resources that will be required

As a result, you will have a realistic estimate of project cost and duration, visibility of the key risks that can de-rail your project, an accurate project team requirement, and a schedule and structure that is designed to meet the needs of your project before you commit any resources to it.

Dedication Group's Business Analysis Services can also facilitate the requirements gathering process producing Requirements Specifications & Functional Specifications tailored to both client and developer audiences.

Consider also, if you are assessing an off the shelf solution or outsourcing customised software development from an external party, Dedication Group can assess competing tenders and help you appoint the supplier who is most likely to meet your needs (see Vendor Management & Software Fit Services).

End-to-End Project Management

By engaging Dedication Group as your Project Manager, you can expect professional planning, expert software development project management, and a committed partner without expanding your full time IT Department.

Dedication Group has the expertise and experience gained over a decade of large and small project management in successful organisations. (see About Us). As a result, our Project Management processes are "strictly business". Focused on business outcomes and delivering benefit to the bottom line. We are members of the worldwide Project Management Institute (PMI) and use the principles embodied in PMI's Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) to aid in our project delivery.

Our professional approach is based on formal Project Plans & Structures, with an emphasis on effective strategies for fast-tracking projects. All our project management is completely transparent. We constantly communicate project status and progress, and include business stakeholders at every stage of this process.

If your last development project ran into difficulties, or if you need additional resources to manage a demanding new project, contact Dedication Group. We have the project management muscle you need at an affordable price.

Project Rescue

Project Rescue is undertaken to reduce the business costs of a project failure. High-risk, time-critical and failing projects are perfect candidates for Dedication Group's Project Rescue services.

We can provide practical strategies for bringing a project back on track and we can supply complete project management to take end-to-end control of the project if required. Our thorough and frank assessment of your project's status will help you make project decisions with confidence.

The key features of a Project Rescue include:

• Systematic re-planning of the schedule and deliverables
• Business-focused re-prioritisation
• Acceptance of responsibility and accountability for all participants, and Stakeholder re-engagement

Strategically, a Project Rescue can conclude with a Project Post Mortem, which will engage all the stakeholders to determine what went wrong and how it can be avoided on future projects - converting a near disaster into a learning curve.

Vendor Management & Software Fit

By presenting a detailed analysis of the true cost of implementing a particular software package into your organisation, you are able to make an informed decision on which solution provides the best matching functionality for the least expenditure. Dedication Group's Software Procurement Advice calculates your true Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of the software solution, including:

• Purchase and subscription costs
• Implementation costs
• Ongoing infrastructure and support costs
• In-house staff requirements
• Business process re-engineering and training costs

Software Procurement Advice can help you make a confident decision by researching the available options in the marketplace; providing you with a comprehensive analysis detailing the features, costs and relative merits of each solution.

Outsourcing Guidance & Vendor Management

When standard software packages cannot meet your specific requirements, or if you do not have sufficient software development resources in house, it becomes necessary to enter into an arrangement with an external software developer.

There is always risk in engaging an external developer, whether it is to build a custom solution or to outsource due to resource and cost constraints. If this attempt fails, there will often be significant time, cost, and strategic flow-on effects to your business. Dedication Group's Vendor Management service ensures that you minimise these risks when entering into a new arrangement or evaluating an existing outsourcing arrangement.

Key areas for focus are:

• Software quality measurement techniques
• Service level agreements (SLA's) and definitions
• Technology fit and integration considerations
• Methods for tracking and controlling delivery milestones

Dedication Group will help you review and assess competing vendors, and help you define the quality, standards and final or ongoing you expect to be delivered.

Software Quality Service

The IT benefits of good Software Architecture and high quality Code often include improved performance, scalability and reliability; not to mention better security. More importantly however, good software can benefit your organisation through increased staff productivity, improved customer satisfaction, and lower financial and reputational risks.

Dedication Group's Code and Architecture Reviews provide independent verification to IT & Senior Management that proposed solution designs will complement your business strategy rather than hinder its implementation. Our comprehensive assessments are based on proven, industry-standard practices.

Software Quality Services are technology services with real business benefits.

Code Reviews

Code Reviews ensure the foundations of your systems are solid.

Code Reviews are a proven, effective way to minimise defects. Depending on your organisation, these defects could cost thousands or millions in re-engineering efforts if they make their way into production software. Code Reviews streamline the testing effort by proactively improving software quality before applications leave the development environment.

A Dedication Group Code Review can uncover these shortcomings before the code achieves production status. We can help you attain:

• Quality, defect-free software
• Systems that are appropriate and completely meet requirements
• Software that complies with enterprise coding standards - Dedication Group can help you define your company's coding standards too!

Call Dedication Group for an objective and timely Code Review today.

Architecture Reviews

Dedication Group's System Architecture Reviews provide independent verification that proposed solutions truly meet stakeholder requirements and provide strategic value to your business. System Architecture Reviews are a proven strategy for lowering the business risk of implementing software solutions.

Call Dedication Group for a professional, standards-based review of your solution architectures.

Dedication Group Automated Code Review Tools

Software code reviews are often the first quality best practice to be sacrificed when project deadlines are tight. A Dedication Group Automated Code Review installation continuously evaluates developed code against stringent benchmarks; day in day out, without fail.

Free your people from manual code reviews without increasing the risk to your business.

Call Dedication Group for expert installation and configuration of the latest open source and commercial tools.

Enhanced Environments for Software Development

If you develop your software in-house, or plan to do so in the future, the creation of an enhanced software development environment within your IT department could deliver significant cost savings and risk reduction.

Efficient In-house Development Environments are one of the biggest risk reduction mechanisms available to an organisation. They are a standard feature in large companies, where they dramatically cut the risk of software development.

An enhanced development environment provides the resources to automate many of the processes undertaken in software development. By freeing your top IT people from everyday routine tasks; your best people can focus on higher value activities and are able to respond more nimbly to the business' requirements.

Dedication Group have significant experience and expertise in the installation, configuration and ongoing administration of Enterprise Development Environment tools.