Syntergy develops shrink wrap products as well as custom development for your particular client needs.

Our process model consists of four phases: envisioning, planning, developing, and stabilization. Each phase culminates in a major milestone. Our process model differs from traditional development models in the following ways:

Milestones are customer-oriented, rather than development-oriented. Each milestone is a synchronization point where the team is recalibrated to the intended expectations. Milestones are managed using the known tradeoffs of resources, features, and schedule.

Our model uses versioned releases, rather than including every feature the first time. With rapid changes in technology, versioned releases allow businesses to rapidly leverage their investments in computing environments.

This process model produces better decisions, less rework, higher morale, and a higher quality product. And, by addressing support and performance issues as part of the development process, it can lower the risk of rolling out new solutions and lower the cost of ownership.

Envisioning provides the ability to objectively look at your organization and produce a vision document. This prevents investing significant effort on minor needs and focusing on existing processes.

Drawing on Syntergy’s expertise, we bring open thinking that addresses the most visible current need, as well as discovering the issues that cause that need. Syntergy will apply our best practices to those issues and provide the most efficient approach while identifying potential issues that your business may face in the future.

The envisioning phase culminates in the vision/scope approved milestone. Once a new product (or in the case of infrastructure deployment, a new service) gains interest and approval, a project team is assembled to define the product. A vision statement articulates the ultimate goals for the product or service and provides clear direction. Scope is the opposite of vision: It defines the limits for a particular version of the product or service, recognizing that further development may come in future versions.

The Planning Phase Syntergy’s definition of planning is when you and your team agree on what to deliver, and how to build it. This is an important opportunity to reassess risk, establish priorities, and finalize estimates for schedule and resources.

Syntergy has multiple ways of providing support for the resource schedule, such as:

• Turn key. We can outsource the entire development of the project.
  
  
• Advisory. We can provide management and key direction in the envisioning and planning phases
  
  
• Validator. We can review your plans at the planning phases and provide Quality Assurance support during stabilization.
  
  
• Key personnel to enhance your team. We can provide individuals as necessary with appropriate expertise can be provided on or off site in any of the phases.
  
  
• Subscription services. We can make personnel available remotely via e-mail and phone to answer technical questions

The planning phase culminates in the project plan approved milestone. The project plan contains the functional specification—the combined plans of each team member as defined in the team model—and a schedule. The functional specification provides the project team with enough detail to identify resource requirements and make commitments.

The developing phase culminates in the scope-complete/first-use milestone. An approved functional specification and associated project plan provide the baseline for focused development to begin. The development team sets a number of interim delivery milestones, each of which involves a full test, debug, then fix cycle.

At this milestone, customers and team assess the product’s functionality and verify that rollout and support plans are in place. All new development is complete, and deferred functionality is documented for the next release.

Stabilization requires a change in focus from the creativity of finding elegant development solutions to the rigid operational requirements of thorough and complete testing.

The stabilization phase culminates in the release milestone. Testing activities are performed concurrently with code development. During the stabilization phase, these activities take center stage as bug finding and fixing become the primary focus. At this milestone, the team formally turns over the product to the operations and support groups. Typically, the project team either begins work on the next release or disperses to other development projects.