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Atimi has established an effective set of development processes that enables us to consistently produce quality software. Our approach is modeled on the Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model (CMM). By using the CMM, Atimi's development team is able to identify best practices, useful in improving the maturity of our processes.
We document and evaluate each project in order to continually improve our development standards. Our knowledge base and capabilities are constantly expanding, allowing us to stay ahead of our competitors. Our approach is evolutionary — we become even more effective with every project we work on.
Find out more about the strategic and tactical processes we employ on every project.
Forethought and strategic planning are essential when developing a successful software project. We employ an established set of Strategic Processes to ensure we have all the bases covered before development begins. Every Atimi development team follows these management and organizational steps to smoothly plan and execute your project.
Every development project begins with a Vision and Scope document outlining the scale and business context for the project. During this stage, we thoroughly document software estimates, project activities, tasks and commitments, in order to plan and track the project from concept forward. Before any programming begins, requirements are gathered, traced, prioritized, verified and analyzed. Poorly-articulated requirements can result in a substantial delay or cancellation of a project. To accurately manage your software projects, we establish a requirement baseline for software engineering and management use. Software plans, products, and activities are considered and kept consistent with the requirements allocated to software.
Using project requirements and plans, we develop a standard software process that both you and Atimi senior management sign off on.
Information related to the use of our client's standard software process is collected and made available to the development team for review. Software engineering tasks are defined, integrated and consistently performed to produce the software. These tasks form the core of project management activities during the development stage.
Using what we have learned through our high-level investigation and planning, we use established tactical processes to develop, test and build your software project.
Atimi tracks projects throughout design and execution, conducting regular meetings to track performance and raise project issues. We compare results against the software plan, ensuring that we can act early to address emerging issues.
Quality assurance is the least popular but critically important step of the development process. We adhere to and objectively verify all applicable standards, procedures and requirements using industry-standard testing tools and processes. The QA process may include unit testing, system testing, performance testing, and so on. We address noncompliance issues that cannot be resolved within the software project.
Only through an intimate understanding of your needs are we able to ensure all your expectations are being met. We involve you in every phase of the project with meetings and regular reports to ensure your satisfaction. We identify possible risks and put extra resources on a project during high-risk areas, and reduce threats by placing extra investigation into risky components. We continually communicate the status of all high-risk parts of a project to our clients.
Your involvement is critical to managing risk and important to the overall success of your project, which is why we pre-plan contingencies with you and continually monitoring your project to prevent risks from becoming realities.
Atimi's development processes draw upon the best principals of Extreme Programming, a model of development that incorporates rapid prototyping, frequent builds, continuous unit testing, refactoring and peer review. Our key development steps will guide you through the entire process of creating or porting your project. Web-based tools give you real-time access to your project's status, and our experienced team of Project Managers will provide all the information you need as the project progresses.
Atimi produces quality documentation for all groups of users. We follow a 6-stage documentation development cycle in order to meet the documentation needs of our customers.
For each project we spend about week planning. We produce a Needs Analysis, Audience Analysis, Task Analysis, and a detailed Documentation Specifications Requirement. During Documentation Development the materials are produced and tested.
Documentation development starts with a detailed Needs Analysis. The Atimi documentation project manager works with the customer to answer the following questions:
Based on the information provided by the client, the Atimi documentation project manager will write a formal Needs Analysis and provide it to the customer.
Once the audience has been identified we do an Audience Analysis. The goal is to assess the educational background of the users, their ability to use computer hardware and software, and their learning styles.
The documentation project manager will consult with supervisory staff, interview users individually, or ask the representative members of the audience to complete a written survey.
The audience analysis will provide the following information:
A thorough task analysis is conducted to identify all of the tasks that can be performed using the software. This will determine the scope of all of the documents.
The technical writer conducts research to identify all tasks. They use the software (if possible), read the software specifications and any other pertinent documentation such as company procedure manuals, and interview subject matter experts—usually software developers.
Once all tasks are identified, they are organized into chapters, and divided into manuals each with a table of contents. Then, the table of contents is reviewed; by subject matter experts to ensure they are accurate and complete.
The final stage of the planning process is to produce a Documentation Requirements Specification, also known as a Documentation Plan, which provides all the details on the software documentation.
The Documentation Requirements Specification is produced - by compiling the results from the Needs Analysis, Audience Analysis, and Task Analysis.
The Documentation Requirements Specification defines the following information:
When the Documentation Requirements Specification is completed, it is negotiated, and signed off by the customer.
The writer develops the content based on the requirements outlined in the Documentation Requirements Specification and the document outline. Each documentation set will include some or all of the following types of documentation:
During production, the writer collects information by using the software and consulting subject matter experts as required. The chapters and tasks are put in logical order, and detailed, usable tables of contents and indexes are created for each document.
When the documents are completed, the Atimi QA team tests them and all revisions are incorporated.
Finally, the documents are officially released. Electronic manuals are released on CD; and any required printed manuals are sent to the printer for printing.
At Atimi we can design objective-based training materials for any kind of software product. We follow a structured training development cycle in order to produce effective training projects on-budget every time.
Course development starts with a needs analysis. The Atimi project manager works with the customer to answer the following questions:
Based on the information provided by the client, the Atimi project manager will write a formal Needs Analysis and provide it to the customer.
Once the audience has been identified a formal Audience Analysis can be performed. The goal is to assess the education and training background of the users, their ability to use computer hardware and software, and their learning styles. If in-house trainers will be used, the Audience Analysis also includes an assessment of the trainers.
The Training Project Manager will consult with supervisory staff, interview users individually, or ask the representative members of the audience to complete a written survey.
The audience analysis will provide the following information:
A thorough task analysis is conducted to identify all of the tasks that can be performed using the software. This will determine the scope of the training for all users.
The instructional designer conducts research to identify all tasks. They use the software (if possible), read the software specifications and any other pertinent documentation (e.g., company procedure manuals), and interview subject matter experts (usually software developers).
Once all tasks are identified, they are organized into training modules. Then the Task Analysis is reviewed by subject matter experts to ensure the analysis is accurate and complete.
The final step is to identify of the Task Analysis is to identify which user group(s) will perform each task.
The final step of the planning process is to produce a Training Requirements Specification, also known as a Training Plan, which provides all the details on the software training program.
The Training Requirements Specification is produced by compiling the results from the Needs Analysis, Audience Analysis, and Task Analysis.
The Training Requirements Specification defines the following information:
The Training Requirements Specification is completed, negotiated, and signed off by the customer. The Course Outlines are used to market the courses to end users, and course development begins.
The instructional designer develops the course based on the requirements outlined in the Training Requirements Specification and the Course Outline. Each course will include some or all of the following training materials:
During production, the instructional designer collects information by using the software and consulting subject matter experts as required. The tasks and modules are put in progressive order so the students can build on the previous tasks. Then, the slides and exercises are created for each task, and projects or quizzes are developed for each course.
When the training materials are completed, they are tested by the Atimi QA team. All revisions are incorporated. Then a final draft is released for the Course Pilot.
The course pilot is delivered to test the materials in a classroom situation. The instructional designer, a subject matter expert, or a designated trainer delivers the course. All input is fed back into course development, and the materials are revised accordingly.
Finally, the course materials are officially released and customer training can begin. At the end of each course, Course Evaluations are completed and feedback from both trainers and customers are incorporated into the next release of the training materials.